There are 2 areas which seem to be escaping the debate on reducing the trips
made by private car and I'm seeking out papers (I know of Todd Litman and
excellent work of VTPI on TDM).
1) As noted TDM but to look at the potential to tax sites on the basis that
they are the generators of trips, and frequently generate at least 2 peak
hour and 2 off-peak trips per employee, plus say 2 trips per employee from
clients, or deliveries - every working day. Obviously service sites (shops
etc) have a far higher ratio of client trips to employee ones. I'd propose a
tax based on the worst case all employee and client trips are SOV at peak
hour rate and off peak rate as noted, and it would be up to the site tax
payer to audit and prove that their management of travel resource consumption
has changed the impact of the site on the transport infrastructure. Only
walking would be tax-free, but tax liability could be offset against
underwriting core bus services etc, to assist the reduction in total tax
liability. I feel a paper or even a thesis coming on...
2) Then we have the lack of enforcement of provisions for HSAW to driving -
with the highway as the workplace. In a factory the equivalent of a serious
road crash is frequently an enforced shut-down until the problem is sorted,
even if no injuries occur, yet with 10% of KSI incidents 'at work' related to
driving, and this being over 30% of road KSI crashes, there is no incentive
for CEO's to look too closely at employees working days greatly extended by
driving to the job, or schedules driven to extreme limits of what can be
achieved withing legal speed limits and sensible driving patterns using
vehicles outwith the regulated form of HGV's and PSV's. HSAW Section 2 also
requires suitable training for employees to use equipment safely - this
suggests that something beyond the basic driving test is desirable and the
costs for giving proper rest an limiting drivers hours will a) make companies
look more closely at costs for travelling this way b) realise that even now
it is cheaper to use train or other means to avoid even short inter city
trips like Edinburgh-Glasgow. Again there appears to be a paucity of data on
the financial side of this issue.
Sorry if its a long post but hope it sparks some debate and helps me to
unearth any relevant research.
Dave Holladay
Glasgow
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