Passenger transport in the UK 1920–1950: The drive for ‘co-ordination’ of transport modes

Abstract

The development of the railway system transformed travel opportunities for people in the nineteenth century. The technological change dominating personal travel in the twentieth century was the development of the internal combustion engine bringing first the private car and then the motor bus. The early twentieth century brought a tension between these two modes in an environment where the UK railways were highly regulated whereas the upsurge of motor traffic was in contrast unregulated. Importantly too, the capital structure of the two modes was quite different. The railways required significant investment, funded by private capital whereas the motor industry, as it became technically efficient, was within the means of individual entrepreneurs. This paper looks at the way in which transport policy sought to resolve this tension by the proposition of legislation to promote co-ordination and integration. Initially the approach to ‘transport problem’ was on a mode by mode basis (railways and then motor buses) but after World War II, nationalisation tried to consider a more holistic approach. The paper identifies the way in which the UK appears to have developed differently from its European neighbours and identifies as a critical point that UK policy was always clouded by a discussion of ownership and the role that this played in the ability to ‘co-ordinate’ or ‘integrate’ transport services.