Episode 1 – Integration starts with users, Ben Plowden, PA Consulting
Epsiode intro
Welcome to the Interchange podcast, produced in association with Ayo Abbas. This show is a podcast talking about integrated transport infrastructure as the solution to achieving a more effective and decarbonised transport network. Our first guest is Ben Plowden, from PA Consulting.
In this episode we look at:
the need for customer-centricity
the systems and systems within systems required to create a more integrated infrastructure
ideas on how we can break out of our current silos in terms of transport planning, delivery and operation.
Ben Plowden
Ben is an Associate at PA Consulting, an Associate at LSE Cities and a Visiting Professor at the UCL Centre for Transport Studies. He has recently been appointed as the Chair of the Transport Planning Society . Prior to joining PA, Ben spent twenty years in a number of senior transport planning and project sponsorship roles in TfL.
Resources and Links
The Transport Planning Society
About Interchange UK
Interchange is much more than a podcast. It's also a major two-day annual conference and exhibition taking place in on February 27 and 28th in Manchester Central. Head to www.interchange-uk.com to find out more.
Transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
transport, integrated, important, system, decarbonize, organisation, outcomes, create, customers, processes, interchange, technical, planning, infrastructure, people, work, difficult, produce, delivery, delivering
SPEAKERS
Ben Plowden, Ayo Abbas
Ayo Abbas 00:03
Hello and welcome to the Interchange podcast produced in association with me Ayo Abbas. Interchange is a show where we delve into talking about integrated transport infrastructure as the solution to achieving a more effective and decarbonize transport network. We're very pleased to introduce our first guest, who is Ben Plowden from PA Consulting. He's also an associate at LSE cities and a visiting professor at the UCL Centre for transport studies. He's also recently become the chair of the transport planning society. Prior to joining PA, Ben spent 20 years in a number of senior transport planning roles and project sponsored roles at TfL. And in this episode, we look at the need for customer centricity, the systems and systems within systems we need to create to achieve more integrated infrastructure. And we also talk about ideas on how we can break out of the current silo mentality that exists in terms of transport, planning, delivery and operation. Enjoy the show. Hi, Ben, thanks so much for being our first guest on the Interchange podcast and coming onto the show. Yes, we want to start with What does integrated transport infrastructure mean to you, and also why you think it's important.
Ben Plowden 01:22
So I think when we're thinking about transport the transport system, we need to start from the point of view of the user, right, so what a what a transport user wants, they want the transport system to be easy to understand, easy to use, accessible, integrated, and we'll perhaps come back to that affordable. And so we need to think about how we plan design and operate our transport system with the end user in mind, whether that's an individual going about their daily business, or a freight company trying to get something to a customer. And so I think we need to think first of all about integrating our transport infrastructure, so that the the different infrastructures that make up the transport system are literally properly connected together, give you an obvious example, study, if you're building a new bus station, you want to make sure your bus station is on top of or adjacent to you next door to your railway station, so that with your customer, you come off the train, and the bus is right there, or vice versa, he got off the bus, the train is right there. So I think that's really, really important. And I also think it's important to think about integration and a number of other dimensions as well. So for example, it's critically important to integrate what transport geeks call transport planning and land use planning. I.e is our spatial developers, is where we're putting our new developments linked to our transport system. So if you build a housing estate in the middle of nowhere, with no bus service, with no capacity to walk or cycle for local journeys, it's not surprising that people who move into the housing estate will buy and use a car because that's essentially the only choice basically, to meet their daily needs. Right? Yeah, so so we have to think about how integrated the design of our communities are in terms of local access to good services and opportunities. And then to make sure that our transport system is connected to those developments, existing towns and cities, and also new towns and cities or new developments. So that people have a meaningful range of transport choices, that sometimes they can do stuff locally, on foot or by bicycle. But if they need to travel further afield, they need to be able to do that in a variety of different ways. And obviously, preferably the more sustainably, the better. So that's one really important thing, we also need to think about integrating transport with other sectors. So particularly energy, which I know is one of the strands of the