Infrastructure decisions need long-term projections
The Commercial infrastructure Commission has said the government should maintain paying for trains and buses, even though its usage has dropped during the pandemic.
Behaviour change, especially in the utilization of trains and buses, broadband networks and utilities, could make a substantial impact on infrastructure demand for some sectors, but the NIC states that public surveys and initial responses as the UK edges out of coronavirus restrictions aren't a reliable guide to shifts in mass behaviour over the long term.
The Commission has developed five scenarios for different plausible futures based on varied levels of home working, movement from cities and appetite for social gatherings. It shows that, given the extent of uncertainty about future behavioural change, comparing the variance between these scenarios is the most useful insight for infrastructure planning.
The National Infrastructure Commission’s approach suggests that public transport faces the widest possible range of impacts from behaviour change. The typical quantity of public transport trips within the scenario with lowest estimated demand is about 25 % less than within the highest demand scenario over the next 3 decades, although the paper stresses the level of uncertainty about how exactly demand could be affected by additional factors such as economic and population growth. Variation of non-public car use between your scenarios is decreased but still marked, having a selection of 10 % between scenarios.
The paper also sets out how changes in the distribution of demand over time and place could be as significant as changes in its total level, designed for networks like trains and buses built to manage peak time capacity. For instance, flexible working may mean flatter peaks on trains and buses, or a little bit of additional traffic can lead to congestion in some town centres, potentially slowing journey times considerably.
The Commission highlights the importance of long term investments being assessed against the full range of potential scenarios rather than speculative projections, and the value of adopting an ‘adaptive’ method of investment.
Commissioner Andy Green said: “The inconvenient truth is that it is always too soon to know what may happen in the future. Responsible investment decisions require honesty concerning the huge uncertainties that exist in considering which behaviour changes will remain decades after Covid restrictions are lifted. But infrastructure decisions can't be postponed indefinitely and the scenarios we have set out provide one tool for assessing the very best options.
“While there aren't any easy answers, another tool would be to adopt a phased approach to major investments, identifying trigger points for various project stages according to what the information is telling us about long-term shifts in how we live and work.”
