If you are one of the thousands of drivers who has to fork out £5 a day for the London congestion charge, at some point or other you’ve probably cursed Ken Livingstone, the capital’s mayor.
This is an understandable reaction, but the man who dreamt up the scheme and was responsible for making it work was not Livingstone but Derek Turner, a 51-year-old transport engineer. You may have glimpsed him hovering unnoticed behind Livingstone in those photos of the mayor proudly pointing to red lines on maps of London. However, to most drivers he remains unknown.
Now, in a move that probably spells the beginning of the end for toll-free urban driving, Turner has quit his job as managing director of Transport for London, the mayor’s transport executive, and has become a sort of congestion charge missionary, spreading the gospel of traffic control to anyone who will listen and pay his consulting fees. With his assistance, charging zones are spreading across Britain and the world.
British and Irish cities that are already planning congestion zones include Cardiff — one of Turner’s clients — and Dublin, Edinburgh and Bristol with whom he is negotiating.
Countries as far away as Brazil and New Zealand have also approached him for advice: Sao Paulo is preparing for London-style charging and Turner has joined a consortium expected to be appointed to design a charging scheme for Auckland. Stockholm, the Swedish capital, is also pressing ahead with a congestion scheme designed by Turner.
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Derek Turner Consulting has become a fast-growing and lucrative business for a man who admits that he had no ambitions to be anything other than a public servant until he turned 50. Turner, who drives a Toyota Celica but only brings it into London on weekends, says all big cities across the world will sooner or later submit to the inevitable logic of congestion charging.
“We have reached a stage in urban transport where you can’t build your way out of the problem,” he says. “You need to look at the demand management side of the equation, and that is something we have hitherto ignored.” In other words, drivers must be forced to pay.
“London has demonstrated a scheme of charging that is feasible and produces results. It has reduced traffic and improved journey times,” says Turner. It has also been good news for companies such as Capita, which built and operated the London charging network, and for IBM, which has been appointed to build Stockholm’s system.
Congestion charging is suddenly a growth industry and Turner’s consultancy is flourishing. He has just returned from Denmark where the idea of charges in Copenhagen was discussed.
Each day he catches the train from his home in north Kent into Victoria and walks to his office. And this is the solution he says other drivers should adopt if they don’t want to pay the charge. The Department for Transport, which notably sat on the fence while the London charging plan was being brought in, is now encouraging other British cities to follow suit. It wants local urban authorities to come up with their own plans based on the Review of Charging Options in London (Rocol), which Turner wrote and is now the textbook on the subject.
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Meanwhile, the London charging area is set to double in size and take in a large chunk of the West End’s commercial and residential sectors, much to the annoyance of the well-heeled residents of Kensington and Chelsea who have led a vocal campaign against it.
Once again, the brains behind the extended London charging zone was Turner. “It is true to say it wasn’t Ken’s idea but it wouldn’t have been introduced without him because it needed political support and drive,” he says. “Ken has credited me with being the architect of the scheme and it’s true, though I actually prefer being called the engineer.”
Like it or loathe it, the congestion charge is catching on.
WHO’S NEXT?
Derek Turner is now working on congestion charge projects for:
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Cardiff
Dublin
Bristol
Edinburgh
Stockholm
Auckland
Sao Paulo
Copenhagen