infrastructure of the interchange, if then, if we're going to decarbonize transport and move to more electric fleet, or indeed hydrogen fleet, we have to think about how the transport system and the infrastructure relate to the energy infrastructure, so that you've got sufficient capacity on the grid to put charge points onto the system. Or you have your hydrogen sources in a place which makes sense to, to fuel with hydrogen powered vehicles. But that's also true with health with education, so that we're thinking about the transport implications of our energy of our transfer of our education decisions, and vice versa, so that we're not doing things in education that create perverse outcomes for transport. That inquiry that requires integration between different government policies so that you're thinking about these policies in the round, which obviously requires good working relationships between government departments. And then finally, I think you need to think about integration between different tiers of government. So national, regional, city, regional and local so that you've got a really clear line of sight between your national policy goals, what's most sent through done at a regional or city regional level and what's most centrally done locally? So if you could, if you could integrate that, that's quite a significant challenge, right? Yeah, yeah. But But what's interesting man, I spent 20 years or so working at Transport for London and And I think London as a city as a kind of set of institutions comes as close as I know, to having the capabilities of planning, delivering an operating transport in the way that I've just described. So there's a, there's a spatial plan for London, the London Plan that the mayor needs to produce, that needs by law to be consistent with the transport plan for London, which he also produces the mayor's transport strategy. The local authorities need to have plans and policies that are themselves integrated with the regional plans. And of course, you have a single organisation in TfL, which plans transport infrastructure basically operates or manages your prices of all the transport in the city. And it's not surprisingly, in London, it's been possible to achieve a mode shift away from private car use towards walking, cycling, public transport in a way that's been supportive of a growing economy, growing population, improve quality of life. So you can create environments in which people can make different transport choices that produce better and more sustainable outcomes. But you do need to create the ability to do that all that integration that we've just talked about.
Ayo Abbas 06:09
So I guess, looking at a bigger systemic view, isn't it of getting integration across across the kind of, I guess, across acre across society, isn't it? It's a much bigger thing. I mean, so in terms of kind of large scale projects and being able to take that kind of systematic approach. What do you think is? Where do you think we are in terms of, you know, being able to achieve that?
Ben Plowden 06:32
Well, we're obviously at a very specific point in the political and economic cycle, aren't we, right, we've got an election coming up. Almost 12 months, we've got significant pressure on the public finances, we've got many 1000s, if not millions, of households struggling with the cost of living crisis. So so these are, these are challenging times, I think. And I think they're challenging partly because doing difficult things in transport, building major projects, changing the set of transport choices available to people, so they can make different choices, takes time. And, you know, London again, I don't want to obsess about London, but London has been doing the things it's been doing for 20 years. It's the creation of the elected mayor back in 2000. And, talking about those sorts of timeframes to achieve these really big changes in how the transport system operates and what what people choose to do. And so the challenge there, I think, is how you create and maintain kind of political consensus across time and across different institutions. And that can be difficult to do, right. So we've seen recently in Cambridgeshire with the difficulties around their proposed congestion charging scheme, other parts of the country where the consensus has been created across different tiers of government, different organisations, but then has has gradually broken down. So I think one of the really interesting and difficult challenges, how do you create and maintain that kind of long term consensus over the kind of transport system you're trying to create and the outcomes you're trying to achieve? So that you can, people can predictably do what they need to do over the extended period with with reduced levels of risk and uncertainty, that obviously can be really problematic for, certainly for big infrastructure projects?
Ayo Abbas 08:17
Yeah, and that's the thing, it is a longer term thing, isn't it? I think I've been to some talks where, we've got some of the council's looking at, like, two year funding cycles are so short, that it's like, how would you actually commit to that, it's, you're just like, you can't plan for that, once you started, your funding is not there, and then you can't get a team on, it just makes it a lot more difficult.
