This paper examines and makes ten and twenty year forecasts concerning whether, and if so how, the increased use of telecommunications, through various forms of teleworking generally and through telecommuting at home, will take traffic off overcrowded UK roads, to the benefit of all travellers and road users, including pedestrians. Traffic decongestion, particularly at peak hours, has long been a claimed benefit of teleworking or telecommuting. CATRAL, a local authority department in Paris, responsible for such issues in the Ile de France (greater Paris area) reports that taking just 3% of commuters off the roads enables peak hour traffic to flow, rather than to queue, on the vital Route Peripherique. The same equation may also work for London’s M25 and inner ring roads. The required 3% reduction might be provided by increased teleworking in the next few years. The next two decades could bring radical changes and improvements in commuting, travelling and working.

2. Executive Summary of the Report

The forecast increase in road traffic will overwhelm any electronic tools that might be used to control traffic flows. Gridlock is a real possibility unless fundamental changes occur in the coming 15 years.

3. Background

3.1.1 ROAD USERS

The methodology and focal points for these forecasts are potentially very diverse. Roads and other transport routes are open to and used by all citizens and foreign visitors. Numerous special interest groups exist; for example the RAC and AA have millions of business and family car and commercial vehicle using members; the Road Haulage Association speaks for thousands of large commercial vehicle owners; Bus companies ably represent themselves and compete for road space with car and lorry uers; there are cyclists’ national associations and local clubs; and pedestrians are by far the most numerous yet least represented of all road users. Road and transport planning, building and maintenance public authorities abound, complemented by thousands of civil engineers and consultants ranging from international companies to small local firms, all existing to serve road users.

3.1.2 LINKED SYSTEMS

Road usage and car commuting cannot be considered without reference to trains, buses, taxis, London Underground, Manchester MetroLink, air traffic, boats, ferries, liners and other systems which feed into the road system. Forecasts of road use must take a broad view of the integrated transport system; involving user groups and transport organisations. Integrated systems, bringing less costly and more rapid journeys to the wider population could encourage more use of roads in the future.

3.1.3 VEHICLES EVOLUTION

The pressures on road and other transport networks worldwide has given rise to some radical decisions (California Clean Air Act) and much speculation concerning new modes of transport. This report needs to acknowledge the possible changes to vehicles and their propulsion methods and the impact these may have on journeys.

3.1.4 TELE-TOOLS, MEETINGS & MAIL

The report examines current and predicts future use of telephone networks and the myriad peripherals now widely available. Telecommunications improve almost daily and the majority of business road travellers are aware of and are users of the new tools. Telephone connections are ubiquitous; most UK homes and business premises now have one or more lines. Call or transmission charges decrease relative to incomes year by year, so that most citizens now use the telephone regularly, in contrast to ten years ago when telephone calls were, for many people, too expensive. Consequently, commercial use of telephones has exploded as the availablity (price and improved technology) has increased - putting customers in touch with suppliers of goods and services. Most organisations now regard incoming and outgoing calls as their lifeblood, with a marked shift from the past reliance on meetings and the Royal Mail as the most authoritative business media, in days when telephone reception was regarded as an intrusion best left to the most junior staff to deal with.

3.1.5 VIP TELEPHONES

Today all modern organisations place telephone traffic at the top of the list of their tools for buying, selling and organising their affairs. Incoming Call Centre trained staff are vital for all but the most traditional, old established organisations. Marketing and Sales staff, trained to utilise telephone networks, now exist in most companies. They compete with mail order and retail units and some telecentres already command the largest share of the customers’ business. Giants such as Tesco’s insist all suppliers use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to receive Tesco purchase orders - tied to Just-In-Time stocks of goods; the costs to suppliers of installing and using EDI is handsomely offset by faster payment of bills, back over the same telephone system - not an invoice, delivery note, query, reminder, excuse or cheque sent by traditional mail.

3.1.6 TELEWORKERS’ MILEAGE

Telecommuting, or working from home by wire, started 25 years ago in California as a response to calls for cleaner air and traffic decongestion. The ranks of home based Telecommuters have been increased by many diverse new applications of telecommunications enabling people to work independently of fixed locations. For example hot-desking or desk sharing suits mobile auditors, engineers, managers and maintenance workers, who could not be defined as tele-working at home but who save substantial amounts of time, mostly road travel time, by relying more on computers and telephone networks. As a recognised work contract, teleworking dates back, in America and the UK, only to around 1990, when the telephone networks and peripherals, particularly the personal computer, became more compatible and came to be used by sufficient numbers to enable useful communications.

Debates and arguments about the traffic decongestion effects of the growing numbers of teleworkers have raged and will doubtless continue. Anecdotal evidence from individual telecommuters, at home, gives cause for optimism.[1] Consultants who used to clock up 40,000 miles every year, commuting and visiting clients, report annual mileage falling in their third and later years of telecommuting to 3-5,000 miles; as recorded on the car mileometer, indicating that family use of the car does not replace the previous high mileage. However, the increase in short journeys of less than one mile may be contributed to by teleworkers’ local work activities, or by the availability of their cars to their families. Teleworkers, not at home, such as mobile water engineers going from site to site, who previously commuted to depots to collect service vans, have saved almost all their commute miles and, by use of computer journey planning, significantly reduce their site-to-site mileage. [2]

3.1.7 FACTORIES - PERIPHERALS ON THE INTERNET

This report looks at the existing use and availabilty of communications technologies, predicts emerging technologies and extrapolates the use of such tools and methods into the future. The forecasts must take account of changes in society, work and employment as automation, often using the same advanced communication tools, replaces present tasks with new, more knowledge based work, perhaps less time consuming and less dependent on travel to central locations. It is not too futuristic to predict that in the next two decades many manufacturing units will become largely unmanned peripherals on the Internet and that most existing clerical desk jobs will be computerised, as seen in the reduction of employees in the financial services sector.

3.1.8 AUTOMATION - WORKING HARD TO ABOLISH WORK.

Automation and computerisation in factories and offices, will bring an end to hundreds of thousands of blue collar workers commuting to factories and an end to millions of white collar clerks commuting to central offices. But, new jobs, complex knowledge-rich jobs, will rapidly replace them.[3] The Industrial Revolution decimated cottage based craftwork, to the anger of the Luddites in the 18th Century, who were hell bent on wrecking the looms and other machines which displaced them. The wealth which that revolution brought transformed and liberated society and was the foundation of today’s industrial and science based economy. [4] It has helped to create the wealthiest society in history. Having worked hard to abolish work for several thousand years, society’s new problem is how might such wealth be properly distributed, as the necessity for survival work by human beings diminishes. The lesson of history is that new work; work of vocation and choice, and new types of jobs will emerge. The question for this report is what transport demands will accompany the changes and how will these affect the UK road system.

3.1.9 ALL CITIZENS TRAVEL

All citizens are road users. The moment we leave home and step across the boundary of our dwelling place, we join the road network. We all travel. To classify the travelling community into groups and types is endlessly complex. This report relies on good quality data - Who uses cars, vans, trucks, buses, bicycles and their own two feet - When do they use them - How many take the train, the bus, the travelator (moving pavement) - Are they acting as workers or students or tourists when they make these journeys - Who uses telecommunications, in what capacity and why. Is it business or work use, or is it for leisure - Is learning “work” or is it a hobby - Is shopping for necessities such as food a leisure pursuit or is it a necessity, and therefore work. The diverse statistics, are prepared by many different teams use differing definitions, categories and assumptions. To find a common and coherent theme, the basis this report adopts is taken from the individual and family view piont. It focuses on people, their lives and their business.

3.1.10 BUSINESS AND THE HOME

All travellers live somewhere. Even the homeless have an habitual place they occupy at night. The home dweller is at different times both the worker, who commutes on business, and the customer, who travels to shop at the supermarket. To harmonise a multitude of data on both travel and telecommunications, this report relates travel to the home, to the household unit, and looks at the journeys made to and from home, using the road network and other systems. It focuses on how we currently travel, the work and business that society requires to be done and where it is now and will be done, and our uses of telecommunications and extrapolates the business activities and road use into the future.

4. The Quiet Revolution

Improved and improving telecommunications, including the personal computer, main-frames and wireless or mobile tools, underlie the “Quiet Revolution” which is having three main effects:-

(1) The revolution enables and encourages teleworking, independent of physical presence at a central office, reducing the need to travel for business purposes.

(2) The new communications tools are being used to further automate and manage manufacturing units and, far more rapidly than happened in UK factories since 1950, they are being used to automate and manage white collar office functions.

(3) The same communication tools enable universal, affordable training, educating and informing of the general public,[5] equipping all for the complex knowledge-rich, high added value work people will do, as machines and computers take over the repetitive, dangerous and demeaning tasks still performed by some people. These necessary changes in our skills and tasks levels are the root cause of work stress and anxiety - all change, even change for the better, is threatening.

Fortunately for beleagured Luddites, the average time for a new invention to be mass produced, still stands at about 20 years; [6] but even two decades seems little enough time to adjust to the new regimes that innovations bring to and sometimes impose on society.

The methods used here for extrapolation are based on current data, examined in the light of the rate of historical business trends and societal change. The methods require many factors to be assessed and balanced. A multi-dimensional single table or graph illustrating all the factors, will not be possible to make, even with the most advanced computers, but as the human mind is infinitely more powerful and flexible than any computer, it can be set out here in several Tables and the overall impact extrapolated for human consumption:-

5. Road Space - The first axis

Details the current journeys made from and to home, the modes of transport, the distances travelled, the purpose of the journeys, the ages and types of people travelling, the congestion points where their journeys coincide, the complexity of and necessity for their tasks or liesure pursuits.

5.1.1.1 Table - All Journeys, average persons, per annum

Sources DoT Transport Statistics Report - July 1996

DoT Transport Statistics Great Britain 1996

The above table shows that the average UK citizen makes 1,052 journeys, including very short journeys, per year, or just under 3 journeys a day. Less than a third of these are on foot, and more than half are by car. The average UK citizen makes 196 work related journeys a year - but bearing in mind that only approximately one third are in the workforce, the average working person makes 355 commuting journeys a year - the standard work year is 240 days which would imply 480 commuting journeys each (there and back), but part-time, reduced days, term working and many other factors produce the lower figure.

5.1.2 Work Miles per annum

The average commuting distance travelled by workers in a year is 2,826 miles and the average business travel distance is 1,589 miles; totalling 4,415 miles per working person per annum. This total work travel mileage has increased from 3,666 miles in 1985 to 4,415 miles in 1995, a 20% increase on the 1985 figure; perhaps indicative of the availability of transport (cost and frequency), particularly of the car, and of a common perception by both employees and employers that location of homes and workplaces can be flexible and that the transport system will cope..

As shown in Table - Teleworkers and Telecommuters, below, the UK active workforce is deemed to be of the order of 26 million people. Assuming the travel statistics and workforce statistics used here share common accounting bases, the total business miles, including commuting miles but excluding goods transport, travelled by the whole UK workforce in a year (1995) calculates as 114,790,000,000 miles (114.8 billion miles).

