Making our Roads Safer for Cyclists: How TFL is Working to Improve Road Safety and Encourage Safer, Cleaner Freight Journeys Across London

Transport for London’s (TfL) ambition for London’s road network is to provide a first class interconnected system that, efficiently and safely, links and opens up all corners of London for everyone.

Everyday 24 million passenger journeys are made on London’s roads and 90 per cent of the capitals goods are moved. London’s road network is vital to keeping London working, growing and to improving the London life.

However, London’s roads are congested. All its road users share a finite space that was not designed to accommodate the amount or variety of traffic that exists today. To help reduce the congestion, TfL has been working hard to promote cycling as a safe and economical alternative for the 2.4million short trips a day currently made by car. Moreover, on top of the traffic congestion benefits, the health and environmental benefits associated with cycling make the bicycle a mode of transport to be encouraged. The Mayor of London aims to establish cycling as an integral part of the city’s transport network. We can tell that it has so far been efficient since the number of cyclists in London is increasing every year. Indeed, the Mayor’s ambition is to increase cycling in London by 400% against 2001 levels by 2026. The Mayor’s Vision for Cycling in London announced an additional £913m of cycle funding to build on the doubling of cycling levels over the past ten years.

Concerns about safety remain a key barrier to achieving a further significant increase in levels of cycling. The safety of cyclists, therefore, forms a fundamental part of TfL’s objectives to improve London’s roads.

For instance among the cyclist fatalities that happened between 2008 and 2011, 56% involved larger goods vehicles - of which a disproportionate number were construction vehicles. In response, TfL has pioneered the development of a series of proactive tools to balance the needs of London’s increasing population of cyclists and its vital freight traffic.

Since 2011, TfL has been working to raise awareness amongst the construction industry by implementing specific cycle safety requirements into procurement contracts (Improving Road Safety through Procurement). TfL now requires all new contractors and drivers working for them to undertake a Safe Urban Driving training, which includes an on-cycle hazard awareness module.

The Safe Urban driving course is part of an extensive compliance and training programme offered through the Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS). FORS (http://www.fors-online.gov.uk) is a voluntary, industry-led accreditation scheme that promotes safe working practices, legal compliance and a corporate social responsibility to improve the safety of road freight operations in London. It also provides the framework through which other tools, to improve the image, efficiency and road safety record of freight in London.

More recently, TfL has been invited onto an ‘expert group’ to review the European Directive for vehicle ‘Weights and Dimensions’. TfL will use its involvement with this group to continue lobbying for improvements to urban lorry design, including lorries that have a far greater direct visibility from the driver’s cab.

Similar safety focused requirements have also been implemented within a Construction Logistics Plan guidance. These apply to the design and construction phases of a project, and target an improvement in the road safety records of construction vehicles by encouraging operators to consider the safety of their vehicles en-routes to and from the worksite. In addition to helping to prevent collisions, the use of Construction Logistics Plans can lead to reduced congestion and emissions levels.

Also, an important aspect of reducing congestion is effective journey planning. The Freight Journey Planner (FJP) http:// freightplanner.tfl.gov.uk, an online tool that promotes advanced journey planning was developed for this purpose. This produces a route for the intended journey by referencing the vehicle type against a database of the height, width, weight and loading restrictions applicable to London’s roads. The tool is regularly updated with road closure information and during the London 2012 Olympic Games the FJP was widely used as a method of assisting business continuity.

To make sure the dataset contained in the FJP reaches its widest possible target audience, TfL with SatNav distributers Navevo, are to develop a SatNav system aimed at London freight operators. This SatNav links directly to the FJP dataset and provides the users with vehicle height, width, weight and other freight points of interest, such as loading restrictions. Drivers using the Navevo device can access specific route information for their vehicles and type of operation, allowing them to optimise the efficiency of their journey en route. It is hoped that the vehicle restrictions dataset will be taken up by a wider range of SatNav providers when the current exclusivity period ends in the autumn of 2013.

The dataset also includes a unique HGV Cyclist Alert feature, which uses TfL’s most up-to-date pedal cycle flow figures for London’s road network to identify locations where large numbers of HGV’s and cyclists regularly converge. The SatNavs mapping software overlays a 50 meter “warning zone” around each around each HGV/Cyclist convergence area, and displays a visual and audible warning to the driver as they approach a known high convergence area, allowing the driver plenty of time to check for any cyclists on the road. The development of this technology is a positive step forward to safer lorry driving and raising awareness of cyclists.

The London 2012 Olympic Games demonstrated that behaviour change within the freight industry is possible. During the Olympic period, an additional nine per cent of freight movements were completed outside of the core 06:00 – 22:00 delivery period; journeys were successfully rerouted to accommodate road closures, and where practicable alternative modes of delivery were used.

The achievements of the Olympic Games have produced an atmosphere receptive to change within the road freight industry. TfL has utilised this atmosphere to call for the industry to continue working together to generate a real step change in road safety cultures. Collaboration between operators, regulatory bodies and business owners is crucial to embedding behavioural change within the road freight industry. Developing opportunities to encourage and champion collaborative working is an important next step in TfL’s continuing commitment to further reduce congestion and collisions between cyclists and vital road freight both within London, and more widely across the UK.