All change? Motorway interchanges for public transport

Abstract

Motorways and similar roads have been essential for the dominance of the motor car and lorry for personal and freight transportation. Alongside benefits, this dominance has generated a range of problems including congestion and pollution. However, motorways could play a much greater public transport role if suitable facilities were provided. Critical among these could be interchanges between long-distance and local public transport, located at motorway junctions. A combination of established thinking about public transport and pleasure-based approaches to design provides a framework within with the criteria likely to be required for success can be established. In additional to operational matters these success factors include user comfort and perceived status. A partial case study based on junction 16 of the M1 suggests that provision of such interchanges could be a cost-effective means of mitigating the need for motorway expansion schemes. This, taken with the likely wider social and environmental benefits including reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, suggests that further exploration of their potential role is justified. Although not central to the concept, further improvement in vehicle quality and measures to ensure bus journey time reliability would be valuable supporting measures.