Ben Plowden 08:36
But what that does, that creates a high level of risk, which increases costs, because everyone's trying to price in risk. You know, so it's, it's really important, I think, to try and develop a, almost a decision making culture where you're, again, very difficult to do this in practice, where you are able to make long term plans or long term decisions, and it can be done. It just is quite difficult, I think, in the current climate.
Ayo Abbas 09:07
So in terms of how it can be done, which takes me on to my next questions, quite handy. So what kind of enablers or blockers Do you think so I know, we've got some of the kind of how we're set up at the moment, which is quite fragmented. So what things do you think could enable us to take more of this kind of longer term view?
Ben Plowden 09:21
Well, I think one really fundamental blocker is the fact that in my view, human beings are innately inclined to create and maintain what people call silos. If you look at the psychological literature, if you look at the anthropology, anthropological literature, human beings are sort of almost wired to create us and them. You know, I'm in this government department, they're in that government department. I work in national government, they work in local government. I'm in marketing, they're in engineering. And so I think that so what happens is because we have this kind of innate tendency to think in that in that way, with and give that thinking a name, you're in this department, they're in that department, you're in this organisation, you're in that organisation. So I think we have to recognise that we are will probably fall into silos unless, we're very careful. And then create institutional structures, processes, cultures that break down as far as possible the barriers between different silos. And again, that can be difficult to do, but But I think being alert to the fact that we probably will end up identifying with my group as opposed to their group is, is quite, I think it's quite a basic thing that human beings do. So the enabler, as I say, it's just kind of create organisations that make that less likely create processes and spaces that people work together, you know, where you, you reward your collaborators, you identify your collaborators, and get them to lead those sorts of processes. I think a second blocker is a kind of occasional tendency to to transport as a technical issue, primarily, modelling, forecasting, technical design. Well, that's what I do. I'm sure. And it's critical and phenomenal technical skills in the industry, right. But ultimately, a lot of what we need to decide to in transport is political. It's about priorities, where are we going to spend our money? Who gets priority on the network? What's it going to cost? How easy should it be? How difficult should it be? And so I think making sure that the people involved in the process of planning, delivering and operatoring transport are aware of the fact that in the end, a lot of which will come down to both big and small p politics is really, really important. So the business case is, you know, unarguable. Yeah, it might be but the mayor doesn't want it, you know, or the mayor does want it. So you know, so I think being really, really explicit about the human factors part of a bit like the silos point of the human factors of what is otherwise a very complex technical question, I think is really important.
Ayo Abbas 11:56
For
Ayo Abbas 11:57
a technical specialist, for example, is there something that they could do to be more aware? Or, you know, like, is there any advice on that side? Because I know what you mean, I've worked with those types of people.
Ben Plowden 12:06
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I teach on the MSc programme at UCL. And a lot of the grads on that programme are highly technical. They're mathematicians, they're engineers. They're statisticians, and who are sort of moving towards planning and and I always start emphasising, whenever I'm lecturing. In the end, a lot of the things that you are supporting will be politically determined. So you almost need to sort of train people, I think, including in the professional, the technical disciplines to understand that they will ultimately be working in a political context. And when things happen that surprised them from a technical point of view. That's not because the technical work wasn't good. It's just that the decision was taken for political reasons.
Ayo Abbas 12:51
Reason. Yeah,
Ben Plowden 12:52
exactly. So you sort of need really, really good technical inputs as a sort of necessary condition for getting the right outcomes. But I think a sufficient condition is actually to have that awareness of the political context in which these decisions are almost certainly going to be made. And then the third thing I'd say is, you know, as we were just discussing, because the difficult stuff takes time to do big projects, enabling changes in the pattern of people travel to how people choose to travel, it's trying to be as clear as possible, and how to both create and maintain consensus over over quite extended periods. And again, easy to say, in practice can be very difficult to do, not least, because of the second point that I made, which is about the politics of all this, so, but I think recognising that decisions, you know, commitments, and the delivery of commitments can take quite a long time to do. And therefore working really, really hard to make sure that you're maintaining the consensus that you've built up, I think, is really, really important.
