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The Car in British Society Karen Lucas and Peter Jones TheRoyalAutomobileClubFoundationforMotoringLimitedisacharityestablishedtopromotetheenvironment, economic,mobilityandsafetyissuesrelatingtotheuseofmotorvehicles. RACFoundation 89-91PallMall London SW1Y5HS Telno:02077473445 www.racfoundation.org RegisteredCharityNo.1002705 April2009©CopyrightRoyalAutomobileClubFoundation ThisreporthasbeenpreparedfortheRACFoundationbyElizabethGilliard,PeterJones,ScottLeVine,Karen LucasandJohnPolak.Thereportcontentistheviewoftheauthorsanddoesnotnecessarilyrepresenttheviewsof theRACFoundation. The Car in British Society Karen Lucas and Peter Jones Project team Elizabeth Gilliard, Independent Consultant. Peter Jones, University College London. Scott Le Vine, Imperial College London. Karen Lucas, University of Oxford. John Polak, Imperial College London. Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution ofAnthony Psaila our focus group facilitator and Roselle Thoreau, University College London, for her assistance on the literature review and expert seminar. We would also like to thank the Royal Automobile Club Foundation’s Steering Group for their valuable comments and advice. Royal Automobile Club Foundation Steering Group David Holmes CB, Chairman. Stephen Glaister CBE, Director. Elizabeth Dainton, Head of Research. David Leibling, Royal Automobile Club Foundation Public Policy Committee. Philip Wood, Public Policy Committee Foundation Public Policy Committee. Thanks also go to the Foundation staff: Jo Abbott, Fiona Coyne and Philip Gomm. Contents Foreword 7 Executive summary 11 1 Introduction 19 1.1 Background to the study 20 1.2 Current policy context 21 1.3 Study objectives 21 1.4 Research methods 22 1.5 Report outline 23 2 The dominance of the car in contemporary British society 25 2.1 Introduction 26 2.2 Car and licence ownership 27 2.3 Patterns of car use in 2006 32 2.4 Car use among non-car owning households 45 2.5 Conclusions 50 3 Transport trends over the last two decades 53 3.1 Introduction 54 3.2 Car ownership, licensing and availability 55 3.3 Transport, land uses and journey speeds 61 3.4 Trends in travel patterns over the last two decades 66 3.5 Differences in car use by traveller characteristics over time 69 3.6 Has car use stabilised? 74 3.7 Conclusions 79 4 Public attitudes towards cars and car use 81 4.1 Introduction 82 4.2 Public attitude surveys 83 4.3 Benefits and disbenefits of car use 91 4.4 Conclusions 106 5 Car use: a matter of choice or necessity? 109 5.1 Introduction 110 5.2 Factors influencing car ownership and travel choices 111 5.3 The nature of car ‘dependence’ 115 5.4 The dynamics of car ‘dependence’ 118 5.5 Current degrees of car ‘dependence’ 119 5.6 Conclusions 122 TheCarinBritishSociety 5 RACFoundationforMotoring Contents 6 The cost of adjustment to individuals and society in moving to a low Carbon future 125 6.1 Introduction 126 6.2 Delivering a sustainable transport system 127 6.3 Local policy makers’ perspectives 128 6.4 Costs of adjustment to significantly reduced car use 132 6.5 Public perceptions of the cost of adjustment 136 6.6 Conclusions 140 7 Conclusions and recommendations 143 References 147 Appendices 153 6 TheCarinBritishSociety RACFoundationforMotoring Foreword 7 TheCarinBritishSociety TheCarinBritishSociety 7 RACFoundationforMotoring RACFoundationforMotoring Foreword Royal Automobile Club Foundation Cars are an integral part of the way we live. Most of our journeys are by car. Over three-quarters of households have at least one car. Seventy per cent of adults have driving licences. The present level of car ownership has developed over the last fifty years. Cars have brought enormous advantages to people and the economy. They have increased the choices that people have about where they live, work, are educated and spend their leisure time. In particular, the growth in car ownership has gone hand in hand with the widening of opportunities for women. The highest growth in ownership has been seen in households in the lowest income group.And cars are an important form of transport even for families who do not own one. The expansion of car numbers has been accompanied by changes in land use – increasingly dispersed patterns of settlement and employment, the spread of out-of- town shopping centres, and the concentration of public services such as hospitals. These changes have made owning a car a necessity for many because such scattered development is hard for public transport to serve. The growth in car ownership has had no encouragement from government – central or local. Quite the reverse: road building has been cut well below the level of demand; parking has become more difficult and costly in most places; and the cost of running a car (as opposed to buying one) has risen not least because of the price of fuel and the tax levied on it. The attitudes of the authorities in part reflects their appreciation that the unrestrained use of motor vehicles, especially in urban areas, produces real public disadvantages in terms of congestion and pollution. Particularly over the last ten years, Government has supported measures discouraging car use in favour of walking, cycling and public transport. [It has legislated for traffic reduction targets in local areas]. Such measures have had some success in eradicating marginal car journeys. But more radical measures to reduce congestion and change driver behaviour through pricing schemes have found no popular support and have in effect been abandoned, the exception being the small area in central London that is uniquely well served by public transport. It is surprising that such radical policies to fundamentally change the way people live their lives should have been embarked on with so little research into the factors that lead people to own and use cars: what might persuade them to change their behaviour; and what the costs of transition might be. To stimulate thinking on these complex and critical issues the RoyalAutomobile Club Foundation published in 1995 a report on ‘Car Dependence’. Since then, despite Government policies to switch investment into public transport and to encourage its 8 TheCarinBritishSociety RACFoundationforMotoring Foreword use, the growth in car numbers has continued unchecked: there are seven million more cars now than there were then, and the Government’s forecasts predict future increases. The present report by an independent research team from University College London, Imperial College London and the University of Oxford investigates the changes that have occurred since the 1995 report. It studies attitudes towards cars, and the place of the car in today’s society. It looks too at the social and economic consequences of using more coercive methods to change behaviour. Neither the authors nor the Foundation would claim this report is the last word on the subject of cars and society. But we hope it will stimulate further work and serious discussion on a subject seriously neglected, but central to future transport policy. David Holmes CB Chairman RoyalAutomobile Club Foundation April 2009 TheCarinBritishSociety 9 RACFoundationforMotoring