Learning from the Best and Worst: Problems, Prospects and Policy Implications from Global Benchmarking of Urban Passenger Transport Sustainability in Greater Manchester and the Leicester Metropolitan Area, UK
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Literature Review of the Background and Utility of Comparative Cities Research on Automobile Dependence
2.1. General Background
“In general, benchmarking is considered as a systematic tool that allows an organization to determine whether its performance of organizational processes and activities represents its best practices…The benchmarking should answer:—What are benchmark’s partners doing that you are not doing? What can you do to achieve similar and still better results? Realization of benchmarking is a very complex process that includes understanding of one’s own organization and performance, and identifying and learning from best practices of other organizations…”
2.2. Selected Previous Findings on Key Comparative Indicators Central to This Study
3. Methodology
3.1. A Brief History of This Paper’s Global Cities Comparative Research
- Stage I: 1978 to 1981
- Stage II: 1982 to 1984
- Stage III: 1985 to 1991
- Stage IV: 1992 to 1997
- Stage V: 1998 to 2002
- Stage VI: 2003 to 2015
- Stage VI: 2016 to present
3.2. Background of the Paper’s Global Cities Data Collection
3.3. The Current Study
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Items 32 to 35 are essential in depicting the overall modal split of daily trips in cities, especially since they add the only data on walking and cycling trips in this study. With extra work, the average walking and cycling trip distances can be collected to calculate passenger kilometres, which can then be combined with cars, motorcycles and public transport passenger kilometres to produce an alternative modal split picture for all cities based on what percentage each mode contributes to total passenger movement. |
Land Use Category | Type | Comment |
---|---|---|
Agricultural | n/u | |
Meadows, pastures | n/u | |
Gardens, local parks | u | These areas are not generally built up, but in their size, they are too small and in their human recreational uses, they are too intense to qualify as genuine non-urban land. |
Regional scale parks | n/u | These are large, contiguous areas set aside within metropolitan areas for non-intensive or restricted recreational uses, water catchment functions, green belts, etc. |
Forest, urban forest | n/u | Urban forests are larger than parks and are often significant wildlife and forestry areas. |
Wasteland (natural) | n/u | This includes flood plains, rocky areas, and the like. |
Wasteland (urban) | u | This includes derelict land, culverts, etc. |
Transportation | u | Road area, railway land, airports, etc. |
Recreational | u, n/u | Depending on the intensity of use, this group can belong partly in either category. Golf courses are urban, as their use is intense. Mostly, recreational land is considered urban. |
Residential, industrial, offices, commercial, public utilities, hospitals, schools, cultural uses, sports grounds | u | |
Water surfaces | n/u |
4. Results and Analysis: An International Comparison of Greater Manchester and the Leicester Metropolitan Area with a Global Sample of Cities
4.1. Land Use, GDP and Private Transport Infrastructure Characteristics
4.1.1. Urban Density
4.1.2. Proportion of Jobs in the CBD
4.1.3. Metropolitan Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per Capita
4.1.4. Road Length per Capita and per Hectare
4.1.5. Freeway Length per Capita and per Hectare
4.1.6. Parking Spaces per 1000 CBD Jobs
4.1.7. Passenger Cars and Motorcycles per 1000 Persons
4.1.8. Average Road System Speed
4.2. Public Transport Infrastructure and Service
4.2.1. Public Transport Line Length per Person
4.2.2. Reserved Public Transport Route Length per 1000 Persons
4.2.3. Public Transport Vehicle Fleet per Person
4.2.4. Public Transport Vehicle Kilometres (VKT) of Service per Person
4.2.5. Public Transport Seat Kilometres (SKT) of Service per Person
4.2.6. Average Public Transport System Speed
4.3. Public Transport Use
4.3.1. Annual Public Transport Boardings per Person
4.3.2. Public Transport Passenger Kilometres per Person
4.3.3. Public Transport Vehicle Occupancy
4.3.4. Public Transport Seat Occupancy
4.4. Car and Motorcycle Use and Modal Split
4.4.1. Non-Motorised Modes Modal Share
4.4.2. Public Transport Modal Share
4.4.3. Modal Share by Private Transport Modes
4.4.4. Car Use per Person
4.4.5. Motorcycle Use per Person
4.5. Private–Public Transport Balance Indicators
4.5.1. Proportion of Total Motorised PKT on Public Transport
4.5.2. Public Versus Private Transport Average Speed
4.5.3. Reserved Public Transport Route Versus Freeways
4.6. Some Transport Outcomes
4.6.1. Private Passenger Transport Energy Use per Capita
4.6.2. Public Transport Energy Use per Capita
4.6.3. Transport Emissions per Capita and per Hectare
4.6.4. Transport Fatalities per 100,000 Persons
4.7. Some Economics of Public Transport
4.7.1. Public Transport Farebox Revenue per PKT
4.7.2. Public Transport Operating Cost per PKT and per VKT
4.7.3. Cost Recovery of Public Transport
4.7.4. Percentage of Metropolitan GDP Spent on Operating Public Transport
5. Discussion and Policy Implications
5.1. Discussion
- The length of freeway per person in both cities was only moderate.
