On June 25 th a distinguished group of influential local councillors and planners went on a fact-finding tour of Oxford as guests of the Stratford-upon-Avon Society’s Transport Group. Oxford had been chosen for the visit because it was the first city in the country to introduce Park & Ride and, although much larger than Stratford, it offered an interesting insight into the successes and failures of its traffic policies and the way in which its transport policies are closely linked to town centre management.

The party was received at the Oxford town hall by the city centre manager, Marcus Lapthorn, who gave a presentation on the national Town Centre Management movement which now has 275 town centre managers as members throughout the country. His own position, funded by the University, Oxford City Council and private business, obviously needed sophisticated negotiating skills and he saw himself as a catalyst for change and a bridge between the public and private sectors. His main areas of involvement were in development of the Oxford Transport Strategy and in tackling crime issues, environment, investment, marketing and monitoring.

Roger Williams, consultant to Oxfordshire County Council and former chief transport planner, was the second speaker. He pointed out that Oxford had benefited from a bypass built in the 1960s, but that the planned inner relief road – which should have taken traffic out of the town centre – had not been built. But for this, Oxford would by now be fully pedestrianised, instead of having a slightly unhappy mix of pedestrians and buses using central area streets.

Park & Ride started in 1972 with one 500-space car park. Today there are 4,000 spaces in four P&Rs sites and two (both located in the green belt) are shortly due to be doubled in size. The scheme has considerable public support, since it costs only 50p to park all day, together with £1.50 return fare on the shuttle bus which has full wheel chair access. The car parks furthermore provide 24 hour security. This compares with city centre parking charges of £1.50 for one hour, £2.50 for two hours, and £15 for all day. The objective of these escalating charges was to free up town centre parking spaces for short-stay users, while encouraging long-stay users to use P&R.

The impact of these measures has been impressive – 1.3 million cars per year kept out of the city centre and, after an initial subsidy, all P&R services now operate commercially. There are 20 per cent fewer people travelling through the city centre in cars and bus usage has increased by over 85 per cent in 12 years. Because of the pro-bus environment, bus companies have invested in new, low floor busses with low polluting engines. On average, busses are now only 3 to 4 years old.

A further measure which helped to relieve congestion in the city centre, was a restriction on delivery hours between 10am and 4.30pm. Although there had been some complaints from the smaller traders, there was no evidence that any of the measures taken had deterred investment in the city centre.

After the presentations the party took a ride on a P&R bus to see how they operated, how a listed bridge had been widened to safely accommodate pedestrians, and how traffic lights had been used to provide bus priority in a narrow street. The group lunched at St Edmund Hall where they were joined by Deborah Dance, secretary to the Oxford Preservation Trust, Tony Joyce, chairman of the Oxford Civic Society and the city’s tourism manager Jan Hull who, with Roger Williams, took the group on a walkabout of the city centre before the group returned to Stratford.