Blog Posts

Let's talk about taxis...

4/5/2019

There has been a lot of discussion about the number of buses on Edinburgh’s Princes Street, and the idea of removing some or all of them as part of moves to reduce traffic in the city centre. (See here for my thoughts on the subject). However, I’ve seen very little discussion about taxis. When private traffic on Princes Street was first restricted 20 odd years ago, most council officials wanted taxis banned entirely but after lobbying by the taxi trade, this idea was dropped. It would be timely to revisit the matter.

Thousands of taxis use Princes Street each day - my surveys suggested that they could form more more than a quarter of all vehicles on the street. But many taxis carry no passengers at all. I carried out a count of how many passengers occupied 50 taxis in the block between Frederick and Hanover Streets in half an hour on the morning of 2 April. Just over half the taxis passing had no passengers, with the driver either plying for hire, or off duty. Only 9 (18%) carried more than one passenger. The average occupancy of all taxis was 0.7 people (excluding the driver, obviously). More detailed surveys of different parts of the street and at different times are needed to establish better data, but these results raise important questions. Is this an efficient way to move people in the city centre? Is this the best use of the premium space that is Princes Street? Removing taxis would reduce congestion and pollution, speed up buses and make cycling safer.

The taxi trade would clearly be hostile to any plan to exclude them from Princes Street. It would add to their costs - and that of their passengers. Many people making their living through taxis already feel under siege from the explosion in the number of private hire cars (which aren’t permitted to use Princes St) and threatened by policy measures which could be introduced as part of a Low Emission Zone.

I am a big fan of taxis as an important (and often under-valued) part of the transport mix, especially for disabled people and others who need door-to-door transport. But at the end of the day, taxis aren’t there for the benefit of the taxi trade. There are wider interests to consider and it would be timely to have a renewed discussion about where taxis are, and aren’t, appropriate in a city centre less dominated by traffic.

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Motability: it’s other peoples’ money

2/8/2019

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Motability has been criticised again by the House of Commons Work and Pensions and Treasury Committees at evidence taken on 9 January. This follows publication of the recent report by the National Audit Office (NAO) which broadly endorsed the criticisms of executive pay, reserves and governance. Senior figures in both the Motability Charity and its commercial arm Motability Operations say they accept all the NAO recommendations - while appearing at the same time to justify all their actions. Some words used by MPs included “evasiveness”, “lack of transparency”, “defensiveness”. NAO’s head, Sir Amyas Morse, concluded his evidence by saying “there does need to be change”.

Three observations: Firstly, risk management is fundamental to the business, and Motability Operations makes much of its “dynamic and robust approach” to managing risks (lots more like this screenshot in the Annual Report). So how didn't it spot the very obvious reputational and political risks currently resulting from its remuneration and reserves policies? They were surely not hard to foresee…

Secondly, much of Motability Operations’ justification for the levels of executive pay was made on the grounds that it is a complex business. The CEO was apparently paid £360,000 ‘retention payments’ in addition to long term incentive payments likely to exceed £2 million (which were only recently revealed to MPs). However, as a monopoly, Motability has no competitors; it has one principal source of income (disabled peoples’ benefits) which is in effect guaranteed; it has a single principal business activity (car leasing) and it operates solely in the UK. In essence it is a very simple business - it is big, certainly, with a turnover of over £4 billion - but that is not the same as complex.

Finally, from listening to the evidence of Motability representatives, there appears to be no real awareness whatsoever that the money it accumulates as a surplus is disabled people’s money. All the money in the system - including the assets of around £3 billion between the different Motability organisations - derives from the disability benefits of individuals. Motability Operations really has no business collecting more from its customers than it needs, whether this is passed on to the Motability Charity or not; it’s other peoples money, not theirs.

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Motability: good governance?