- The parking supply in both cities’ CBDs was moderate and quite like other European cities. However, the percentage of metropolitan jobs located in the CBDs was very low compared to other European cities, suggesting much more job decentralisation which encourages car use.
- The percentage of daily trips by walking and cycling in both UK cities is similar and healthy, though it is below both the Swedish and other European cities. Of concern though is the fact that cycling represents only a very tiny fraction of non-motorised mobility in both UK cities, so that there is little substitution of car travel by bikes.
- Both cities have low public transport system coverage (line length per person) compared to other cities.
- They also have a low length of reserved public transport route per person, meaning that public transport infrastructure is generally not well-protected from traffic congestion because there are insufficient rail systems in both cities and very poor bus lane coverage.
- The per capita public transport service provision, both in vehicle kilometres and seat kilometres is very low, especially compared to their European neighbours, and this is particularly so considering their healthy urban densities are a sound pre-condition for offering greater service and in turn, higher use. In particular, there is a paucity of rail service.
- The relative speed of their public transport systems, speed competitiveness with the car being a major attraction of public transport where it exists [58], is below that of the Swedish cities and the European cities generally. This is especially so in LM. This inferior speed performance is despite their being more reserved public transport than freeways in both cities, but unfortunately, not enough in total.
- Especially problematic in GM and LM is that, despite these insufficiencies in the public transport system, the cost of public transport for the user was very high. Per boarding and per passenger kilometre, GM and LM had the most expensive public transport in the global sample.
- Both GM and LM raised the highest amount of farebox revenue per VKT of service offered compared to other cities. This is not because there is a high amount of usage per se, but rather because the level of service was low and the fares were high. From a societal perspective, a high amount of farebox revenue per VKT could only be considered a positive occurrence where the situation was the reverse—that is where service provision is high, and fares are low and the amount raised per VKT of service is high because the service attracts high use.
- Contrary to farebox revenue, the public transport operating costs per VKT provided and per PKT of usage were the lowest in all the groups of cities in the study. Low operating costs per vehicle km of service or passenger kilometre of use is not intrinsically a negative factor, but where it is low because employees are not fairly paid, or cost savings are being made to the detriment of service quality, then it is a negative result because it undermines usage and the perception of public transport in the community. This study has not been able to determine if either of these situations are prevalent in GM and LM, but further investigations are worthwhile.
- Linked to low operating costs, GM and LM have by far the lowest expenditure per capita on operating costs for public transport in the global sample, which appears to be because they do not have very high levels of service. Likewise, they spend the smallest percentage of their metropolitan GDP on providing public transport services, which appears more than anything else to be a lack of priority, rather than greater “efficiency”.
- High farebox revenue and low operating costs also reveal how GM and LM made public transport operating profits in 2016. None of the other city groups, apart from those in Asia, come close to such a result. But unlike in Asia, where operating profits reflect huge levels of usage in very dense environments, the profit in GM and LM is in the context of very low public transport use and what appears to be inferior public transport infrastructure and service, the latter reflected in low operating costs.
- Finally, the low amount of annual public transport energy use per person in GM and LM, the lowest in the global sample, continues to show a general paucity of public transport service in both cities and therefore not a positive. Consumption of energy in public transport can yield very high energy efficiency because of the high load factors that are possible per vehicle (cars have an annual average of about 1.3 to 1.5 persons per vehicle). Thus, in virtually every case, high per capita energy consumption in public transport is reflective of very high public transport service and use, which reduces car use and leads to a more sustainable city overall.
5.2. Policy Implications
6. Conclusions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
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Kenworthy, J.R. Learning from the Best and Worst: Problems, Prospects and Policy Implications from Global Benchmarking of Urban Passenger Transport Sustainability in Greater Manchester and the Leicester Metropolitan Area, UK. Urban Sci. 2025, 9, 370. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci9090370
Kenworthy JR. Learning from the Best and Worst: Problems, Prospects and Policy Implications from Global Benchmarking of Urban Passenger Transport Sustainability in Greater Manchester and the Leicester Metropolitan Area, UK. Urban Science. 2025; 9(9):370. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci9090370
Chicago/Turabian StyleKenworthy, Jeffrey R. 2025. "Learning from the Best and Worst: Problems, Prospects and Policy Implications from Global Benchmarking of Urban Passenger Transport Sustainability in Greater Manchester and the Leicester Metropolitan Area, UK" Urban Science 9, no. 9: 370. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci9090370
APA StyleKenworthy, J. R. (2025). Learning from the Best and Worst: Problems, Prospects and Policy Implications from Global Benchmarking of Urban Passenger Transport Sustainability in Greater Manchester and the Leicester Metropolitan Area, UK. Urban Science, 9(9), 370. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci9090370