Coverage of the rail strikes tells us we don’t need to travel as much anymore – are we past ‘Peak Mobility’?

In the 90s and 00s ‘Peak Car’ was talked about, UK car passenger kms per capita have been declining for the last couple of decades, but this long term trend could be seen across transport as a whole, even before the pandemic.

DfT stats on passenger kms per capita for all modes show a gradual decline from around 2002, before the sharp fall caused by the pandemic.

Similarly, the National Travel Survey shows there was a steady decline before the pandemic in the number of trips (down 11%), miles traveled (down 10%) and time spent travelling (down 5%)?per person from 2002 to 2019 (by all modes).

Taking into account population growth, the total miles traveled in the UK was pretty flat.

Looking by mode, Public Transport did increase its share of miles from 13% to 17%, with rail growing significantly – on average we each traveled 625 miles by rail in 2019, up from 436 miles in 2002.

International travel from the UK also continued to grow in this period (3% p.a.), although this data is not included in the above datasets.

But overall, even before the pandemic, we were travelling less. So, what was going on?

Clearly congestion had an impact on the decline in car use. The gradual rise of flexible working must have reduced commuter trips (but remember it really was not such a big thing pre pandemic), and online shopping meant we didn’t have to go to the shops so often.

Post pandemic, future trends are likely to exacerbate this further as elements of our lives increasingly move online, reducing the need to ever leave home.?

There are serious implications for investments in infrastructure if use of transport is to decline in the future. Business Plans and Business Cases do not typically forecast a decline.

However, transport has the capability to fight back. In the 20th century transport developments outpaced virtual connectivity improvements. Motorways, planes and faster trains encouraged us to travel more than the telephone calls and dial-up internet encouraged us to stay at home. Perhaps there could be a revival of this transport innovation?

With ‘stay at home’ tech clearly upping its game - transport providers will need to improve their offer to grow. Improving the basics of speed and reliability will help, and transport can keep up the fight with innovations such as:

• Micromobility making the first and last mile easier,
• Companies like Zeelo allowing those who can't drive to work places they otherwise could not
• Faster trains (combined with flexible working) enabling people to live further from their job
• Autonomous Vehicles enabling you to relax or be productive on a door-to-door journey
• Longer distance innovations like non stop flights from London to Australia and potentially faster flight times (like these estimates from the UK Space Agency to enable flights from London to Sydney in 4 hours)

Some of these innovations could be transformative to the way we live, resulting in us travelling a lot more.

My family recently moved back from Australia to be closer to extended family and friends in the UK, maybe with 4 hour flights we would have stayed and flown back and forth much more.