The distance travelled by all citizens in a year can be extrapolated from the average recorded distance (1989/91) of 6.475 miles per annum multiplied by the population 28,717,000 people; totalling 185,942,570,000 miles (186 billion miles) per annum. The work related percentage of all UK travel is therefore 62%. [7]

The most common mode of travel is the car, used for 58.8% of all journeys (see above table). In simple terms - developed later in this report - of the 186 billion total miles travelled for all purposes, 58.8% represents 161 billion car miles a year. If spread evenly over the 365 days in each year, the daily road miles would be 441,000,000 (441 million) road miles a day. The average car makes 389 journeys a year (Table 6.1.1.1 above) or 1.065 a day, of approximately 9 miles. There are some 22 million cars/light vans in use. Extrapolating these averages - the equivalent of 22 m x 1.065 or 23.43 million car journeys travel 9 miles each day, (23.43 x 9 = 211 million road miles a day). The differences arises from the means of calculation and averaging. The higher daily mileage of 441 million road miles implies that 22 million cars/light vans each travel, on average 20 miles a day.

Central Statistical Office Figures show that in 1992 all vehicle miles per year were 408.8 billion kilometres or 254 billion miles, of which cars and light vans travelled 371.3 billion kilometres or 231 billion miles, the mileage for cars alone being 208 billion miles. Rounding out these figures, 161 billion by the first calculation and 208 billion by the second, and allowing for differences in methods and in the years studied (1992 and 1995), it seems safe to assume that all 22 million UK cars travel between 160 and 208 billion miles a year, say, 184 billion miles as the best estimate. The average car would therefore travel (184B/22m/365) 23 miles per average day of a 365 day year.

5.1.3 Road Space for Cars

Excluding minor, side roads, UK main roads are approximately 51,000 kilometres or 32,000 miles long, with an assumed 2 viable traffic lanes in each direction, this gives just 128,000 miles of main road traffic lanes, or 206,000 kilometres - capable of carrying at full capacity in both directions 12.8 million cars. At 5-10 mph each car occupies just 8 metres of road lane and, with no accidents or driver errors or delays, 25 million cars could crowd onto the UK main through routes at any one time. A convoy of 1,000 car commuters from say, Oxford to London, each occupying 16 metres, at an average speed of 30 mph, using 3 motorway lanes, forms a moving queue of 3.3 miles which when stationery is 0.8 miles long. [8]

5.1.3.1 - Table Miles per annum

Sources - DoT - Table 2B, Transport Statistics Report, National Travel Survey 1993/95

This table shows the average citizen from the UK’s total population of 58,395,000 (Key Data HMSO) travels 6,394 miles every year - 3,242 miles as a car driver, 2,016 miles as a car passenger etc. For work the average person (bearing in mind that only one third are workers) travels 1,906 miles a year, just 8 of those miles on foot. UK citizens walk a total of just 83 miles a year - or 400 yards a day and cycle 34 miles a year.

5.1.3.2 Table - Vehicles on an average day

Sources :- Transport Statistics of Great Britain 1996, DoT.

Transport Statistics Report - National Travel Survey 1993/95

Estimates and Calculations from other Tables in this paper.

This table indicates the high activity levels on UK roads, at all times of the day. Note that commuters and business travel vehicle numbers are overshadowed by leisure and internal tourism journeys by car. Despite many car drivers impressions to the contrary, there are less than half a million lorries and only 120,000 buses and coaches registered for road use. Compare these to over 20 million private cars. The ubiquitous trade and delivery vans number less than two and a half million - however, such vehicles, together with farm and other specialist work vehicles are in use for most of the time and, also due to their size, therefore occupy a larger share of the road system space than their numbers might indicate.

5.1.3.3 Table - Business Travel Destinations - Potential Gridlocks

Sources: - London Underground Fact Sheet

- Transport Statistics Great Britain - General & Cross Modal 1.25a

- Regional Trends 31 - labour force in employment 5.10

- Inland Revenue Statistics 1996 - 3.14

This table shows a total of 9.8 million commuter cars, plus 11,000 cars seeking London Underground car parks, 390,000 motor-bikes and 56,000 buses competing with 992,000 cyclists for road space at what might be assumed to be peak hours. Add in the commercial vans and lorries travelling at peak hours together with the school escort cars,[9] approximately a further 3 million cars on school days, and the total vehicles on main roads exceeds 13 million. Reference to the Gridlock table below, column 3, shows that over 10 million cars on the main roads network, notwithstanding concentrations around towns and cities, demands a speed of 20 mph down to 10 mph. These calculation confirm everyday experience of overcrowded roads, nearing gridlock in some urban areas and on motorway systems around large conurbations.

5.1.3.4 Table - GRIDLOCK CALCULATION

Source : SW2000 Telework Studies, Oxford

Car length - Small 150 inches - 381 centimetres - 3.81 metres

Medium 175 inch - 444 centimetres - 4.44 metres

Large 180 inches - 457 centimetres - 4.57 metres

Safe Distance - Car length 4.5 metres + 4.5 metres for each 10 mph.

to convert metres to yards x by 0.91 e.g. 22.5 metres = 18 yards.

“Safe” Distance is calculated as the customary UK, often unsafe, driving disances.

5.1.3.5 Table - National Gridlock - Filling All Main Roads

Using the GRIDLOCK formula, the number of cars required to bring the main road system to a halt can be extrapolated. Table 10.3 Page 187 of the National Statistics gives the following:-

Motorway :- 3,147 kilometres - assume 3 lanes in each direction; 6 lanes = 18,882 klm

Trunk :- 12,331 kilometres - assume 2 lanes in each direction;4 lanes = 49,324 klm

Prinicipal :- 35,696 kilometres - assume 1 lane in each direction; 2 lanes = 71,392 klm

Total Roads 51,174 kilometres TOTAL LANES 139,598 klm

31,785 miles convert to miles / 1.61 86,706 mls

Calculation by SW2000 Telework Studies, Oxford

The above table GRIDLOCK CALCULATION, shows that if all car owners are prepared to drive at 10 mph and to spread out evenly on all main roads regardless of direction, the existing main, through road system will accommodate 10.3 million average length cars. Approximately 25 million stationary cars would fill the entire system, in every road lane in every direction.

Clearly, the number of cars which can be accommodated and allow for useful average speeds, allow for common destinations, allow for accidents, breakdowns, allow for cars stopping, parking and other normal activities should be calculated from the 2nd column of this table - where some 7,700,000 (7.7 million) cars, at 30 miles an hour, fill the entire road system. To allow reasonable movement around the main roads, fewer cars than this, perhaps half the number, or around 4 million cars, would seem appropriate. With some 23 million cars registered for road use and with a workforce of some 25 million people, plus school escort journeys by car, the chances of national gridlock are increasing. Black spot gridlocks of local traffic have occurred in London and could happen again, - these are examined in detail below.

5.1.3.6 Table - A Typical Traffic Day - Where we travel and Why.

Note - some cars may be double or treble counted in this table because they are used for multiple purposes, for example for commuting and for school-runs, or for shopping and for leisure trips - or for any combinations of these. The table does however indicate the volume of car traffic using the roads on work-days and it is interesting to note that Busy-non-peak times may quite unpredictably find more cars making journeys than in the traditional peak rush hours. This accords with day to day experience when traffic jams occur at unexpected times of the work day, sometimes in the evening around and in London and at weekends as leisure traffic congregates on common destinations. The “rush-hour” may now occur anytime, several times a day, between 7am and 9pm in some regions. The unpredictability of these peak flows or jams is an argument for electronic monitoring of traffic flows and feedback to all car users - who may thereby be persuaded not to make a journey when conditions are bad.

This second table illustrates the potential gridlock implied by the traffic density shown above. Note that these gridlock calculations ignore heavy commercial vehicles, buses and other working vehicles such as street cleansers, which contribute to traffic jams. Working vehicles including company cars, are factored in to Tables below.

5.1.4 Working Vehicles use all major roads every workday

The complex statistics above show that of the 22 million cars registered to use the roads, some 2 million are company cars and in addition there are 2.5 million light vans and half a million lorries - in all 5 million “working” vehicles which might travel an average 60,000 miles a year and be on the roads on most work days, an average mileage of 232 miles a day per work vehicle, spending up to 8 hours a day on the road at an average 30 mph. At three vehicle lengths apart, as required by the Highway Code, plus the medium vehicle length of 4.5 metres, each working vehicle on average occupies 18 metres of road lane throughout the work day, consuming 90 thousand kilometres[10] of major road lanes; and, on the assumption that two lanes are viable in both directions, the work traffic consumes 22,500 kilometres of major roads, approximately half the total major roads, every hour of every work day.

There are also some 900,000 other work vehicles, including military vehicles, specialist vehicles such as mechanical diggers and 325,000 farm tractors, which use the main road system occasionally and contribute to traffic congestion. Allow space for buses and motor bikes on major roads and, when the commuters and school escort cars take to the roads, it is self evident and a common experience that the roads are already busy and are filled to over-capacity by the influx of peak hour travellers. Gridlock draws ever nearer.

The UK has more vehicles per kilometre of major roads than any other OECD country, twice as many for example than the USA and six times as many as Australia [11] . Londoners, occupying the most crowded UK city, use their cars half as often as other South-East residents and use their telephones 20% more than other UK residents [12]; perhaps indicating the way of the future.

5.1.4.1 Table - Local Gridlock - Morning Peak Hour Major Road Use.

Sources : Table 6.1.1.6 above

Transport Statistics of Great Britain 1996 Edition

Regional Trends 31 1996 Edition

Focus on London 97

The Economist Vital World Statistics

Annual Abstract of Statistics 1994

Key Data 1996 Edition

Oxford University Traffic Studies Unit, RAC Car Dependence Report 1995

BT’s Environmental Performance 1995\96

This table, calculated in kilometres of open or viable traffic lanes, demonstrates that where working vehicles travelling at an average 30 mph, including company cars for travellers, overlap in the morning peak hour with car commuters travelling at an average 18 mph and with school-run traffic which, however briefly, uses major roads, [13] the major roads are in most regions heavily over utilised and traffic must come to a halt or be reduced to very low speeds, increasing journey times, fuel burned and exhaust pollution. Note that this calculation predicts that Yorks/Humberside, East Midlands, East Anglia, the South East, West Midlands, and the North West are over utilised and must suffer near stoppages on most work days; Greater London has 7,160 kilometres of major roads and a morning demand for 15,298 kilometres - indicating that traffic cannot travel even at 18 mph and must often be at a standstill. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the traffic should usually flow at above 18 mph; in the North, the road capacity is just about sufficient to cope with peak demand.

The escape valves from gridlock are:- (1) This table assumes all company cars are working-vehicles whereas a percentage are actually commuter cars and some are school-run cars, thus double counting some work vehicles. (2) The road capacity grows as traffic slows, for example at 30 mph a car consumes 18 metres, at 18 mph it consumes 11 metres and at 5 mph it consumes little more than its own length or about 5 metres, three times less than at 30 mph, effectively increasing the road capacity by three - at crawling speed. (3) Some commute and school-run journeys are very short and do not use the major roads to any significant degree. (4) The assumption is that the average major road offers only two viable lanes in each direction - motorways often afford three lanes.