1/2/2019

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Until last year, Motability (the supplier of cars for disabled people) attracted little public attention. However this changed last year when the Treasury and Work and Pensions Committees issued a highly critical joint report [https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news-parliament-2017/motability-report-published-17-19/ following press criticism of the levels of its reserves and executive pay. This in turn led to a review by the National Audit Office, which broadly endorsed these criticisms in a report launched on 7 December 2018 https://www.nao.org.uk/report/the-motability-scheme/.

I have been following these reports on behalf of the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS) which will advise Scottish ministers on any recommended action. Motability essentially consists of two parts: the Motability Charity, and its much bigger commercial arm Motability Operations, which leases the vehicles. The NAO raises questions on too many issues - from executive pay, value for money and the extent of influence of Motability Charity on Motability Operations - to comment on here, but one thing which has struck me is the apparently cosy world which seems to have dominated many key governance roles.

For example, until last year, the average tenure of Motability Charity trustees was 18 years. Motability Operations had the same auditor (Price Waterhouse Cooper) for 24 years until last year http://fr.zone-secure.net/-/MotabilityAnnualReportAndAccounts2018/-/#page=70 Four out of the five listed directors of Motability Operations appear to have been recruited from two companies (Lease Plan UK and Dial UK) which share a common address https://www.motabilityoperations.co.uk/about-us/our-executive-team/#0. In addition, it seems that almost all Trustees and Non Executive Directors have traditionally been London-based.

Motability is a success story, having grown massively since it was founded as a modest charitable venture by its current Chair Lord Sterling and the late Lord Goodman in 1977. Motability must now be by far the biggest player in the UK’s ‘accessible transport’ field, with some 625,000 customers and a turnover of over £4 billion a year. It would be therefore reasonable to expect the highest levels of transparency and accountability to its customers and the the public in general, especially as it is ultimately paid for entirely through disabled peoples’ benefits. Stability may be a virtue, but would such ‘generous’ levels of executive pay and ‘large unplanned profits’ (to use NAO’s terms) have been challenged more effectively if there had been more change in personnel and greater diversity?

A number of significant changes appear to have been made in 2018, presumably in response to the new levels of political and NAO scrutiny: for example several new appointments have been made both to the Board of trustees of the charity and Non Executive Directors in Motability Operations, and a new auditor appointed. Motability (the charity) has promised to implement in full all the NAO recommendations, so is likely to remain in public eye in 2019 while efforts are made to improve governance.

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Princes street traffic/buses (part two)

9/29/2018

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Last winter, I carried out a short traffic survey of Princes Street. I wanted to see if Princes Street is really clogged up with buses, as is claimed increasingly in some quarters. Only half the traffic on the street turned out to be local buses.I repeated the exercise in August, to see if there was a marked seasonal difference and the answer seems to be no.

Local service buses again formed less than half of all traffic in Princes Street, with other significant vehicles including tourist buses and especially taxis. Many of these vehicles don’t stop at all on Princes Street, using it simply as a short cut thoroughfare. If reducing traffic on Princes Street is a key aim (as it appears to be as part of the ‘City Centre Transformation initiative’), wouldn't it make sense to look at removing such traffic first?

Before any plan to significantly remove buses from Princes Street is developed, a much more nuanced discussion is needed on what the street is for (especially the balance between ’movement’ and ‘place’) and what are the implications of major changes on other city centre streets. There are also, as I argued previously, a number of other small-scale measures (from improved traffic enforcement to minor bus route changes) which should be explored before any major change to the bus network is contemplated.

Of course, these surveys (both carried out on a Wednesday afternoon) would need to be corroborated by proper traffic counts, including at morning and afternoon peaks and weekends. But they provide enough evidence to show there’s a risk of arriving at quick ‘solutions’ without first establishing the necessary information.

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The Iron Law of Street Clutter: “Clutter attracts clutter”

4/28/2018

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Another thought on street clutter...although widely recognised as a significant problem for pedestrians (both because it reduces the available space for walking and because it can represent a serious hazard for some people, most obviously those with visual impairments) what is less widely acknowledged is the apparent effect that street clutter has on attracting other clutter.

