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27th August 2008

En route to a better journey?

• Partnership, joined up thinking and more accessible information are the keys to creating a better journey, concludes a joint report from Cambridge Consultants & Arthur D Little.
  

Travellers and hauliers need easy access to relevant, real-time information at all stages of their journeys, if we are to avoid gridlock and realise the benefits of a better journey. Moreover, all organisations involved in the transport sector must collaborate more effectively to create the streamlined infrastructure that the contemporary UK public and business community demand. These are the conclusions of the '2013: creating a better journey' report, published jointly by Cambridge Consultants and Arthur D Little.

The report, based on the findings of a recent workshop attended by transport sector leaders, indicates that both the technology and - to a large extent - the information needed to form a fully integrated transport system are available, but suggests that businesses should not simply wait in vain for the government to join it all up. The key message from the report is that there are significant short term returns for early movers in this sector now, and that the time for waiting is over.

"A number of key themes emerged from the event," explains Dr Liz Orme, Director of Transport at Cambridge Consultants. "Sustainability is important, but it is about much more than carbon. The better journey is one that minimises waste and maximises economy, but it is also planned and well co-ordinated. Key to achieving this is the development of what we've termed the 'contextual journey', and a consideration of 'the three i's' - information, interfaces, and integration."

So what would a better journey look like? James Catmur, Director at Arthur D Little explains: "The better journey is one that is planned and made in the context of UK's travellers' specific needs and which takes account of personal choices and priorities. Government and transport providers must consider the potentially conflicting activity of other transport network users, and also take account of the overall impact of their plan on the transport system. We need to aim to provide travellers with readily available intelligently integrated information that is delivered in convenient forms, both before and during their journeys."

The better journey evidently requires a step change in current thinking. Importantly, event participants felt that neither information management nor available technology were barriers to progress in themselves. In fact, they found it relatively easy to generate conceptually viable ideas for innovative solutions like contextual journey assistant websites and pocket travel buddy devices. Rather, they felt that development was slow because private firms lack sufficient incentives to work together to develop solutions, and because of the relative absence of large scale commercial partnerships with government bodies in the transport sector.

"Solutions exist," Orme concludes, "but for the parts to come together into a meaningful whole, transport providers need to be more innovative, information providers need to develop transport specific applications, and rich transport data needs to be integrated and made more accessible. In short, between us we have the necessary tools to create better journeys for travellers. We just need to get together more effectively."

A copy of the report is available upon request, free of charge, via www.cambridgeconsultants.com/fm_transport_08.html

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