The factors compounding the danger of gridlock are:- (1) No allowance is made here for incidents such as breakdowns, accidents, unloading, parking and so on, which disrupt the smooth flow. (2) No allowance is made for specialist vehicles such as farm tractors, caravans, heavy loads and other large slow vehicles (3) No allowance is made for bad weather. (4) No allowance is made for the bottleneck effect of road works which allow only one viable lane. (5) This table assumes an even spread of traffic with no regard to the fact that most commuters and school-run cars travel into urban centres - to adjust for this factor, reduce the number of viable lanes available.

5.1.4.2 Table - Cars up 20% by 2007AD - Gridlock occurs.

If car ownership increases as predicted by the National Road Forecasts report, then the number of cars in the UK will increase by 20% by 2007AD. On present trends, this will reflect in 20% more car commuters and 20% more School-Run journeys. Applying these increases to the Gridlock calculations shows the major roads being filled to such a capacity that all traffic is brought to a standstill, unless the capacity of major roads is increased by at least the same percentage from 53,599 kilometres to 64,318 kilometres, adding 9,000 kilometres or 5,500 miles of major roads. The original cost of the 122 miles long M25 is reported to have been £1,000,000,000 (£1 billion) or £8 million per mile, expensive for its day due to the high land and compensation costs of the Home Counties and the costs have been added to ever since. However, road building is unlikely to be less expensive as the specification constantly rises. At £8 million per mile the budget for new major roads would need to be £44 billion - or 12.5 years of current levels Road Fund Taxes.

Calculation - Adding 20% to the commuter and school-run cars in the previous table.

This calculation demonstrates that if the new increased numbers of car owners, predicted for 2007AD, swell the numbers who commute and join the school-run by car, then the demand on the major road system grows to 281,505 kilometres of viable traffic lanes, or on the assumptions used of 2 lanes in each direction, a need for 70,376 kilometres of major roads - adding 16,777 kilometres to the existing system. These figures must be read with all the notes attaching to the previous table, above. The forecast assumes that working-vehicles, vans, trucks, lorries and commercial travelling compnay cars will not need to increase. Only Scotland and Northern Ireland do not need extra road space. See the notes on the previous table.

6. Technology - the second axis

Details current telecommunications equipment and use. The capacity of existing networks, wired and wireless; the ownership and use of computers, modems (mostly connecting to the Internet), use of faxes - the most user friendly of all modern communications, other communications equipment, the proliferation of SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) units and the incidence of telework; the people who use the equipment, why they use it - identifying work usage - and where they use it.

In a presentation to Telework and Information Society specialists in Brussels at La Borschette on 5th June 1997, Ms Manuela GELENG, DGV B, showed Charts and Statistics predicting that 1995 technology will, over the decade to 2005, be 90% superseded or outdated by new technology:-

6.1.1.1 Table - redundant technology up to 2005AD

Source DGV Brussels June 1997

However, the numbers trained to use these advanced communications technologies is predicted to grow only slowly from approximately 10% of the relevant workforce in 1995 to only 20% in 2005AD. The limitation to wider use being the investment into training.

6.1.1.2 Table - Trained by 2005 to use new equipment

Source DGV, Brussels, June 1997

While these EC predictions apply across all 15 Member States of the European Union, they are valuable in predicting a rapid evolution of technology which may also apply to the UK, possibly alienating the technophobic even further, and with a general lack of formal training, may limit the numbers who will use the equipment - though allowing for a doubling of present numbers.

6.1.1.3 User Friendly Products

It is at least equally probable that manufacturers and software writers, eager for the wider public to use their technologies will, in the coming decade, follow the evolution of the fax machine, which became one of the most user friendly desk-top communicators and is the most widely used form of advanced communications, and the Video Recorder, found in most homes and greatly simplified in use. Good technology design implies simplifying the equipment, not further obscuring it and thereby restricting its market.

7. Barriers - The third axis

Details impediments to business change; technophobia, traditional habitual methods, locked in traditional investment, the rate of new investment, costs to the individual, the fiscal environment, union and workforce attitudes, learning/teaching keyboard skills, communications fatigue, R&D limitations, and political will.

7.1.1.1 Table - Barriers to new work methods

Source:- DIPLOMAT project (EC, ACTS programme, 4th Framework)

The barrier of Traditional Work Practices, comprising 35% of the barriers to change in 1997, includes all the forces of conservatism including the “If it works don’t fix it” philosophy; managers’, workers’ and unions’ suspicions of too rapid a pace of change, the practicality of any greater rate of change, and other factors. The views expressed by Partners in the Diplomat project may not have anticipated a possible rapid evolution of more user friendly equipment, the pressure of new businesses based on flexible work forces being more efficient and therefore forcing change on traditional organisations and the upsurge which may occur as the NINTENDO GENERATION of computer trained youngsters gain influence in the workplace. It is notable that the UK telephone network is considered efficient, posing no barrier, and that Pleasurable Commuting journeys are considered unlikely. Similar views across Europe show no Pleasure in commuting whereas some less populated States in the USA have up to 5% score in this category; where it is still pleasant to drive to work

8. Jobs and Lifestyles - The fourth axis

Tracking the trends in lifestyle changes, work, jobs, employment, import and export of work, virtual teams, City scapes, continuous re-education (work or hobby?) - to determine geographically how and to where people will change the places they congregate to live and work, and therefore the impact on their travel patterns and modes.

8.1.1.1 Table: Teleworkers including Telecommuters

Note - The number of Personal Computers at home provides an upper limit logic check on the number of telecommuters who use a work-station, including a personal computer, at their homes. The number of teleworkers in this Table represents any-one-workday. A far larger number ocassionally telecommute at home (tacit telework); estimates made from counting empty desks in offices and deducting holidays, sickness, client visits etc. are as high as 10% of the office, desk using workforce, work at home using advanced communications on any-one-workday.

8.1.1.2 Table: Flexible Working - Inflexible Commuters

Note - More workers commute daily and at peak hours than the total shown on this table. This table identifies commuters who have least flexibility and choice in their commuting patterns. Not shown here is another inflexible commuting groups, namely schoolchildren escorted by parents in cars; inflexible because school start and finish times tend to be less flexible than some office and some other workplace times.

Logic check - The Inland Revenue 1994-95 tax returns (1996 Inland Revenue Statistics) list 3,750,000 self-employed tax payers, providing an upper guide on UK self-employed, excluding any significant numbers of black-economy workers who remain invisible to statistical counts. Some self-employed people also have employment.

8.1.1.3 Table: Type of Work at Home

Table compiled and recalculated from notes and graphs in Social Trends 25, Central Statistical Office 1995. The numbers of people in each category seem to be somewhat aribitrary, expressed as percentages of their own groups both self-employed and employed. The listing is useful in indicating the types of work which is done at or from home. The list appears to ignore the largest group, being several million people engaged in cottage industry and piece work, such as sewing, stuffing envelopes, packing etc. etc.

Source :Social Trends 25 - 1995 Central Statistical Office

9. Telework and Work Equipment

(telework at home, at the office, on the move, at customers, at telecentres, at the factory)

9.1 Brief overview and economic and cost/benefit summary

9.1.1 Table - Telework Telecommute - some international comparisons

10. Communications Technology

10.1 Brief History of communications for work and war

10.1.1 An hour with your Lawyer - comparative costs of meetings

We all love someone and love to spend as much time as possible with that special person. For some of us, its Mother, or Father or Girlfriend or Boyfriend; for John the hero of this example the special person is, naturally enough - the first choice for many of us, his lawyer. John lives in Oxford, 54 miles from the centre of London, and has an excellent legal adviser in a London, West-End firm, who charges only £135 an hour for advice. John earns £60,000 a year, self-employed, and works 1,900 hours a year, valuing his time at £31.50 an hour. In addition to the lawyers personal charms, the case is a lengthy one demanding many consultations giving John ample opportunity to try out all the options:-

10.1.1.1 Table - Meeting your Lawyer - comparative costs

Source:- SW2000 Telework Studies

This table provides many clues as to why the majority still insist on driving to meetings - even in the heart of London. Firstly, the time inclusive costs of driving compared to taking a bus in this example, differs by only £9 which is 3% of the full, real costs of the meeting. The convenience of door to door travel, carrying perhaps one or more heavy briefcases, a coat and an umbrella, often outweighs the 3% saving; which may in reality be swallowed up with taxi fares if the bus stop is not close to the office start point or destination. In business, time is money and the traveller’s time is crucial to the argument - which may work differently for tourist who are not pressed for time.

The Data transfer factor is also important to most people. The more critical the meeting, the more we wish to fully understand and know the adviser or adversary or customer. Human beings rely on their five senses, touch, sight, smell, hearing for full information about another and, most crucially in business, we rely on our sixth sense to give us confidence about the people we are meeting and the under-currents. Hence the Senses involved/Data transfer factor starts at 6 points for face to face meetings and reduces to a half point for Email contact - where not even the style of the people is indicated in the typeface. A value of limiting the data transfer to words and numbers is that it may become more objective and can be scrutinised at leisure.

John, the experimental client in this example, could perhaps get the best economic and business effect out of the series of meetings required by limiting the number of face to face meetings, using them to establish rapport and confidence, then relying on telecommunications for several months until he, or the lawyer, feels the need for another face to face. This sequence is not unlike many workers relationships with their office colleagues and managers. Most teleworkers find that face to face meetings are vital for communication but that they need only be held a few times a month:- for example when Lombard North Central financial analysts first started telecommuting in 1992, at their homes, the contract specifically stated they must attend central office at least once a week. Within a few weeks both the telecommuters and their managers found the face to face meetings unnecessary and hard to justify and the pattern was changed to meeting as and when needed [14].

The other clue to habitual business behaviour in the Table, is the comparison of non-time costs. Whilst the full cost of taking a car to London is £40-£50 if the standard rate per mile is applied, the marginal cost to one who already owns the car and has it standing outside the home, is the cost of fuel for a 110 mile round trip, at 30 mph, say 4 gallons or 18 litres costing less than £10 - cheaper than the bus fare. The cost of parking can be justified against the potential need to take a taxi.

10.2 Investment in wired and wireless networks

EC, UK and Private Sector

10.2.1 R&D Current Developments

10.2.2 The telephone - lifetime numbers - wireless, world wide

10.2.3 Computers - unbundling applications - user friendly peripherals

10.2.4 Fax Machines - printers - the miracles of paper technology

10.2.5 Cables - photonics - interactive TV (as videophones)

10.2.6 Broad Band - rapid transmission of data

10.2.7 Internet - a low cost global telephone network

10.2.8 Remote control - managing factories, cargoes and offices by wire

10.2.9 Transport systems controls

10.3 Future Uses - for Work - for Travel

11. Road and Rail Maintenance, Building and Investment

11.1.1 Transport Costs

Transport Minister Dr Gavin Strang is, in June 1997, reviewing the roads building programme inherited from the previous government, including those public/private partnerships proposed for six new roads. Dr Strang’s immediate attention is reported to be focused on 7% of the programme which would cost £1.2 billion which would pay the wages of 33,000 people for two years. This implies that the total proposed programme is £17 billion (the M25 cost about £1 billion to build originally - it has been constantly extended since). The Department of Transport will spend £5.2 billion in 1997/98, 1.6% of the total UK budget of £319 billion. This £5.2 billion covers all transport and the costs of the department.