From my observations, there seems to be a clear pattern where temporary obstacles of one kind or another are often placed next to other obstacles. For example, an ‘A-board’ may be placed next to (or chained to) a signage pole. Old roadworks debris (cones, signs, sandbags etc) are left beside or behind a utility box or cycle stand. Wheelie bins may be placed next to a phone box and so on. Fly tipping of old mattresses or pallets etc is most likely to be next to some pre-existing clutter. Cycle stands on the pavement will invite the addition of A-boards or bins. The more untidy the space is, the more likely something will be added to it. So clutter attracts clutter - I’ve come to think of this as “the Iron Law of Street Clutter”.

This is important because not only does one form of clutter seem to encourage the accumulation of more clutter, but it is often the combination of different forms of clutter - say ‘A-boards’ and signage poles - which most restrict pavement space and which most cause danger. No clutter is much better than some clutter.

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Where is the appetite for decluttering?

1/10/2018

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The Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) has announced its programme of annual awards for 2018. Unfortunately there is no category this year for ‘reducing street clutter’ as in 2017. This award was a very welcome initiative in view of the publication of the new Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (TSRGD, or ‘Traffic Signs Regs’) in 2016.

To those unfamiliar with this less-than exciting sounding document, this is the statutory guidance which governs when and where road signs are required. The guidance states ” the number of traffic signs has doubled in the past 20 years. This is unsustainable, and bears out the need to reduce signing wherever possible. A culture change is needed in the way signing is used” (2.9).

Many streets throughout the UK are littered with dozens of poles bearing signs indicating parking and loading restrictions, or warning of hazards. Leaving aside aesthetic considerations, they narrow the walking space for pedestrians especially if combined with other street clutter and can be a hazard for those with disabilities and visual impairments. It is also common to see signage poles with no sign on them, a pet hate of mine.

Many of these signs are no longer required at all under the new TSRGD policy - local authorities now have much more discretion and flexibility on how best to advertise Traffic Regulation Orders and such like which were previously strictly prescribed. The 2016 guidance also relaxes the former requirement for many signs to be lit, recognising that there are many more options for high-visibility signs now on the market. This has huge potential for councils to save money through reduced electricity consumption and cheaper maintenance.

Despite its timeliness, my understanding is that the CIHT’s decluttering award last year did not attract many entrants. Particularly disappointing is that no entry was received from Scotland, I understand. Not one of Scotland’s 32 local authorities had either the desire, or the material, to submit an entry for what would surely be a ‘quick win’ in making streets less cluttered and easier for people to use. There are not many opportunities to both improve streets and saving money at the same time.

Inadequate, narrow pavements are rife across the UK and realistically, funding to widen them significantly is not there in the short to medium term. Keeping them clear of clutter should therefore be a top priority for councils wanting a cost-effective way to encourage people to walk, with all the benefits that brings to the local community and economy. Lets hope that a decluttering culture will come into fashion soon, and the CIHT will resume its award ‘by popular demand’.

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Don't mess with Princes Street buses lightly!

12/6/2017

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During his recent work in Edinburgh (1) the influential Danish urban designer Jan Gehl reportedly described Princes Street as a “big bus station”. Certainly, the pedestrian environment is dominated by traffic, which can also obscure the famous views to the Old Town and Castle. There now seem to be growing whispers of a radical change to Edinburgh’s transport system; to shift buses off Princes Street.

The Council is currently consulting on hugely unpopular proposals for a triangular gyratory system on Picardy Place (2) on the north-east edge of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Officials have recently claimed that one benefit of the scheme is that it would enable buses from the north side of Edinburgh to terminate there and turn around. Passengers for Princes Street and beyond would then be expected to change onto an expanded tram network, so removing hundreds of buses a day from Princes Street. This is not something that should be considered lightly.

