Words by Craig Thomas

Johnny Ojeil is Head of Transport Planning and Regenerative Cities at Ramboll UK, having previously spent 33 years as a transport planner at Arup. That experience gives him a perspective worth listening to, at a time when so much misinformation is circulating around the development of our mobility ecosystem.

For Ojeil, the UK is on the right road.

Progress and acceptance

“We’re sometimes a bit too harsh on ourselves, but we are moving in the right direction in the UK. We do have capacity problems that somehow need to be addressed or reallocated to other modes, but you do see good examples, like the West Midlands, where Birmingham has a clean air zone and good ticketing, which allows you to combine train and a bus journeys on one ticket.”

Ojeil emphasised that we can't leave rural areas behind. There are still challenges with regularity and providing affordable bus services, with the necessary connectivity, Ojeil suggests that perhaps we have to accept that and realise we can't serve everyone by sustainable modes. That said, mass transit systems will play a key role in the future and we need to ensure the infrastructure is ready.

And cars will always be with us. As Ojeil said: “The message shouldn't be about trying to take the car away from people: it's about trying to get them to think about their choices for any particular journey at a particular time of the day. You can't hit people with a stick all the time and say you must do that – particularly when there aren’t suitable alternatives.

“If we have to accept that sometimes people need a car, then we just to be mindful of that, but provide alternatives for other people. Congestion then becomes a matter of choice in the future and I just can't see congestion going away completely.”

Cross-sector cooperation and land use

Another positive in the development of a more joined-up mobility future is cross-sector cooperation, with the profession working closer with colleagues from planning. CIHT and the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) are working closer together because, as Ojeil said: “You can't separate how land use planning is related to land use planning for mobility. You could argue that are we paying the price now for having to solve mobility issues related to a set of very rigid policies that were in place in the UK. For example, residential was residential and you couldn't have anything else in it. Town centres were mainly shops, et cetera. 

“Now the thinking has changed and a lot of positive work has been done in that area. It's not just about taking on very rigid land use planning over decades, with car ownership escalating congestion. There are still challenges as we switch to electric vehicles: they will resolve the environmental impact of emissions, but what about congestion in the future? How are we going to address that?”

Planning for autonomous vehicles

Wherever we are currently are, exactly, in the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs)– and there are so many conflicting issues said to be vexing developers – it seems that we’re not yet seriously discussing what any traffic management implications might be.

“How are AVs going to be operated? Are they going to stop wherever they want? Where are they going to park? What are the rules and regulations for their operation in cities? There will be a lot of traffic management planning needed for cities in the UK to be ready for autonomous vehicles.

“Will cities open certain corridors to autonomous vehicles, or will all roads be open? What does that mean in terms of signs and lines on the road that might need to be changed or introduced? And what about parking? If autonomous vehicles are going to be running like a taxi service, instead of being in private ownership, where will they park up between fares?”

Currently, there are clearly more questions than answers when it comes to preparing for an autonomous future. As Ojeil explained, we should embrace technology but not forget that it needs careful planning.

Informing the public

Ojeil fully recognises the challenges the profession currently faces, citing limited finances as a brake on implementation. That said, many local authorities are managing to do some positive work up and down the country. “In particular, it's good to see that a lot of strides that have been made in active travel and how that has been promoted. We're in a better place than we were five, 10 years ago.”

More difficult are the challenges where the profession needs to take members of the public along with them on that journey, with stakeholder engagement becoming increasingly important. “It’s also ensuring that we target the correct group for various types of schemes. That can vary depending on what you implement, in the knowledge that you just don't have enough money to do everything.”

Making a professional case for mobility

With the prospect of Net Zero and mobility becoming issues in next year’s general election, Ojeil thinks that now, more than ever, the profession needs to try and steer clear of the political arena.

“You only have to look at what happened with the recent expansion of the London ULEZ and how it started to create a political divide. As practitioners, we need to be careful that we don't get involved in politics and continue to provide the best technical advice we can.

“Do we need clean air zones? Do we need to put forward initiatives that help the climate change agenda and public health and all that? Of course we do. But we do need to take people along with us, particularly in a post-Covid world with its conspiracy theories. Again, we need to be mindful of that and ensure we professionally, technically explain things and bring people along. If we don’t, it'll be a battle to implement schemes.

“This is when we just stick to our guns and be professional. On LinkedIn, some practitioners are starting to express political views and I don’t think that helps us as a profession. We need to be credible and stick to our technical advice.”