The West Midlands Combined Authority (West Midlands) is an organisation that has jurisdiction covering seven contiguous local authorities in the United Kingdom. These local authorities are responsible for creating and carrying out transport policy. In contrast, the combined authority is responsible for developing an overarching strategic transport plan through its transport arm, Transport for West Midlands (TfWM). Birmingham is the largest city within the West Midlands and has a population of some 1.4 million people. The region has a multi-modal transport network that includes local rail, light rail (trams), and buses. There is a heavy reliance on journeys made by car, such that cycling accounts for only 2% of all journeys.
ROAD SAFETY SITUATION
In 2017, TfWM published its 10-year transport strategy for the region. This document set two important goals: a 40% reduction in FSI by 2028 and a commitment to tackle car dependency and increase the number of journeys carried out by active travel. Sixty-four per cent of people killed or seriously injured were pedestrians, cyclists, or motorcyclists at that time. It is entirely plausible for the local authorities to pursue either goal in a way that proves counterproductive to achieving the other. For example, a scheme that increases the number of cyclists without fundamentally changing the underlying nature of the infrastructure (e.g. through incentives or punitive measures) will inevitably lead to an increase in casualties. The real challenge for the West Midlands is to reduce car dependency without leading to an increase in casualties by tackling the emerging risk from the existing infrastructure.
PILOT SCOPE: SPEED LIMIT REDUCTION
Reduction of speed limits on all 40mp/h roads
There were 27 roads with a speed limit of 40 mph at the start of the project, 24 of which were reduced to 30 mph by December 2025. PHOEBE looked at the impact of the proposed changes in terms of the effects on both road risk and traffic. What would be the impact on active travel? Which road users would benefit the most in terms of any improvement in safety? How much safer will these routes become?
ASSESSMENT OF NEW CYCLE ROUTES
Since the 1970s, local governments have created new cycle lanes by marking additional white lines onto the surface of the road carriageway in an attempt to give dedicated space to cyclists. However, these cycle lanes offered no physical protection to cyclists, and their use relied on the drivers of motor vehicles to observe and then respect the cycle lane. Adhering to the segmentation of the road could be challenging for drivers, particularly when the lane markings were obscured (weather, leaves, erosion, lack of street lighting).
Crucially, it has been demonstrated that there is a significant increase in risk associated with the presence of painted cycle lanes. In 2020, the UK government implemented a massive shift regarding the implementation of cycle lanes, through the policy document LTN 1/20, which mandates that all new cycle lanes should be physically separated from the rest of the traffic. Birmingham has started to implement such ‘cycle super highways’ along several of the major arterial routes into the city centre, most notably along the A38 corridor that connects the University of Birmingham and its environs to the city centre.
The successful implementation of some new cycle lanes, the planned delivery of others, and the potential for an abundance of such schemes to be implemented across the region in future, means that this was the ideal time to ask the question as to how much these new cycle lanes improve the safety of cyclists, and to what extent do we expect people to change to using cycles after the cycle lane becomes available?
ACHIEVEMENTS
Application of the PHOEBE framework determined that the reduction in speed limits should lead to a 47% reduction in fatalities and severe injuries, with a significant improvement for the safety of pedestrians. However, this safety improvement is accompanied by a 20% increase in travel time, but this is within expectations given a reduction in speed limit of 25%. Improvements to travel time would occur if there was a significant reduction in the number of vehicles using the road in a scenario where congestion occurs, leading to vehicles travelling significantly under the speed limit in the initial scenario.
The analysis of the new cycle lanes was augmented by additional analysis provided by a CycleRAP survey that compared the carriageway with the adjacent, segmented cycle lane. These results suggest that the addition of the cycle lane should produce a two-thirds reduction in the annual number of casualties along the route and an increase in the number of cycle and micromobility trips by a factor of three. These results should give policymakers the confidence to deploy similar schemes across the region.