Edinburgh’s bus network is widely recognised as the best in Scotland, with 27.4% of adults reportedly using the bus nearly every day, and bus use at nearly twice the Scottish average (3). Buses are relatively cheap, modern and frequent and contribute significantly to Edinburgh’s enviably low share of commuting by private car. There is a reason that so many buses travel along Princes Street - that it is where people want to go. Bus passengers also value direct services. There is considerable resistance to interchanging on public transport (4), and of course having to get off the bus and onto another vehicle is harder for some people than others: notably disabled people, older people, parents with small children, those with luggage etc. These equality issues are a fundamental consideration. A major change in the bus system without careful thought could risk this success story.

So what can be done about congested Princes Street? I carried out a snapshot survey of traffic on Princes Street recently and found that local buses accounted for only half of the traffic on the street (table and chart below). Taxis and express buses also contributed significantly to traffic levels and this holds true even excluding bicycles (which occupy negligible space). This snapshot (for one hour on a November Wednesday afternoon) may not be typical, but it indicates that local buses aren’t the whole cause of Princes Street congestion.

If the tram is extended to Leith, as seems the intention, there would presumably be a significant reduction in bus services which duplicate much of the route. It should also be possible to re-route some bus services two that more cross Princes Street, rather than run along it. There are also a number of other options to reduce congestion that don’t require any changes to local bus services at all. All these options can - and should - be explored fully before any thought is given to the nuclear option of forcing passengers to change public transport:

banning taxis;
banning express buses;
banning private tourist coaches, minibuses etc;
setting up a terminus for coaches at the west end of the city;
enforcement of red light jumping and yellow box encroachment which snarls up traffic,
adding bus stops, to reduce bus queuing on Princes Street;
adjusting traffic signal timings.

Of course, there will be pros and cons with all of these options, but these kind of measures - and no doubt others - could realistically halve the number of vehicles on Princes Street. They should be thoroughly explored before an assumption takes hold that making passengers change buses is a good idea. Hopefully, the ‘City Centre Transformation’ initiative announced by the Council in October 2017 to look at how best to manage the city centre will provide a means to do that.

Gehl Architects, Public Space Public Life, 1998/2010 http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/downloads/download/237/edinburgh_revisited
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/news/article/2394/latest_picardy_place_designs_revealed
Edinburgh by Numbers 2017, Tables 109,111 http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/20247/edinburgh_by_numbers/1012/edinburgh_by_numbers
For example p90 in: h ttp://www.trpa.org/documents/rseis/New%20References%20for%20Final%20EIS/Balcombe%20et%20al%202004.pdf

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Invest in walking to aid low income workers

11/13/2017

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People on lower incomes are much more likely to walk to work thank those on higher incomes, who are much more likely to drive. While this may be an intuitive and obvious statement, the difference in the travel-to-work patterns of poorer and wealthier people in Scotland is starkly evident from statistics published by Transport Scotland earlier this year. * The chart below shows the correlation between income and driving; and also the inverse correlation between income and walking. This demonstrates, not for the first time, the importance of investing in walking not only on environmental and health grounds, but also to promote social equality.

* scot-tran-stats-35-chapter11-personal, Table 11.18 bit.ly/2jn0V10

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25 Years of Lothian Taxicard

8/1/2017

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Lothian Taxicard, offering discounted taxi fares to disabled people, was started 25 years ago. As the council officer who was principally responsible for developing the scheme, I thought it a timely point to reflect on its history - and the possible future of such schemes.

The introduction of a Taxicard scheme was not my idea; my then boss Keith Gowenlock proposed the service as part of ‘the multi-modal approach’ to accessible transport that Lothian Regional Council (LRC) was developing. This was supported by the head of the Public Transport Unit David Chambers, and at a political level, by Councillors Ron Muir and then David Begg who chaired the Transport Committee. The Lothian scheme was loosely modelled on the London Taxicard scheme which the GLC had funded for some time along with dial-a-ride services. Interestingly, a taxi subsidy scheme had also run in Edinburgh for a number of years, administered by the rather unfortunately-named Edinburgh Cripple Aid Society (which has since re-branded solely as ‘ECAS’). The ECAS scheme issued “chits’ giving discounted fares to a group of disabled people for use with a contracted local taxi firm, Radiocabs.