Ayo Abbas 13:55
And that's a really great point. And so I think as well, that whole thing of keeping people keeping them keeping the people involved or delivering these projects aware of the wider the wider context is so important, because it's like, this is what you're feeding into. And this is why we need to do it in this particular way. Because it's just been able to negotiate, I guess, navigate that and keep going and not give up because of it. Yeah, yeah. That's brilliant. Okay. And also, so is we've talked about the political side. Now, is there a way that the private sector can kind of do more to make things happen in terms of delivering kind of wider infrastructure and interchange and integration?
Ben Plowden 14:29
Yeah, I think so I think the private sector has a critical role to play obviously, in both delivering and operating transport. They have key skills and capabilities to bring to bear to these processes. And there needs to be a really strong and positive relationship between public and private sectors. And again, if you I mean, again, without obsessing about London, if you look at the London model, all the public transport in London apart from the underground is provided by private operators under various forms of contracts and concession So the buses Crossrail, London Overground the DLR. But their services are provided by private companies within a policy and regulatory and operational framework defined by the public sector, in this case, the mayor and Transport for London. So Transport for London specifies what services the bus companies need to provide. And the companies then bid to operate those services and then make a profit in doing so. So so that's a really good example of and that's what the franchising model will be in cities like Manchester, who are now taking that approach as well. That's a really good example of a really good, I think, working partnership between the two sectors, bringing it bringing their respective skills and priorities to bear. The same is true obviously, in infrastructure delivery, it's almost always done by private contractors. But they're delivering projects that are designed to be, you know, for the public good in the for the public purpose. And they will obviously bring their skills, delivery skills and commercial skills to bear on that process. And there's obviously a huge amount of innovation going on the private sector as well. So a really good example of where that works is, is what's called the London data store, where TfL puts all its operational data into a basically a data store, where it's then pulled on by app developers to produce Citymapper, all the other apps that people use, so they're basically using public data to produce apps, which customers can then use, and, again, is a really good example of using public resources, coupled with private sector innovation, to give customers really powerful tools that they use in making everyday journeys. So I think that that partnership, where the two sectors bring their respective skills and priorities to bear is really important. But it's not just the private sector. Clearly, there are the universities involved with huge knowledge and expertise in in all these issues. There's the voluntary sector, the NGOs, who I think have really bought their community organisations and as you said a minute ago, sort of making sure that it was a horribly sort of cliched phrase, all the key stakeholders are properly engaged in the process of thinking about what transport system we need, and how to produce it and how to operate it, I think is really, really important.
Ayo Abbas 17:08
Yeah, I think it's breaking the silos as much as you can just be focused, this is what I do. And it's just like, you can see where it's going wrong. It's like, well, actually, for doing this, we do together, make it better for the people. And I think that's the bit that's missing.
Ben Plowden 17:22
Yeah, and I guess my point out, when I started, if you if you work back from the outcomes you want from your customers, they don't care who's in charge or with it, or who paid for it, they want to know that when they set off, they're going to make a seamless, integrated, affordable, accessible journey from where they are to where they want to go. Right. So and so used to work back. So how do we how do the various actors involved give customers that experience?
Ayo Abbas 17:48
Do you think that we're actually geared up enough towards thinking about customers? You know, like, because they are our ultimate thing? Are we?
Ben Plowden 17:57
Not always, I think it'd be fair to say, and I think that you know, you will probably view the world through the prism of your role or your organisation. Right? So it can be quite difficult sometimes to work back and say, but who is what is what, who is? Who this ultimately for the thing I'm doing? And what do they want? And how much do I know about what they want the need? So I think sort of making all the people involved in this process, aware of, ultimately what we want for customers and end users is really, really important. And that can be quite difficult to do if you're buried, if you're deeply involved in some technical function in a infrastructure delivery organisation, you probably feel quite a long way from somebody trying to get their kids to school, right? So. So I think trying to work out how to how to sort of bring that awareness inside the organisation is doing this amazing stuff in terms of transport infrastructure operations is really, really important as far as we can.