Approximately 24 million business and private cars/vans paying Road Fund License fees of £145 contributes £3.5 billion a year (1992 £3.2B 16.4 P265 Nat.Stats). British consumers spend some £17 billion a year buying their road vehicles, £12 billion on fuel for them and £16 billion on maintaining and insuring them, together with the Road Fund License costs of £2.2 billion, making a total of some £47 billion spent by householders on road travel each year.[15] In contrast, the National Statistics report that consumers spend about £6.5 billion a year on telecommunications (per household £295 a year) - about half of British Telecoms’s annual £13 billion revenues, the other half presumably arising from business services and export sales [16].

12. The Car and Modern Transport

12.1 Brief History - up to mass commuting

12.2 Current Reliance on Roads and Rail for Work

12.3 Is Your Journey Really Necessary? - work and travel

12.3.1 Brief on air and noise pollution

12.4 R & D, Improving Systems and Vehicles & travel telecommunications

Here examine the approximately 2% of national budget that goes into telecoms against the far larger amount for road building and maintenance and draw conclusions/recommendations for the future.

EC, UK and Private Sector

13. Forecasting Societal Factors

To extrapolate current activities into the future, signposts, boundaries and guides need to be established. The business environment in which changes may occur has a fundamental effect on trends and developments. The main environmental forces cannot be explored here in any depth and must generally be assumed to be reliable and constant. For example the 1980 to 1986 boom and the 1987 to 1993 bust in property prices disrupted the reliably predicted 7.5% per annum growth in property values; and the two deep recessions in 1980/83 and 1991/2 slowed down the predicted growth, first in telecommunications then in telework numbers. While difficult to anticipate and assess, such major business factors should at least be acknowledged and the more obvious, generally accepted forces, such as perhaps, the widely predicted climate changes, should be factored in to extrapolations. The main forces to be aware of are:-

13.1 Political and Philosophical Changes

- Large public reactions, sometimes driven by increased access to education and information, ushering in right, left or centre policies, effecting transport and telecommunications policies.

13.2 Wealth Changes

- Large increases or decreases in real wealth effect public behaviour and work and travel patterns, including increased tourism, choice of home relocation - with regular travel to visit family and friends - and larger TV’s, cable and satellite, suitable for future interactive and video phone use.

13.3 Work Methods Changes

- The shift to the 24 hour, flexible work, part-time work and job-share society is mostly enabled by advanced communications, car ownership and more available (though little used) public transport for commuting out of peak hours. Note - One woman’s work is another woman’s leisure; peoples’ pleasures are serviced and enabled by commercial activities - a hill walker is kitted out in warm, wet weather clothes, high-tech boots, processed foods and may carry a mobile phone or rescue alarm.

13.4 Fashion Changes - Lifestyle

- Public moods and choices of where and how to live and work and travel, for example, if, when and where to use a mobile phone, or adopting telework, can be dictated in the short term and long term by fashion. The heart leads then we justify our decisions with economics.

13.5 Scientific Breakthroughs

- The most rapid technological changes seem to have occured in computing and microchips, while vehicles are deemed by some pundits to have reached a plateau, where only marginal improvments are made. However science and technology has also advanced rapidly in many other areas which may substantially effect work and travel patterns.

13.6 Climate Change

- Is unlikely to have a real impact on work and travel in two decades, but the perception and anticipation of such changes may effect the longer term decision making processes in commerce, government and in individuals.

13.7 Demographic Change

- Improvements in health care, food supplies, hygiene, personal growth, education, optimism and other factors have recently increased average lifespan, bringing a pensions crisis in its wake. Young people are staying younger longer, marrying later, having children later, reducing the percentage of children. Further demographic changes and greatly increased leisure time are likely in the coming two decades and should be accounted for in anticipating trends. What will be the business priorities of a longer lived population

13.8 Disasters

- War (which often accelerates technology), pestilence, famine and disease must ordinarily be assumed to be kept at bay and in check by good governance. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves and meteorites are not new to the human race, but when they do strike, the modern crowded population suffers more direct damage than occured in earlier, less populous ages, and can greatly disrupt travel and communication - as did the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake. Though unlikely in the UK, responses to disaster in other regions can affect UK behaviour.

13.8.1 Happy New Year 2000 - The Millenium Bug

Most computers, including all PC’s but not AppleMacs, and many automated systems run on software which has its roots in the 1960’s, when programming was still written in machine language. All those decades ago, it seemed sufficient to use just two digits for dates; hence as the year **99 ends, the internal clocks tick over to **00, and many date based routines become very confused and will perhaps crash. This calamity, best exemplified and brought to the immediate attention of millions of people at every level by relating it to the issue (or not) of their monthly salary and pension cheques, has been predicted to bring commerce to a halt and to cost $600 billion to fix. Robin Whitty, Director of the Centre for Systems and Software Engineering at the South Bank University, writing in New Scientist illustrates the problem with the computer instruction (age = date now - date of birth), or in the year 2000, for example, (age = **00 - 1940) which calculates to minus sixty years old. And no computer worth its salt is going to make a payment to somebody who will not be born for another sixty years. But Robin Whitty also feels that the problem will be solved, without spending $600 billion between now and 1999 on software experts, through a wide variety of actions, including a measure of management by crisis - muddling through. If he is wrong and disaster does strike the banking and many other sectors, the overall economy and hence our forecasts for 2007, is unlikely to be set back, as the, albeit reluctant, global expenditure of $600 billion in a short time will restore the feel good factor - and make for multitiudes of happy programmers.

14. Ten Years on - 2007AD

Ten years is a relatively short time for change to occur. It represents just two five year terms of Parliament, two general elections. The average time for an invention or major innovation to be adopted and applied by the public is twenty years. The now widely used fax machine was invented over 150 years ago by Alexander Bains, a Scotsman, in 1836. After several false starts and improvements by Italian and American inventors, the fax was first used commercially in 1924 to transmit photographs. The electric car was invented in 1890 based on the electric motor from 1822, the telephone in 1876 based on the telegraph from 1793, the internal combustion engine in 1873 based on steam and pistons engines. Most new ideas take a long time to gain support, attract backing and become widely used. This average take-up period applies as much to social policies as it does to inventions.

14.1 Telegraph and Abbacus - The roots of the Information Society

The electronic or quiet revolution, giving rise to what is now called the Information Society, traces its roots back to:-

(1) The early telegraph, a French device of 1793 which transmitted pulses down a wire, the base for the commercial telegraph, using the binary DOT-DASH Morse code, in use from 1837 onwards until finally ousted by Alexander Graham Bell’s analogue, voice telephone (speaking at a distance) which made its debut in the USA in 1876. Ironically, the original Telegraph’s binary, digital method for transmission of data, voice and video made a comeback in the 1970-80’s and is now the preferred method for telephone, fax, radio, television and computer data transmissions due to its relative incorruptibility.

The modern telephone, using say an ISDN line, converts the sent voice, data or picture into fixed numbers (digital) which are transmitted in discrete packages which can be read by computers (binary-the old dot-dash-dot of telegraphs), reassembled at the reciever and converted back to their original form. The advantage over the familiar analogue telephone, which uses a continuous fluctuating electric current operating very similarly to a taut string vibrating between two tin cans, is that interference in the wire or wireless signal is ignored, as the receiver only attends to the reliable dot-dash-dot, binary signal and to the equally reliable mathematical pattern, the digital sequences, which it forms.Atmospheric pulses from electrical storms, sun-spot activity, ham radio or Coronation Street broadcasts are ignored as not fitting the pattern, and thus interference is screened out. The information transmitted across the Information Society would be far less accurate if analogue systems only were used.

(2) The Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge in 1835, itself drawing on the long history of mechanical counting and calculating, is the acknowledged forerunner of computers, the development of which was boosted by World War II requirements for encoding and decoding, resulting in Alan Turing’s UK, Colossus in 1943; so advanced that it was only recently declassified from the Official Secrets list. Colossus used 2,000 wired electric tubes (switches), enabling computation at 5,000 characters a second. The early commercial computers, mostly IBM and ICL machines in the 1960’s, those much filmed main frames with large spinning tape decks, filled whole rooms, read their inputs from punched cards and had 12-20K memories - less processing power than many of today’s £10 pocket calculators. Today’s ordinary personal computers process millions of characters per second using highly reliable solid state switches, connected by complex wiring which is photographed and photo-reduced before being etched into thumbnail sized silicon chips.

These two technology themes, the telephone and the computer, together with many other extraordinary inventions and innovations, including printers, paper handling, scanners and readers, space-satellites, and of course the incredible growth of the software industry - directly built on the 18th and 19th century technology of punched card instructions fed to cotton and wool spinning, weaving and knitting machines, famously used to control music in pianolas and faiground merry-go-rounds - are the bases of the ever accelerating Information Society. The pace of change in innovations moves ever faster as the Information Society feeds back into itself, connects millions of minds around the Globe, and educates, or “Informates”, and learns from these millions, now perhaps billions of interconnected people.

14.1.1 Ibn Fadlan - The ancient terror of change.

Two hundred years ago the number of people with the freedom and confidence to have innovative ideas and gain sufficient influence to harness some resources to explore and express them in society was tiny. Most women were excluded, as were 99% of the poor, who represented 95% of the World’s population. Even among the few who were eligible to make a contribution, their ideas might be quashed at birth, or if not, they themselves could be arrested or even executed if they were too far ahead of the imaginative prowess of the leaders of society. History is littered with the corpses of smart-arses/asses. Arthur Koestler in his book The Thirteenth Tribe (Picador) quotes Ibn Fadlan, a diplomat from Spain visiting the Volga Bulgars, on the Black Sea, in 921AD, where he found a strange, yet still somehow familiar, custom:- When they observe a man who excels through quickwittedness and knowledge they say: ‘for this one it is more befitting to serve our Lord’. They seize him, put a rope round his neck and hang him on a tree where he is left until he rots away........

A chilling historical narrative which might ring bells with numbers of 20th century innovators and make people such as the largely ignored and dispossesed inventor of the turbojet engine, Frank Whittle, who was welcomed into the USA and was only belatedly recognised by the UK with a knighthood as Sir Frank a few years before his death, turn in his Courtly grave.