However, the ECAS scheme was not sustainable; for a start, it applied only to a small group of people in Edinburgh, and the Regional Council, which had taken over funding of the scheme, needed to ensure that services were available more fairly, including in the other districts in the Region (West, East and Midlothian). ECAS was keen for the Council to take over administration of the scheme. For its part, LRC saw a Taxicard scheme offering several distinctive benefits which other services could not. In particular, although LRC funded the local dial-a-ride service Handicabs, and since 1990 a semi-scheduled Dial-a-Bus shopping service, these door to door schemes did not suit everyone. Getting through on the phone to secure a booking was a problem and not everyone wanted to (or could) plan their trips in advance. In addition, as a service specifically for disabled people, dial-a-rides were seen by some as having a degree of stigma as a ‘special’ or segregated service, and they provided limited choice to the passenger. Of course, mainstream public transport was a complete no-go area for most disabled people at this time as buses typically had three steps up to a high floor. Taxicard therefore complemented other door to door services and efforts to improve the accessibility of mainstream public transport.

Edinburgh District Council had also been the first council outside London to stipulate that all taxis must become wheelchair accessible. Along with this requirement, Edinburgh led the way in training taxi drivers on how to assist passengers using wheelchairs, with mandatory sessions for drivers overseen by the Cab Office, then managed by the police. Unquestionably, not all taxi drivers welcomed these new obligations, but a Taxicard scheme could complement these regulatory measures by encouraging disabled people to use taxis, stimulating customer demand.

So the Lothian Taxicard scheme was launched in 1992, offering a maximum of 104 single trips a year (this maximum limit echoed the demands of the ‘One Trip a Week’ campaign for dial-a-ride funding which I had led in London a few years earlier). The chief criterion for eligibility for a Taxicard was that the applicant was unable to use buses. Local taxi and private hire companies were invited to participate in the scheme, so that there was usually both a choice of service provider, and of vehicles type. The user had to make a minimum payment of £1.00 and would pay no more until the fare exceeded £5.00; anything above that was payable by the passenger. In 1992, this subsidy of up to £4 per trip paid for a reasonable distance. Triplicate receipt pads were issued to participating companies, with passenger, council and taxi firm each getting a copy. The scheme was launched in West Lothian and then rolled out to the other councils with (from memory) an annual budget of £0.5 million. It is hard not to feel a little nostalgic for a time when a local authority had both the money and the political will to initiate new services like this!

Unsurprisingly, the scheme was immediately popular, with rapidly-developing demand for Taxicards and immensely positive feedback. The number of trips by Taxicard quickly outstripped those by dial-a-ride and Dial-a-Bus, and with a financial ceiling per trip, it represented a cost-effective way of significantly increasing travel options for many disabled people to the council. A Taxicard Users’ Association developed, which became influential as a disability-led group campaigning for accessible transport. The scheme was part of the reason that Lothian Regional Council won the first Equality Award by the European Commission in Scotland in 1995, and several other regional councils introduced similar schemes. However, controlling budgets was always a problem and it was administratively cumbersome, with thousands of trip slips processed monthly to control the 104 limit and to check taxi invoices. Eligibility was largely controlled through requiring that Taxicard applicants did not also hold concessionary travel (bus) permits but eligibility was always prone to ‘grey areas’ given that people do not neatly fall into two boxes - those who can, and those who can’t ‘use conventional buses’. As buses have become more accessible and concepts of disability (including mental health) have changed, eligibility has no doubt become more contested.

The scheme survived local government re-organisation in 1996, with each of the four successor unitary councils in the Lothians maintaining their own Taxicard schemes. However, over the years, the benefits provided have been eroded as senior officials gave the scheme less priority and reduced budgets. The minimum flat rate contribution by the passenger was raised to £2.00 and over time, the remaining £3.00 subsidy went less and less far - literally - due to taxi fare inflation. Perhaps I’m reading more into this than I should, but I’m struck how the scheme logo in Edinburgh today is completely unchanged from 1992! While the scheme continues in the local authorities today, Midlothian closed the scheme to new entrants in 2015.