Ayo Abbas 18:59
The human side, isn't it? It's the human side of the people, we're gonna be using it as how do you do that? It makes your decisions. I guess it helps you. I'm just reflecting on your role, at the kind of transport planning society as chair. So how important is it to you that we've kind of developed a more integrated approach to infrastructure delivery in the planning profession,
Ben Plowden 19:18
I think is absolutely critical. Because if you are able to develop an integrated approach to planning, delivering operations to transport, you will just get better outcomes for individuals using the system for society as a whole. If we want to decarbonize transport, which we emphatically must look, look around you all over the world, that's the size of the climate emergency are already upon us. We have to create the kind of system that will enable people to make decarbonized journeys. You know, increasingly, you know, do more locally if they can to access good services and opportunities. When they do need to travel longer distances. Do that in a way which has minimal zero carbon emissions. And it's it's very hard to imagine how you can create that system in a way which is not integrated from planning, right the way through to delivery in operation. And again, you know, it can be done. It requires I think. So thinking very carefully about the kind of institutional arrangements around your transport system. What do I mean by that? If you have a decision making process that is fragmented, where you've got multiple decision makers with competing priorities, where the organisation that you're working with are not sort of don't think in a planned integrated way, it's much more difficult to provide integrated system. So I think that's why a lot of thought is going into, for example, the new city regions, what kind of organisations they need to be to plan, deliver and operate integrated transport for their communities? So I think it's very important to say, again, to think about sort of, what is the system that you're using to provide your transport system? And how well designed is that system? So it's not the transport system itself is actually the organisations that are responsible for planning different operating system? And the more integrated they are, the more they think, from a customer focus, the more they think, because as a single entity, the more likely you are to get a better outcome. Yeah.
Ayo Abbas 21:17
Okay. So my final question for you is, in the ideal world, what would you see integrated transport infrastructure looking like by 2035? I don't know. That's far enough. But you know,
Ben Plowden 21:28
yeah, well, no, we want to say nothing else, we need to be well, on the way to decarbonize. And by then, don't we all the evidence? So I think I would, again, sort of work back from where I started. We need to think what kind of society do we want to live in? Right? What kind of society and economy do we want? How are we going to decarbonize? What kind of places do we want to live, work and play in. And that, by definition, needs to be a decarbonized society. Because if not, we're in serious, serious trouble, it needs to be one was tackled the kind of systemic inequalities between households and regions, the whole kind of levelling up agenda. It needs to be supporting sustainable social economic development. So that's the outcome, what for society? What kind of transport system do we need to create that cut or bring about that kind of society, and it does need to be integrated in terms of planning, it needs to start from the user perspective, it needs to be accessible, it needs to be easy to understand and use, it needs to be affordable. And so if we work back from those of the transport outputs we want, we then think about what kind of organisations do we need? What kind of planning process do we need to create the kind of system that will give us those kinds of societal outcomes? And that's why I, you know, I'm very interested in the sort of first question of the issue around what are the institutions like that are doing this stuff? And are they well designed and set up to do to produce the transport system that will give us those sorts of positive societal outcomes. But But I think we do need to work back from the the society we want, whether nationally or locally, to the transport system, we need to the processes and institutions we need to produce that system. And that's just the kind of macro version of starting with the user in mind. What does a citizen in 2035 will need and want for their transport system, how we're going to provide it for him or her. And I think if you think about this as a system of systems, which is quite difficult to do, then you're much more likely to be able to produce the outcomes that you need for for everyone.
Ayo Abbas 23:25
Fantastic. Thanks so much for your time and being in the interview. My pleasure. Thanks for listening to interchange. And remember, it's not just a podcast interchange as much more. It's also a two day major exhibition and conference taking place on February the 27th and 28th in Manchester Central, head to www.-uk.com. to find out more.