The Information Society is changing the ancient rules, is spreading real democracy around the World at breathtaking speed and is harnessing the skills, knowledge and ideas of anyone, regardless of education or status, who makes a contribution. Unless the human race suddenly takes fright and appoints yet another paranoid, psychopathic dictactor who, like the Volga Bulgars, says “if it works don’t fix it” and resists any further change to the status quo, - and this is always a possible option for the unpredictable naked ape - then the feedback from billions of liberated intellects will grow to an alarming crescendo of creative outpourings - a universal shout of innovation which will require innumerable other innovations to examine, prioritise and act upon. All change, even change for the better is frightening. The Information Society must explain the coming changes and, particularly in pension orientated, increasingly geriatric societies, it must mollify the Luddite tendencies.

14.2 A short decade ahead

To look 10 years ahead at UK business road traffic and how that traffic is likely to be affected by greater use of advanced telecommunications, needs only peripheral regard to be paid to startling new inventions and innovations which may emerge in the coming decade. Emerge they may, but catch hold like a bush fire in a high wind they probably will not. Newly wealthy business leaders, like new inventions, appear to leap into the limelight fully formed, relaxed, inevitably successful and usually suntanned - but even Bill Gates had fifteen years in the waterless, thorn strewn wilderness of small business before Microsoft could be regarded as stable, fat and highly valuable. Embryonic ideas and the champions and leaders to promote them, may suddenly grow from nowhere into rapid prominence, but the majority of changes for the coming decade are already on the drawing board. With a weather eye open therefore for the unexpected, examination of existing concepts and tools should provide a sound base for forecasting.

14.2.1.1 Table - forecast of Cars and Telecoms

The bases for this table are taken from the publications listed - the extrapolations from 1997 onwards are calculated by Noel Hodson, SW2000 Telework Studies, Oxford based on information from a range of EC ACTS projects & scientific journals.

Sources:- Inland Revenue Statistics 1996

Regional Trends 31 - National Statistics

Social Trends 25 - CSO

Annual Abstract of Statistics - CSO

Mintel Market Intelligence - Jan ‘96 (Brit Lib AL90/E3)

European Information Technology Observatory 97

Telecommuting Review - May&June 97

New Scientist 1997 Issues.

This table indicates rapid growth of Information Communications Technology (ITC) tools from 1997 to 2007 in business and across the general population. The focus used here is not on the building of more powerful transmitters and cables and satellites which will carry the voices, pictures and data - such new or improved networks are being planned and built around the World by the major telecoms and software giants - but is focused on how many people will acquire the equipment to enable them to join the information society. The future estimates and calculations made in this table are predicated on a number of key trends:-

14.2.2 The Nintendo generation - trained for the future

It is a Global truism that children can use video recorders, TV remote controls, computers and Internet connections far more ably and with several times more confidence than can most adults. Their skills are partly due to growing up with the equipment, training at school and learning through playing together, but the main factor lies in their youthful physical coordination and innate investigative intelligence, unimpeded by the technophobia of adults trained to feel shame if they get things wrong. “Play”, or relevance to the pupil, is the most effective form of learning. Children have been exposed to and most have been trained at school to work with ITC (Information Technology Communications) tools over the past 7 to 10 years. The majority of under 20 year old’s are comfortable with the existing generation of ITC equipment. Today’s designs are most likely to look very crude, complex and unreliable in ten years time. Just as early motor cars required engineering knowledge to use them fully, whereas now almost every adult can drive away in any car, only needing to know how to add fuel to make it work properly, so ITC will rapidly become more user friendly and more widely used. The Nintendo generation will bring the techniques into the workplace - it will be inconceivable to these young people to waste time and money using outdated methods when they have the skills and the tools to perform tasks more efficiently. The first wave of the Nintendo generation is already joining the workforce and they will be reinforced year on year by about 300,000 allies leaving school - by 2007AD they will be 3 million, representing over 10% of the workforce and probably wielding up to 20% of the influence. These youngsters will use the new ITC equipment.

14.2.3 Falling ITC prices - available technology

It is another Global truism, if perhaps slightly stretching the reality, that computers double in power and halve in price every year. Certainly, the cost of equipping an individual to telework fell from £6,000 in 1992 down to £1,700 in 1997 [17] - a reduction of 72% over 5 years. Transmission costs are also reducing each year in comparison to average earnings, enabling most people to greatly increase their use of the telephone and opening the way for mass use of broadband networks capable of carrying sound, vision and data, for interactive distance learning (IDLE) for example. The raw materials to make standard ITC equipment costs a tiny fraction of the sale value; the high technology equipment factories and clean room facilities are growing, enabling more mass production, and the software needed to drive and make use of the machines is available World wide at annually reducing prices. The main component today is knowledge and information - which is daily becoming more accessible and falling in cost, due to the very tools which the ITC industry produces. Falling costs will stimulate ITC take up.

14.2.4 Lower ITC costs reduce the costs of cars.

The knowledge element, the value of know-how, in the price of most manufactured goods, including cars, is above 70%. Monopolies with high prices and profits are based on trade secrets, either of how to make articles or how to hold onto powerful buying and selling concessions. As the Information Society grows, so secrets are exposed and competition sweeps in, driving down prices. The greatest protection becomes, not the acquisition of know-how but the Capital Cost barrier to entry into the industry. But, as ITC disseminates knowledge Globally, so does it enable markets and risks to be accurately assessed, in turn enabling the Global Capital markets to seize an opportunity to exploit overpricing. These mechanisms, the interplay of free markets, will ensure that manufactured goods will be made more efficiently, to higher quality and sold at lower prices. Thus, those who wish to own a car will do so and the range of cars available will include today’s well made, long life vehicles, likely to be still useful, high mileage cars, at very low prices in 10 years time; providing those even on the lowest incomes, with cars.

14.2.5 Democracy and Great Expectations.

The exclusive playthings and activities of the rich more and more rapidly become available to all income groups, obliging differentials to be maintained through exclusive design and labelling. Television and other popular media, create high expectations in the whole population, which are more and more rapidly met by ITC aided mass-production. These great expectations cause the majority to seek to acquire the latest available tools and toys and will help to drive the ITC take-up predicted above.

14.2.6 Sustained Economy.

Economies collapse when high and low pressure forces grow side by side and the stasis seeking powers are unable to prevent change and maintain the status quo. The French and Russian Revolutions sweeping aside class distinctions and ushering in Socialism are examples of societal storms brewed in lop-sided economies, where the actors prefer the risks of chaos to the grip of despair. The Information Society, accelerating democracy by the dissemination of knowledge, carries within it the means by which people can be more fully enfranchised and also makes available detailed information on the state of every regions’ economy. Given the continuing free flow of Capital and movement of people, given real democracy and a balance between the elderly caution of pension funds and the youthful zest for innovation and given the absence of war, sick economies will be more rapidly brought back to health by external pressures and most nations can anticipate sustained, wealthier economies in the coming decade.

All real wealth is generated by a marriage between motivated active people and available energy. The latter is not in short supply - solar energy, fossil fuels, nuclear energy, wind and wave power, biomass fuels - and the former requires only that people feel that making an effort is interesting and rewarding - increased universal education provided via ITC tools is a goal of most OECD governments. Education which will enrich peoples’ enjoyment of life and stimulate positive activities. Information Societies are more likely to generate and fairly share sustainable wealth than previous societies and, as the above table predicts, the tools and toys of Information Societies will belong to all - just as the once scarce and expensive telephone and television are now to be found in every home.

14.3 Living

Where people will aspire to and actually have their homes in 2007AD and how their choices will have a small but measurable impact on business-traffic. The reducing costs of more powerful networks, cables, satellite dishes, ISDN, fast modems and other tools will enable homes and work premises to be more fully “wired” for voice, video and data, for personal and business use.

14.3.1 Cities, Towns, Suburbs, Rural, Wilderness, Frontiers

Where we live geographically, the spaces we live in and who we live with has changed constantly, though slowly, throughout recorded history. For thousands of years discernable large groupings have persisted - nomads, rural dwellers, village and town dwellers, city dwellers and a few eccentric dwellers such as hermits. This ancient pattern is reliable and, despite the burgeoning global population, it is unlikely to change substantially in the UK over the coming decade. 2007AD will see a very similar pattern as we see today in the UK, where population numbers have been stable since the 1950’s. Growing awareness of the ability to collect information about and have the power to control pollution and to control the responsible organisations, may lead to cleaner water and air, less noise and better disposal and recycling techniques. The technologies exist today and are being applied in many places. Properties which benefit from improved environments will increase in value, encouraging other property owners to press for the same improvements.

Today, the population spread is approximately % main cities, ......% towns, ........% suburbs, ............% ..........% rural. The rural areas were steadily de-populated between 1750 and 1970 as farming was increasingly mechanised and automated. Villages remained almost static while towns and cities grew rapidly. Most jobs related to the Industrial Revolution and its heavy industries and, until mass transport became available in the 1920-30’s, most people lived close to the factories, workshops and offices where they worked. Pollution from heavy industry was uncontrolled as recently as 1960 - the life expectancy in Trafford Park, Salford, once the largest industrial complex on Earth was just 38 years. Zoning - separating homes from factories and introducing the need to commute to work - was a direct consequence of the pollution from industry and the unpleasantness of large office blocks. Recently, people have drifted back to rural areas and cities have recorded population reductions. The jobs have not returned to agriculture, the new residents are either retired, commute to work or, more rarely, are telecommuters bringing their work (and income) home to a rural setting.

14.3.1.1 Table - Where we live in 1997 and where we will live in 2007AD

The ability to choose where to live, without being tied to commuting patterns, will increase up to 2007AD and more people will examine where they live now and decide to move. However, while hill walkers and mountaineers may move nearer to high ground and swimmers and surfers may move closer to water, history and property prices tell us that the vast majority prefer city living. As communications technologies contribute to a reduction in traffic and, by substituting communications for travel, reduce the absolute need to allow free access into our cities, it is likely that planners will restrict vehicle movements and create more pedestrianised areas, parks and cycle facilities. The improvement to inner city environments these changes will bring will attract families, driven out by noise and exhaust gases, back into the cities. Between now and 2007AD, it is likely that cities will attract larger populations, with less need for them to commute long distances to and from work, schools and shops.

14.3.2 Live Where you Work - Work Where you Live.

Best estimates from the planning authorities state that 1.8 million new homes will be required in rural areas by 2008. These predictions are partly based on the current and continuing trend towards single person housing - our desire to live alone - and mainly on the current drift away from cities to the cleaner, quieter, safer rural environment.

Environmental control, including control over noise and odours, will enable more work places to be close to homes than has been possible for the past two centuries. In cities, towns, villages and rural homes, more of the work to be done will be located in or near the home. One of the secondary forces behind 20th century commuting - to live as far as possible from unpleasant factories and soulless, natureless office blocks each standing in 2 acres of oil stained car parks - will be visibly reduced even as early as 2007AD. The NIMBY effect (Not In My Back Yard) will lead to the question - “where then?” and one solution will be to clean up and make some business activities acceptable to residents. The primary force behind commuting was and still is, to transfer workers to tend the machines at fixed times to suit mass production - this applies equally to manufacturing and to clerical processes, where people are mere cogs in office machines. Advanced communications, including more power to control the machines - factory and office - remotely at any time, reinforced by computerised pollution controls, will enable more people to live where they work and work where they live. The blight and costs of City and Town centres deserted after 6pm will diminish and family life will start to return. It is more economic to use expensive buildings 24 hours instead of 8 hours a day, and to use them also at weekends; this economy will be more widely recognised and will stimulate this trend. Refering to Tables ............ , the extra percentage of jobs which will be either at or within walking distance of home by 2007AD could be .........% or some ......’000 people who would have previously commuted to and from work in peak hours.