Looking to the future, while Taxicard continues to play a valuable role, the role of such schemes seem uncertain in the longer term. Council budget pressures and the improved accessibility of buses are the most obvious immediate challenges. But technology is also providing new opportunities not just for improved administrative efficiency, but also for service innovation. Most obviously, the emergence of Uber and perhaps other ‘Mobility as a Service’ (MaaS) developments may make the old Taxicard model obsolete. If Uber (or similar services) become more widespread and can undercut taxi fares by say 20%, does it make sense for the public purse to subsidise taxi fares by say 10% through a Taxicard scheme? Of course, fare levels are not the only factor - the conduct of the driver and the accessibility of the vehicle are other important aspects of a service, for example. However, it looks likely in the longer term that new opportunities to provide door to door transport on demand and more cheaply will develop, perhaps one day even using autonomous vehicles? This must be a good thing. For now, I see real opportunities for some creative thinking at a national level (especially in Scotland) on how to encourage low-cost door-to-door services provided by the private sector, perhaps leveraging concessionary travel budgets (see also my blog here).
However, there is no doubt in my mind that the Lothian Taxicard scheme made a huge impact in opening up the possibility of spontaneous travel for many disabled people. It also contributed to making taxi services more disability-friendly and helped raise the bar - in terms of both expectations, and delivery - of inclusive travel in Scotland. These are important legacies

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We need to count the short walks too...

5/29/2017

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Most mornings, I go to my corner shop to buy a newspaper, a distance of maybe 30 metres. Should I ever be asked to contribute to official Scottish transport statistics through participating in the Scottish Household Survey, these trips would be completely invisible. The Survey asks only about trips on foot (or by bike) of a quarter of a mile or more (1).

Walking also plays an essential part in many motorised trips - most obviously by bus, where walking to and from the bus stop is clearly a normal part of the journey chain, but also those car journeys which don’t involve door to door parking. These walking trips are similarly invisible in official statistics. As a result, Transport Scotland states that walking’s ‘modal share’ is only 22% of all journeys (compared to 64% by car) (2). Can driving really be three times more common than walking?

This matters principally because the exclusion of short trips skews the real pattern of people’s travel, under-representing walking and over-representing the importance of the car. This reinforces assumptions about the importance of motor transport and spending on roads as the obvious priority for investment in transport infrastructure. The infrastructure that enables short walks to take place - two pavements and a traffic light-controlled crossing in the case of my morning trip to the corner shop - is every bit as important as that which supports longer journeys.

The exclusion of short, local walking trips is also likely to reduce the visibility of journeys by older, poorer and disabled people. We know that there is a strong correlation between wealth, car use and walking: in Scotland 55% of people in households with an income of less than £10,000pa have no driving license, compared with 11.2% of those in households with an income of more than £40,000 (3). Many people who have no car - probably low income and elderly people in particular - will make frequent trips on foot within their neighbourhood that are rarely accounted for in official statistics.

Elsewhere, the National Travel Survey conducted for the Department of Transport excludes walks of under 50m, rather than a quarter of a mile. Curiously, the reported ‘modal share’ of walking is exactly the same as Scotland (22%) (4). Transport for London which has begun to use the International Walking Data Standard (5), publishess the distribution profile of walk-only trips, which shows the importance of including the shortest ones:

This illustrates the important effect of removing walking trips of less than 0.4km (quarter of a mile). However, even more significant is the walking part of a transport ‘chain’ such as to or from a bus stop, train station or car park. In London, it is estimated that these ‘walking share’ trips are *three times* as numerous as ‘walk-only’ trips (6).

Journeys on foot are far more numerous, and important, than official statistics (in Scotland at least) show. I see modal transport share a bit like an ecological pyramid - if aviation is the polar bear or shark at the apex perhaps walking is the krill at the base? The shortest walks, the indispensable bread and butter of so many individual journeys, are like the invisible plankton that feed the krill and supports the whole transport ecosystem.