Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry Day 22
June 11 2014
The Enquiry was taken up today with cross examining the
evidence of Mr Paul Hanson who is responsible for the traffic modelling used in
the NGT case. The lengthy introduction
of the case with Neil Cameron QC taking him through began on the previous day
and continued until about half way through the early afternoon session, when
Professor Peter Bonsall for the North West Leeds Transport Forum took up the
cross examination of the Statement of Case for the remaining one and a half
sessions of the day.
Audios of all sessions are linked below, and my commentary
follows at the bottom of these.
In the first morning session of
day 22 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, June 11 2014, after a long preamble
about late submission of documents, Mr Paul Hanson, expert in traffic modelling
continues with his summary Proofs of Evidence under the guidance of Mr Neil
Cameron QC
In the late morning session of
day 22 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, June 11, Neil Cameron QC continues to
take Mr Paul Hanson through the immensely complicated modelling process for
traffic, buses, cars and people as it relates to the proposed NGT trolleybus
system.
In the early afternoon session of
day 22 at the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, June 11 2014, Neil Cameron QC concludes his introduction of Mr Paul
Hanson and his evidence regarding traffic modelling and is followed by Emeritus
Professor of Transport Studies who begins to examine the entire modelling structure upon which so much of
the Applicant's test depends.
In the final session of day 22 of
the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, June 11 2014, Professor Peter Bonsall
continues to examine the traffic modelling of the NGT system as it is presented
and proposed by Mr Paul Hanson.
The evidence today was immensely
technical and to be honest, as a layperson, I don’t really understand a lot of
it as it was presented by Mr Hanson.
However, this problem is almost
entirely relieved by the fact that Professor Bonsall, Emeritus Professor of
Transport studies does, and went through it with a fine toothed comb drawing
attention to a huge number of inadequacies and failures in methodology.
I would of course recommend
listening to the second part of the early afternoon session and the final
session in its entirety to grasp the full extent of this, but I will pick on a
few points which were the most accessible to me.
For a start, the Professor
established that without other tools to back it up, significant parts of the
modelling, especially of claimed economic benefits were not fit for
purpose.
As something of a student of non
verbal behaviour and communication it was quite interesting to watch how
defensive Mr Hanson’s body language became for a substantial section of the
cross examination. Hands pressed
together in front of him, even held in front of his face, as his voice became
almost inaudible at times, and most obviously, he frequently paused giving no
answer, looking, dare I say, almost imploringly to the Inspector as if he was
begging to be let off, which I hardly need say, was never going to happen. This was one cross examination where a
webcam livestream would have been worth having, but you can doubtless pick up
something of this from the long silences on the audio recordings.
Since so much of the evidence
examined today was of a highly technical nature I will concentrate on one
example which is one which affects me on my own bus journeys, is highly
relevant to the whole of Headingley and which I think is easily understood.
The evidence claimed that people
in the zone from Shaw Lane to Queenswood Drive would be likely to travel to the
Headingley Hill NGT stop to go into town.
Professor Bonsall asked if this stop was not nearest for anyone in this
area and it was agreed that it was not.
So we are left to answer why it was chosen? Even were the NGT route to be implemented, the nearest trolleybus
stop for this area would be at Wood Lane.
However for most people in a large part of this area the nearest bus
stops would be either on Queenswood Drive or Kirkstall Lane. The idea that someone living between the
cricket ground and Queenswood Drive would walk the best part of a mile so that
they could access the ‘higher quality’ of a trolleybus rather than wait a few
minutes for a no.56 or 19 bus is not credible, and the Professor demonstrated
this to my satisfaction at least, being the kind of bus user that he was
describing.
It is about a twenty minute walk
from the junction of Queenswood Drive and Kirkstall Lane to St Michael’s and a
few minutes more to Headingley Hill and I rarely walk that distance. The buses that go from here to town via
Cardigan Road are extremely frequent and there is a choice of two routes, one
via Hyde Park and the University, the other via Burley Road. No-one from this area would walk that extra
distance to Headingley Hill, especially in the winter, for a trolleybus which
cost more, as it could well do, and on which one would have to stand.
Mr Hanson had all sorts of models
claiming that people would balance all these different factors and make the
shift to the trolleybus, but he had to admit that the modelling on examples such
as this one had not been done as well as it might. More likely got it completely wrong.
There was one example which
Professor Bonsall drew attention to which had been in error until he and his
colleagues at the NWLTF drew the attention of NGT to it. Mr Hanson replied that he thought it was
something his team would have picked up on shortly even if others had not
brought their attention to it.
This is immensely sloppy thinking
and if only half of the examples detailed by Professor Bonsall are as he said
they were, then the NGT modelling is in big trouble. And I’m inclined to think that the Professor has a rather better
score than 50%
The last couple of hours of this
day are the kind of material that really repays close listening. It is telling that a retired professor in
this somewhat recherché subject is prepared to focus his considerable skills
and lifetime experience on this subject which he seems to understand better
than his quarry.
A point that had occurred to me
but which I didn’t really know where to apply was the fact, returning to
Headingley Hill stop, that this location is not close to a centre of population
but is rather on the edge. People get
on the bus at St Michael’s / Original Oak or the Arndale Centre. There is a bus stop on Headingley Hill, but
it is not one that gets massive use.
Simply put, to design a stop for this location is not smart
thinking. It would involve longer walks
to the stop than people are used to. It
would be a poor efficiency stop.
A question that the reader and
listener will have to ask themselves is whether this is mere incompetence or
whether Mr Hanson and his colleagues have purposely attempted to back engineer
their models to fit the desired results.
As always, you decide, after listening to the cross examination. I couldn’t possibly comment.
As with so many factors in this
whole scheme, we see again and again how poor the planning and preparation has
been, flaws and holes being picked in it left right and centre. Professor Bonsall still has several more
hours of examination left, and one suspects that he may well save the best for
last. Mr Jones QC has not yet examined
this witness either. Between these two
gentlemen both at the top of their respective professions I would not like to
be in the shoes of Mr Hanson having to face examination on what has already
been demonstrated to have many shortcomings.
*
For those who may have missed the video I made of the social impact the trolleybus scheme would have I include the link again today.
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