14.3.3 CFZ’s Rural and City - Motor Vehicles at Bay

As the pace of life increases along with faster and more powerful communications, the urge towards communication free zones (CFZ’s) will also increase and such locations will increase in value. One of the main attractions today of CFZ’s for holiday purposes is their inaccessibility to most vehicles and the likelihood that no mobile phones will ring on the beach. As nowhere on the planet can any longer be regarded as “free” from the reach of modern communications, these zones might more accurately be thought of areas of controlled communications, including traffic. The strong preference of many people for traffic free living areas is already apparent; most new housing estates exclude through traffic; several planned ideal villages stop all vehicles at a perimeter road leaving a safe and attractive village green between the homes; Acorn Televillage, designed and developed by Ashley and Roxanne Dobbs on the Welsh Borders, bans vehicles in this way and includes commercial work premises among the homes, with restrictions on noise and nuisance from the workplaces.

CFZ’s also control the intrusion and noise from telecommunications by developing agreed protocols on their use. Telephones, radio’s, televisions, faxes, modems and PC’s are all predicted to be geared for personal, individual use rather than being shared, as they were when first available. Sir Clive Sinclair recently announced an ear plug sized radio which only the wearer can hear. Sir Clive transformed office life in the early 1970’s when he invented the pocket calculator; as the price fell every office clerk had their own calculator, superseding the need for sharing larger and relatively expensive, electric or mechanical desk-top adding machines supplied by employers. Thanks to Sir Clive, all workers and citizens had cheap, instant and personal arithmetic power at their fingertips. All today’s desk-top machines, Telephone, PC, Fax, Internet Reader, Scanner, Copier and others will follow that trend and many of them will have arrived at their optimum size and price by 2007AD. Just as the the pocket calculator has, they will reach a stasis and enjoy only minor changes thereafter.

14.3.3.1 Table - Average Distances from Work - 1997 and 2007

CFZ’s will not be confined to ideal rural communities, there is evidence they will also be designed for cities by 2007AD. Tower blocks can and already do contain areas for living, for working, for shopping, for sport and for other recreations. These vertical villages are found in London, Birmingham and Manchester and in most OECD cities around the world. The advantages to occupants are many, including distance from the noise and exhausts of motor vehicles. The buildings need not be new; large Victorian wharves on the Thames, at Salford Docks and by the Birmingham Canal have been converted into such self-enclosed villages, with basement car parking, shared swimming pools, gymnasiums and other communal recreational facilities. It is predicable that by 2007AD one or more of the larger “villages” will include schools within the complex.

CFZ’s, with the main attraction of being car free within their boundaries, can be predicted to evolve by 2007AD to provide, on site, most of the minor goods people need daily, currently contributing to the increase in “short journeys”, car journeys of less than one mile, which the UK’s car owning democracy has recently enabled and now seeks ways to curb. Businesses, including teleworkers at home, are just as prone, if not more likely than households, to send out for minor supplies, including lunch time sandwiches, fuses, paper, postage stamps and a host of requirements. CFZ’s, in rural, suburban, town and city settings will seek to reduce such car use and will encourage central supplies of minor purchases, either within or from outside the complex, connected by telephone with stocks and order controls by computer.

14.3.4 Time Savers - Saving the most precious commodity.

The current self-awareness movement, the philosophy of the individual, interpreted by some as selfish self-indulgence, will continue to grow as we approach 2007AD, as the Information Society brings better quality universal education and information, enabling greater enjoyment of life for more people. As general self awareness grows, the specific knowledge of mortality and the short span we enjoy on Earth will also grow; driving home the understanding that the ultimate, most valuable asset of every human being is their time.

Time planning in business was very vogue in the 1970’s when every executive and would be executive proudly boasted an expensive, fully worked out Time Manager. High, persistent unemployment put paid to the treasonable idea that the time of ordinary workers and managers is valuable, but advanced communications will spread this message again and more people will choose to save their wasted time by reducing commuting and all repetitive work tasks. (Cite Telecommute 1995/96 “USA a sleep deprived nation & switch it off get a life) Networks and modern communication systems allow people to work when it is convenient to themselves and to transmit their work to others who read and act on it in their own time. Modern communications and PC’s enable the automation of most repetitive tasks. Awareness of the scarceness and value of personal time will accelerate methods to save time. Every hour spent in daily commuting is equivalent to 30 work days a year. People will seek to reduce their commuting through their choice of where to live and work.

By 2007AD the impact from the increase in CFZ’s on road use will be small but measurable. Refering to Table .......... the predicted increase in numbers of households resident within CFZ’s could be ..........% or ....’000 people able to reduce their short car journeys by ...........%

14.3.5 Pre-Booking Telephone Calls

One of the changes which seems likely by 2007AD is a shift in the protocols for telephone use. Currently and historically, the telephone was and is an impluse communications tool. Wanting to speak with someone and snatching up the telephone is one instinctive single impulse. The telephone has been perceived by many as a means of arranging a “real” meeting. But the instant telecoms intrusion of the 1970’s and 1980’s enabled by easy availability, has already been tempered by the growth in availabilty of machines to answer the telephone for us. Business in the 1990’s is characterised by only being able to talk to people’s ansa-phones, paging or messaging services - or, less human still, by sending an Email.

As the usefulness of telephone conferences and video conferences is more widely realised and as the costs reduce, it will be necessary to book times for such events ( indeed at Thorn EMI Electronics Ltd - the booking system for their new video-conferencing suite was overloaded in the first two weeks - and was even booked by its strongest critics - Teleworking Expalined - Wiley 1993). Such formal booking, as for face to face meetings will, by 2007AD have become standard practice for all face to face communications, whether physically or by telecoms. The era of expecting an instant answer by a living person to each and every call will have passed. This change in protocol will link to other significant impacts on business, travel and lifestyle.

How we use telecoms will be redefined and adjusted to allow for communication free times; privacy both in business and in personal lives will be respected more than today. People at work may have two telephone numbers - the first being a message taker and the second being their live line - given out to very few friends and colleagues.

14.3.6 Suburbs - and the retired population

14.4 Working

(notes - What do we do and where - i.e. how far to travel see table above.

14.4.1 The 24 hour Cyberspace Head Office (CHOF’s)

People like to congregate. Cities have a long history and will have an even longer future. Human beings enjoy living in large groups with the infinite possibilities they offer of new liaisons, intrigues and new entertainments. In business terms, centres of power fascinate most of us and particularly attract the ambitious. People like to be in the swim, in the know, in fashion and like to feel they have access to the movers, shakers and decision makers who might promote, sponsor and support them. Attending Head Office poses both a threat and an opportunity. The threat of being seen to do something wrong and being demoted or by-passed on the one hand, exists side by side with the possibility of being noticed as good material, or as a rising star, and of being promoted on the other. In business as in politics, the most effective self promotion occurs in physical meetings - where the maximum amount of information is transmitted between people. It may however be an arbitrary and risky environment. In earlier times, favourites could be exalted and enriched by a capricious monarch one month, then vilified and beheaded the next. In the 1970’s the business mogul Robert Maxwell was reputed to march through his publishing kingdom, dismissing people who annoyed him on the spot, or suddenly backing some newly suggested enterprise with tens of thousands of pounds and promoting the proposer.

Executives who telework often do so to escape from the fascinating ebb and flow of office politics, to switch off their communications and to concentrate on reading or writing complex reports. In 1992 the World Bank in Washington DC found that on any work-day, a thousand of their six thousand daily commuters worked at home, in contravention of the standard contract of employment. When interviewed, the common reason for this aberrant behaviour was that it was tacitly accepted by managers, executives and consultants that the only way to finish and produce complex World Bank reports was to stay at home, away from the constant interruptions and internal politics of central office.

But, despite the growing efficiencies of teleworking, the human need to attend and to see and be seen at central office will persist and even people with a free choice will continue to “turn-up” and to commute regularly. As travel over the next ten years becomes more costly and perhaps even slower than today, Head Office’s could decentralise and be more easily accessible if located in a rural area or a small town with good transport links. But cities have grown up where many transport systems meet and they usually do have the best facilities and are most attractive for meetings for the majority.

As video-conferencing and virtual reality facilities improve, dispersed organisations, perhaps led by international companies and government departments will create cyberspace head offices, with convincingly real floors, corridors, doors and offices where teleworking directors, executives, secretaries and clerks will be seen to attend and where diverse levels of access will be allowed for them to visit one another as they would in a physical office. Such electronic environments will not replace physical head-offices for many decades but they will become increasingly important. The costs of creating and maintaining cyberspace head offices (CHOF’s) would, even at today’s high prices, be more than compensated for by savings from commute costs, business travel costs and productive time. Once CHOF’s are commonplace, executive salary packages, which currently however expressed must necessarily cover commuting costs, will be restructured to account for lower car and travel costs and increased mobile communications. As electronic communications costs less than ten percent of physical travel, both employers and employees will benefit. CHOF’s will be maintained 24 hours a day to meet the needs of globalisation and new protocols will arise with the equivalent of “Do Not Disturb” signs on electronic office doors, to be respected even by dictators, moguls and monarchs.

Wherever an executive or any employee is in the world and at any time, the CHOF will be available to them, truly able to boast “We never Close”. It will show the electronic presence of real people and will be staffed by duty officers around the clock. Secretaries will be able to pass on memo’s, file incoming data, restore lost documents and engage in gossip. Assistants will provide research, tidy up documents, create presentations and provide support at meetings.

The technology to create CHOF’s, of TV quality over ISDN lines, fully backed with electronic files, voice, visual and data communications exists in embryo today. To integrate today’s technology, to pioneer the design of an environment which will function seamlessly, to give the access tools to a mobile, dispersed team of say 500 people and to pay for constant high quality (broadband) transmission costs, would be prohibitively costly to all but the most wealthy organisations, or to those with cutting edge, ITC skills. Busy executives could not at present be expected to have all the keyboard and IT skills required to operate in such a complex environment. But nevertheless, the economic and environmental advantages are such that the first CHOF’s can be expected to be operating by 2007AD; reducing business road and air traffic by significant amounts as traditional, fixed location head offices are slowly phased out.

New high-tech start-ups, staffed mostly by the Nintendo generation, may commence their activities with a low powered CHOF, provided and rented to them by a major telecom like BT for example, and migrate to more powerful models as their organisations grow. Such start up companies, investing more in communications technology than in traditional property, vehicles and business travel; able to offer flexible hours and “live-anywhere-you-like” salary packages to team members in any country, will be highly competitive. Where they will pay their corporation taxes on profits is a matter for the future - be assured that the future may be location free but it will not be tax free.

