It's time to stop obsessing about trains - they aren't the infrastructure solution we need

Let's imagine for a minute that I'm going to give you several billion pounds for the purpose of making the North of England's infrastructure "fit for the 21st century". Let's also forget that, in the real world, this looks unlikely because when you put infrastructure schemes through the Department of Transport's models they tell you that investing in the North - compared to yet another rail scheme for London - is a financial no-no.

Now, because you're an assiduous consumer of commentary and consider yourself bang up to the minute on transport issues, you come straight back and say something like:

High Speed Rail from York to Liverpool - maybe extending HS2 to Newcastle as well

Electrification of assorted railway lines (Calder Valley, Harrogate-York, etc.)

Rail links to Yorkshire's airports and ports

Light rail for Leeds (that may or may not connect to Bradford, Huddersfield and Wakefield

New stations, new rolling stock, fancy ticket machines and ticket systems

More trains, bigger trains, faster trains...

I know this is the response most folk will give because, even in the North where 95% of people don't use trains (on anything but a very occasional basis), the reporting on transport issues is utterly dominated by problems with trains - too old, too crowded, strikes, break downs, timetable problems:: you name it the BBC, Yorkshire Post and local media will be all over it.

Tell me, when did the newspapers or television news last cover the fact that your bus is old, slow and subject to delays and cancellations? When was there a shock horror report complete with vox pops from exasperated commuters saying how the endless summer of road works has caused congestion everywhere? One of the main routes into Bradford, the B6144 along Toller Lane and White Abbey Road, has been closed for eight weeks while Yorkshire Water try to find some of the wet stuff - have there been any reports on the sheer annoying inconvenience and cost of this work? You missed it?

Yet the single most important means by which people in the North get to work is by car and, however much you might want to parade your green credentials, all that vast investment in railways won't make anything but the tiniest of dents in this traffic. And, as you all know of course, the problems on the railways result from the decision (something to do with privatisation) to incentivise increasing passenger numbers - there isn't enough capacity on the rail system. Modal shift (every councillor I've ever met who has served on a transport committee can intone this - it goes with 'get more freight on rails' as a mantra) if it is a success simply results in the rail system seizing up.

So here's an alternative list for your infrastructure investment - one better linked to reality and less to the fact that too many transport planners still have a model railway in the attic:

Bus priority schemes, new buses and better bus stations

Superfast broadband - targeting where the commuter traffic is coming from not where it's going to

Car share apps and schemes - with financial rewards for users

Properly funded road maintenance and improvement - dealing with the thousands of stalled small schemes

Deregulation of taxi and minibus - getting something like the US Dollar bus schemes

Support for employer run bus schemes

Incentives for home working and local shared work spaces

Better cycling infrastructure (including, for larger places, cycle rent schemes)

Railways - for all that they have a place - are still 19th century technology. The EU auditors recently reported that the only high speed line on the whole continent (including HS1 and the Channel Tunnel) that is profitable is the Paris-Lyon line. The money spemt on railways represents a huge subsidy to wealthy urban commuters and we're paying the price of this with potholed roads, outdated diesel buses, over-regulated taxis and the almost complete absence of any national (let alone regional) strategy for roads. It is time to line the transport planners up and ask: "do you like trains?" If the answer is "yes" then get rid of them.

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Is London's public transport really so expensive?

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London has a fantastic public transport network yet we still get special pleading:

Travelling in London is nearly three and a half times more expensive than Paris and 10 times dearer than in Rome, according to research by the Campaign for Better Transport.  With successive Governments in Britain allowing fares to rise faster than inflation, the gap has also been widening in recent years.  Next week commuter fares, which are capped by the Department for Transport, will increase by an average of six per cent.

Now this information should be treated with some caution – it’s based on one 23 mile journey rather than an assessment of the system itself. For me the central question is whether Londoners, Parisians and Romans can give up the car (i.e. it is no longer essential to practical living). For most people within the urban area of London Paris the car is only needed to visit maiden aunts in Hampshire, it isn’t needed to get to work, visit locally, shop or do those other regular everyday things.

Rome – crammed to the gunnels with crazy traffic – has just 38km of underground and less than 200km of other urban rail system. Paris Metro is a little longer at 86km and the other light rail is limited. The London Underground alone has 402km of track before we’ve taken account of overground services, trams and bus priority systems.

In London a comprehensive annual ticket (Zones 1-9) costs a little over £3,000. But bear in mind that the transport system in London is so comprehensive you don’t need a car (although this gets a little trickier the further you get from London). The AA gives a running cost for the cheapest category of car (valued at below £12,000 new) at 10,000 miles per annum as £4,553 – over £1500 more expensive than using public transport.

The Campaign for Better Transport is arguing that we should use more of the taxes paid by people who don’t use London’s commuter network to reduce the cost of that commuting rather than getting those commuters to pay the full cost of providing the world’s most extensive and comprehensive public transport system. Especially given that this system is significantly cheaper than running a car (that is only a luxury to most Londoners).

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Bus travel not stressful? Who're you trying to kid?

Now I don’t claim to be as clever as the Goldacre chap when it comes to squirreling out dodgy research (although it’s interesting to note that Ben never strays into the drinking, smoking and eating field – that’s pinko Guardianistas for you) but this research worries me.

Driving a car is more stressful than going by bus, says new research

The author, Dr David Lewis is the media’s favourite ‘neuropsychologist’ and conducts lots of clever experiments designed to advise the owners of big brands on psychological stuff. And some of his work on brands and advertising response is very good and very interesting. His latest piece of research is paid for by folk called “Greener Journeys” who are:

…largely funded by major bus companies and so there are no studies on the stress levels of driving compared with travelling by train.

Dr Lewis did this to come up with his contention:

Dr Lewis, from the University of Sussex, conducted an experiment in which the heart rate and Electro-Dermal Response (EDR) of 30 commuters was measured when taking identical or similar journeys by car as a driver and by bus as a passenger.

So just thirty folk – that’s a pretty representative sample! And even if we aren’t concerned with representativeness, can we really be so sure that the results from just thirty people are enough to prove the point? I know Greener Journeys think so - but they just want to make more money from bus travellers rather than to save the planet or to reduce my stress levels.

So here are a few questions for Dr Lewis:

1. Have you repeated and replicated your test across a range of different locations, times, weather conditions and demographics?

2. Can you provide any evidence that modest short term increases in stress (which is what he is measuring) are actually a health risk?

3. Have you tested the stress levels when the bus is late or cancelled, it’s peeing down with rain and some women is giving you grief for smoking at the bus stop?

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