The Eddington Transport study
Sir Rod Eddington knows a thing or two about transport, having run British Airways and before that Ansett, which under his leadership became Australia’s largest domestic carrier (it subsequently went bankrupt under Air New Zealand’s stewardship).
His commission from the Treasury and Department for Transport was to look at, ‘the long-term links between transport and the UK's economic productivity, growth and stability, within the context of the Government's broader commitment to sustainable development’.
His report highlights the need for substantial changes in transport policy to ensure Britain’s economic competitiveness. However, in the raft of recommendations he seems to have missed the economic and environmental benefits of implementing a national school bus scheme. This is possibly understandable given the lack of submissions from the key players in this debate such as the DfES and the Sutton Trust who commissioned Boston Consulting to make a study of the benefits and costs of a national school bus programme.
The Eddington Report is full of bumph like sophisticated evidence-based approaches as well as singing the praises of demand management (rationing), congestion charging and variable road pricing - which it argues if introduced would benefit the economy to the tune of £28bn p.a.!
All this sounds impressive, until you start thinking of the practical difficulties in just one sector, education – for example:
- would school teachers carrying marking to and from home be exempt?
- will schools need to adopt the staggered hours to fit around the needs (and costs) of parents, staff and suppliers?
The report glosses over many of the problems inherent in their recommendations and yet failed to even acknowledge the significant benefits of a national school bus scheme.
From our review of the submissions to Eddington only two even mention education:
- First Group argued the Bus Subsidy Operators Grant should be extended as this would help improve school transport by bus. They also point out that poor transport policy, specifically the criteria of eligibility for free school transport, has a negative impact on parental educational choice
- Sustrans said that schools should all have Transport Plans and more should be done to encourage walking and cycling to school.
Of the two, only Sustrans even made it into Eddington’s Summary Recommendations, and even then it was only a reference to their statistics about walking and cycling. The Sutton Trust didn’t make a submission, although Sir Peter Lampl in an exclusive comment to the assignment report said, ‘It is a great shame that in its recommendations the Eddington Report did not make reference to the potential of school buses to cut congestion and lessen environmental damage. We know from our work that the school run accounts for 20 percent of the traffic on the roads in the morning rush hour, and over 2m tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. We also know that introducing yellow buses to primary schools across the country would cost around £184m a year, but bring benefits amounting to £458m. If extended to secondary schools too, such a network would also improve school choice, particularly for those from poorer backgrounds.’
What stands out from the Eddington report is the abject failure of those who have (or should be) arguing about how changing school transport policy could have a significant and immediate impact on the economy and Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions. Also, why do the government keep commissioning reports like Eddington, that propose costly and complicated solutions when practical low-cost solutions keep being ignored?
If the Eddington report’s recommendations are implemented, in ten years’ time schools may find themselves paying an extra £2 per mile to receive their supplies. This huge cost will end up being paid either by the Treasury (funded by higher taxes) or by schools spending less on things like books, salaries, music/languages/sports/IT programmes, meals, cleaning, heating, etc – not a great choice.
www.firstgroup.com/yellowschoolbus
www.sustrans.org.uk
www.suttontrust.com
www.hm-treasury.gov.uk