14.5 Work in the Information Society 2007AD

Both the nature of work, the type of work we humans are doing to earn our livings and to produce sufficient basic necessities, and the need to work in order to maintain the flow of goods and services, conditioning the size of the required workforce, are changing and will continue to change over the next decade. These changes, coupled to faster and cheaper communications, regardless of distance, bring flexibility to where we work and where we live.

14.5.1 Primary Industries and Mass Production - the Future for Factory work.

Factory work, employment in the primary farming, mining and manufacturing industries which gave rise to millions of blue collar workers pouring into mines, granaries, factories, mills, docks and store yards to undertake physical and often dirty and hazardous work has been in decline for most of this century as automation has taken over. Employment statistics show that in 1978 there were 9,197,000 employed in these industries (not all blue collar) and by 1992 this had reduced to 5,494,000 - 60% of the 1978 figure, an average reduction of 4% per annum. Employment in Motor Manufacturing fell from 281,000 in 1987 to 218,000 in 1992, a fall of 63,000 jobs, 22% of the 1987 number.

Automation, largely the introduction of mechanical, engineered devices and improved conveyor systems to handle units at higher speeds, dates back to the industrial revolution in 1750, when textile and other manufacturing processes benefited from water and steam powered engines, has been complemented by computer power. Computers, first generally applied to office systems in the 1960’s, ultimately, after 20 years trial and error, replacing millions of hand written records and the clerks who maintained them, are now widely applied in Primary and Manufacturing industries where they are accelerating the automation process. Computers are capable of managing complex tasks, applying heavy machinery, and can be programmed to respond automatically to a range of anticipated emergencies, tirelessly. Computers are used to control high precision tool cutting machines; e.g. a precision tool shop making medical instruments previously employing highly skilled individuals to control the cutting of each metal part, by 1987 had computerised much of the process and installed a row of 5 tool cutters, remotely programmed and controlled from a PC screen in the next building.[18] In 1997, the PC may be placed anywhere and closed circuit TV will show the results to human monitors.

The evidence points to a continuing decline in blue collar industry work, at a faster rate than 4% per annum. If the reduction accelerates to 5% per annum, by 2007AD, the 5.5 million employed in 1992 reduces to 2.5 million in 2007AD. If re-employed in white collar or complex work, these 3 million ex-blue collar occupations will increase road commuting as many factory workers used to travel short distances, often by bicycle or walking, or by special bus, from housing estates surrounding factories.

14.5.2 Directorate General 5 (DGV) - EC Ministry of Employment

DGV issued a Green Paper dated 16 April 1997, inviting discussion, titled Partnership for a New Organisation of Work. (CB-CO-97-154-EN-C). Dealing with the whole of the European Union, 370 million people, and against the background of some 18 million registered unemployed and some 80 million estimated to be under-employed, the paper states that since 1973, 8 million additional jobs have been created but 28 million have joined the workforce. Professional, technical and managerial jobs grew by 25% while blue collar workers decreased indicating a shift towards complex work. 16% work part time, the other 84% work full time. Self-employment has remained constant at 15%. Continuous education and job training is required to keep the workforce up to date with advances in technology. In general more flexibility is evident in work contracts. On teleworking:- there is little evidence of telework in Europe now but mounting evidence that it is coming, bringing with it a host of required adjustments to work practices, management and taxation & social security.

These statistics, for the average European in an average European country, overlay wide regional variations, such as the fact that 12% of Swedish people telework (W Paavonen - NUTEK), due to the difficult winter transport and long distances, and that 5% of Britons telework (Teleworking Explained - Wiley), due to being one of the first to liberalise telecoms, having the least rigid employment laws and suffering one of the lowest, most crowded, roads to cars ratios in the World.

The EC White Paper predicts a trend towards less simple (physical and blue collar) and more complex and team work (technical, professional) utilising advanced communications; it stops short of predicting numbers of jobs which will change or a forecasting a shift to telework. In support of this caution; even in Sweden with 12% telework, it still implies that 88% of jobs are at traditional locations.

14.5.3 Simple Manual Work - the Future for Unskilled Physical work.

Labouring jobs are now mostly confined to Agriculture which employs 2% of the workforce and Construction which employs 6%. Only a minority of the 2 million people engaged in these two sectors are unskilled labourers, the majority are employed in planning, managing, trading, designing, engineering, machine operating and other skilled and semi-skilled tasks. Numbers in Agriculture declined from 340,000 in 1984 to 270,000 in 1993, a fall of 20%; and in Construction a reduction from 1,074,000 to 632,000 or 41% has been seen since 1971, a decline of 1.5% per annum. Labouring work will further decline and will continue to be replaced by machinery.

The shift towards semi-skilled and skilled work, increasing the wealth of many of today’s labourers, will possibly be reflected in higher car ownership, used for travel to work, with fewer gangs of men being ferried in employers’ vans. However, both these industries tend to undertake work on sites away from the main commercial commuting centres and to start and finish earlier then standard peak hours; therefore the impact on peak hour congestion will be slight.

14.5.4 Clerical Work - Future of skilled, repetitive White Collar work.

Some 60% of all work in the UK is now desk work. The substantial increase over decades followed recently by a massive reduction of employees in the modernised financial services sector mirrors the adoption and application of computers in commerce generally and illustrates the trends. In 1971 some 1,250,000 were employed in financial services, this increased to 2,800,000 by 1994, despite or because of ever greater reliance on computers, giving credence to the 1960’s adage when installing mainframe computers intended to automate office functions:- “double the costs, double the time frame and double the staff”. Omitted from this piece of IT folk wisdom was the incredible increase in and instant availability of information - reports, variations, comparisons, spreadsheets, address lists etc. etc. etc. which the computers brought as they at first supplemented then later replaced hand written book-keeping and record systems; summed up as “computers annually double their power for half the price”. It is now as inconceivable that commerce could function without computers as imagining building Motorways without construction machinery, by hand. After the 1994 hiatus, by April 1995 30,000 jobs had been lost with a further 75,000 forecast to be shed, despite ever increasing profits, and by October 1995 The Times was reporting the chief executive of Lloyds Bank predicting that one in five jobs, or 20%, would disappear from the sector. Events in 1996 and 1997 have confirmed this trend, which is likely to accelerate and spread to all similar activities.

This group contains a high percentage of daily peak hour commuters travelling into urban centres. Reductions in clerical work will reduce peak hour travel. In addition, white collar desk work, particularly in the financial services sector, is the most suitable and the largest category for teleworking and telecommuting.

NB SHIFT AND NIGHT WORK I.E. NON PEAK HOURS P72 SOCIAL TRENDS 6 UP TO 24%

14.5.5 Carers - the Future for Social & Charity work, paid and unpaid.

Across the developed World, governments and corporations are shifting to the political left. More emphasis is placed on the social responsibilities of businesses to ensure stability of markets and of society. There are exceptions and adjustments to this general trend; for example the hugely successful social partnership in German companies which has propelled that relatively small nation to second place behind America in the economic league tables, is being reviewed from a more right-wing perspective. And in Japan, which owes its international trading success to the dedication of its workforce, who in turn are guaranteed jobs for life, the concept of flexible working is slowly seeping into the culture. In general however, the trend is exemplified by a shift over the past two years in the advice given by Wall Street brokers to major USA companies, to stop downsizing and short term cash generation, to value and retain their skilled employees, and to support and stabilise the home market by helping to ensure full and prosperous employment. Charities and Carers, supported by government, business and individuals are a significant part of and are conduits to redistribute wealth in most developed nations - and the UK is no exception.

Between one fifth and one quarter of all adults, with up to 40% from the professional and managerial ranks, undertake some voluntary unpaid work - the majority collecting donations. The 400 largest UK charities fund substantial amounts of health care and research in the country, spending almost one billion pounds each year. Charities also provide some £700 million for Welfare programmes. There are nearly 7 million carers, most unpaid, looking after sick, elderly and disabled people at home. (Social Trends 25)

This sector is likely to grow steadily, partly stimulated by 1997-2002 WorkFare programmes for the unemployed , and stimulated by the demographics of aging and of early retirement, eventually bringing an increase in the number of carers who are paid and become professional. This group are unlikely to add to peak hour traffic congestion but, as caring becomes a career for people such as early retirement pensioners, local and short car journeys will increase as numbers increase.

14.5.6 Professions - the Future for Formulaic, Repetitive Skilled work.

Lawyers, Accountants, General Medical Practitioners, Chartered Engineers, Chartered Surveyors, some Tutors, Architects, Financial Advisers and other professional advisers who occupy traditional High Street offices in most towns, earn their fees by discretely relaying a set of formulas, updated continuously, to a large number of clients. Currently the average professional requires seven to nine years training, including two to four years practical client work, in order to go solo. Thereafter, the complex formulas and services learned are reiterated and tailored for each client.

For the first time this century, during the 1991-1995 “negative equity” recession, lawyers, accountants, architects, financial advisers and other entirely safe and stable professions suffered significant numbers of bankruptcies and persistent job losses. Part of their problems were due to the growth of the Information Society and to steadily advancing Office Automation. The first making complex knowledge, professional secrets, available at low cost to those who knew where to look, and the second streamlining complicated but repetitive tasks such as preparing agreements and accounts, or surveying, diagnosing and recommending cures for faults, including common health ailments. Low cost information and computer-expert-systems are changing the role of the professional, requiring practitioners to themselves consult the available data before their clients do and to concentrate their skills on devising ever more creative solutions.

The professions, including skilled support staff, occupy approximately 20% or 5 million of the workforce. Computerisation and advanced communications is likely to reduce the number required by 2% or more per annum, reducing business traffic in several ways. Firstly, the average professional classes are typical long distance commuters, working in the heart of towns and cities and living in the outer suburbs or countryside. Their commuting by car may occupy the roads an hour or more, mornings and evenings and many commute by car to a railway station, spending half an hour on the roads and an hour or more on a train. Reduced numbers in the professions has a larger impact on peak hour travel than, for example, if the same number of blue collar workers - who tend on average to live close to their workplace and to travel at shift hours - stop travelling to work. Secondly, professionals spend much of their day with clients; either inviting clients to their offices or travelling out to their clients. A typical professional, including in-house professionals, meets 3 to 4 clients a day, most meetings generating business travel - often equivalent to the commute of the professional - though out of peak hours. Thirdly, professionals count among their numbers a large percentage of self-employed, the largest category for telecommuters and teleworkers generally, and as self-employed or as employees they are among those most likely to telecommute, working at home, at local centres, at clients’ premises or in hotels and while travelling. Changes to the numbers of professionals and support staff will have a higher impact on business travel than it would in other groups.

Employment statistics (table 1.9 Social Trends 25) identify 1.4 million qualified professionals. Registered as businesses for VAT:- there are some 27 thousand finance and insurance firms, 13 thousand firms of accountants, 16 thousand legal firms, 7.5 thousand firms of surveyors, 5 thousand architects, 14 thousand consultant engineers, 3 thousand educators, 2 thousand medical services, 2 thousand veterinary firms, 2.5 thousand draughtsmen, 17.1 thousand science and research firms, and 11.4 thousand professional artists, designers, writers and composers - some 121 thousand firms in all. (page 101 - DUBS June 94). This allows for just 11 qualified professionals per firm - bearing in mind that many of them are employed by large organisations, the number of qualified professionals per firm can be reduced to an average of 5 or 6. Of the 5 million professionals including support staff, 4.75% or 212,000 worked at home in Spring 1994 (Social Trends 25, 4.17) most likely using computers and advanced communications and therefore acting as teleworkers..

For factoring into 2007AD charts therefore, account needs to be taken of:-

1. The overall numbers of professionals who commute.

2. Their business travel.

3. Their clients business travel.

4. Their use of ITC

5. Their existing and future telecommuting.

6. Increase or decline in numbers.

14.5.7 Sciences and Creative Work - the Future for Knowledge-rich work.

Several futurists predict that more and more mundane and repetitive tasks will be given to the computers and that work will tend towards complex, knowledge-rich, novel and creative work. The communications, software and entertainment industries have grown and continue to grow world-wide. Applied science jobs are increasing as manufactures of drugs, cars, televisions, clothing, food and of most other products meet global competition with improved products and improved manufacturing techniques. The knowledge content of goods has grown to more than 60% of the value, and continues to grow, as it becomes increasingly important to use good design - mostly using Computer Aided Design (CAD) methods - and automated, flexible production lines, to give the customers the choices they have been led by the advertising industry to expect.

New governments are elected on promises of improved health, education, leisure and environment, including clean air, safe food and bacteria free sea water. These higher expectations, over and above the basic survival needs of food and shelter, are difficult to deliver from a workforce trained to produce necessities and, for thousands of years up to 1945, conditioned to die for their country in military conflicts. The new motives - for an educated and fulfilled nation where every citizen is able to exploit their own unique talents - require more sophisticated science and social planning to realise.

Continuous adaptation, continuous creativity and continuous forming, dissolving and reforming of skilled teams is where the future jobs are predicted to be generated. Such well skilled, lateral thinking, flexible and enthusiastic employees require continuous access to education or training; almost certainly to be provided by interactive distance learning (IDLE) systems from and to anywhere on Earth. Thus an increase in the number of knowledge-rich jobs will be accompanied by an increase in the numbers employed in the education industry. Schools employ some 550,000 teachers to educate 9.5 million children. In 1992/93 there were 1.400,000 people in higher education including 1 million full time students at universities. In 1970/71 the comparative figures were 620,000 and 450,000; a rise to 125% over 12 years. At the same rate of increase the student population would be 1,750,000 employing about 100,000 tutors and is likely to be far higher when IDLE systems are utilised; perhaps two or three times more students and staff, with little increase in campus property - or student, tutor and staff commuting. In turn, tutoring via telecoms systems will generate rapid growth in the teaching modules industry and in the communications industry, especially for cable, satellite and other broadband systems.

14.5.8 Large Organisations - the Future for Management Work.

The UK has 7,500 organisations with more than 500 employees. These major units employ up to 40% of the workforce and represent government departments and quoted companies, many of which are household names. The communications role of the manager, translating and overseeing decisions from the board room, has been diminished over the past decade, leading to the flattening or horizontalising of the organisation. The main reason for the demise of the specialist manager has been improvements in communications, enabling direct and accurate connections from the shop floor to the boardroom and back again. As early as 1985, as desk-top personal computers became available but before the advent of the laptop computer, a silver and lead processing plant in London installed a network giving every employee access to a computer, and published their business plan. Shortly after, the managing director was accosted when crossing the delivery yard by a labourer and was told that his plan to streamline inward and outward freight was no damn good ‘cause some silly chump hadn’t left enough room to turn the lorries. Without identifying the chump, the MD reported that the shop floor intervention saved them from a disastrous rebuilding error which would have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to correct. The finance director of Fords, addressing the Royal Society in 1990, described how they had networked computers designing their new model, including factory floor workers, transporters, salesmen in retail dealers, suppliers and all concerned. He weighed the £120 million savings on the usual costs of a new model against the risk of the loss of secrecy - and found in favour of the £120 million.

These two examples demonstrate how direct communication linking organisational layers improves performance. The managers who would formerly have acted as conduits and as go-betweens are replaced. Similarly, where major buyers such as Tesco’s install Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and oblige all their suppliers to receive orders and payments by computer, cutting paperwork to a minimum, the traditional intermediaries lose their function. Such universal communications have already caused substantial reductions in line management and will undoubtedly bring more. An AT&T executive presenting their own “virtual” teams at Telecommute ‘95 showed a long established, widely dispersed team of 14 people working at home and said they were highly effective. Having described the team members’ work he asked delegates what was missing and, after a blank silence, pointed out that there was no team manager - the virtual team was self-governing - making their day to day decisions jointly using WorkWare or ShareWare systems to enable them all to see what had been done and what needed to be done. The role of middle manager, the people manager, is likely to decline further as advanced communications are made available to more people in the workplace. Such managers, working in centrally located head offices, are more often than not, a part of the peak hour, car and train commute.

14.5.9 Future for self-employed and owner managers

The USA and European Union governments are focusing their employment policies on the small business sector which already employs over 60% of the workforce. It is presumed that large organisations will continue to drive for efficiency and will not replace those made redundant in the past decade. Growth is looked for in the small and medium sized enterprise (SME’s) sector and is being promoted and catered for by the UK and by most OECD governments. While the proposed measures will no doubt have a short term growth effect, it seems likely over the next decade that major organisations, which control 70% of the World’s assets, having zealously stripped down to core activities and, in some cases, to a skeletal existence, will find they are competing with their ex-employees or are buying overpriced outsourced supplies and need to replace some of the functions and job roles they discarded. Unless government policies actively forbid international organisations with major franchises from expanding, they are more than likely to acquire any effective small supplier or innovator and, through increased research and development budgets, to expand into new products and services in response to competition for their customers. As Richard Branson demonstrates with his Virgin label, a famous and trusted brand name can sell anything from cola to pensions. Expansion by major players will restrict the growth of the small business sector, unless the small players are protected by prompt payment laws and with bank loans on terms as inexpensive as the major companies enjoy. Growth in the numbers of self-employed, even if temporary, will swell the number of telecommuters; and expanding small businesses, particularly new, young SME’s, adopt teleworking to keep down costs. The volatile SME sector in the USA recorded the highest single growth in the year to June 1993, with 20% increase in the numbers telecommuting; acting out the economic imperatives of telework as compared to traditional commuting. The UK business travel patterns of the SME sector are very similar to major organisations’, perhaps less well equipped to work anywhere and more conservative about change, but more willing and able to start out as telecommuters.

14.5.10 Unemployed - no commute, no business travel.

Unemployment is a difficult statistic to work with. What is accepted is that the number out of work soared to over 3 million between 1983 and 1987, then fell significantly as the boom years boomed, before rising again to around 2 to 2.5 million with the 1990 to 1993 property collapse and accompanying recession; before falling steadily in 95, 96 and 97 in the run up to the general election. Unemployed people do not commute daily and use their cars far less than when in regular work. They may however take part-time work and join the shift work patterns of travel. Given the stated intentions and budgets of the new government to get everybody back to work, this report assumes unemployment will reduce with an impact on peak hour travel.

14.5.10.1 Table - Changes in Occupations 1997-2007

Sources - estimates by SW2000 Telework Studies, based on Social Trends 25, 1995 and Tables in this report.

The Need to Work and the Required Workforce in 2007AD

Socio-Economics in 2007AD:-

Automation of Primary Industries

Farming, Timber, Mining, Extraction, Water and Power industries have been heavily automated this century and the process will continue apace. Reliance on computers and remote monitoring and controlling will increase, reducing the required daily commuting, albeit shiftwork, workforce. Pollution control will be a major application of the new technologies.

Automation of Building and Civil Engineering Organisations

Designing and building roads, tunnels, bridges and other civil engineering projects have made much use of computers for design, mobile communications and ever more sophisticated heavy automated machinery to replace gangs of skilled and unskilled labourers. This trend will continue, reducing employment in this sector, but perhaps with an increase of knowledge-rich jobs in the design and management of projects - many of which, given the widely dispersed sites involved, may be teleworked - contributing to a general reduction in peak hour, or shift hours traffic congestion.

Automation of Service and Distribution Organisations

Several major retail organisations have and are reducing the number of shops they own and are increasing their reliance on telephone selling and ordering. The majority use Incoming Call selling, i.e. public responses to advertising campaigns, not making univited cold calls. The decentralisation of people enabled by telephone sales, allied to the decentralisation of manufacturing and stocks based on computerised Just-In-Time stocks and delivery sytems, points to a reduction of retail shop floor staff - daily commuters - and of the customers who travel to shops in urban centres. Buying and selling via video, television, catalogue and telephone will increase rapidly and reduce traffic flows. But the liesure element of traditional shopping will remain and both sellers and buyers will travel to retail outlets, though many may be relocated, and advertised via advanced communications, to take maximum advantage of the convenience of modern, efficient transport systems for their customers.

Automation of Financial Services Organisations

The financial services sector has led the information society and telework revolution with automated cash machines, telephone banking, direct line telephone insurance, telephone share dealing and massive increases in computing power to enable and vet transactions across the UK and globally. This industry has greatly expanded its customer services over the past two decades and has, via the ubiquitous credit card, effectively created a global currency valid almost anywhere on Earth. In the process, it has created thousands of additional jobs. While the improvements in services are not over, in fact have not even reached a temporary plateau, the increase in jobs has been overtaken by competition, the increasing power of computers and of telecommunications. More High Street offices will close and fewer employees will be able to offer even better services to more customers. The typical white-collar employee commuter will rapidly decline in numbers as this sector embraces more of the new technologies. The back-stop will be the minimum amount of human assistance each customer demands in order to stay loyal to a particular organisation.

Automation of Health, Education, Defence etc. Institutions.

Institutions are by their nature conservative and slow to change. But nevertheless,

Automation of Networks for communication and travel - roads, rail, airlines, shipping, telephone, Internet.

Automation of the Business of Government, local, regional, national.

Stakeholders - Stockholders - Shareholders - Nilholders

New necessities - after we are fed, clothed, housed, medicated and entertained; what aspirations are left to work for.

14.6 Learning

notes - focus on jobs in this sector and tools for distance learning - where do students travel to and from.

The largest single commercial application of Information Society tools is identified by the EC to be in the training and education sector. Employment and business in this sector is flagged for rapid growth. Perceptible changes in travel and communications patterns are likely by 2007AD at every level:-

Play School - Creches

Primary School - 5 to 11 year olds

Secondary School - 11 to 16 year olds

Sixth Form - 16 to 18 year olds

University and Higher Education - 18 to 25 year olds

Apprenticeship, Internship and Articles - 18 to 30 year olds

Work Training - Adults

Re-training - adults between jobs

Vocational/Hobby training - adults Lifelong Learning

14.7 Playing

notes - focus on jobs in this sector, particularly tourism industry - intensive use here of AC’s

Natural disasters and social upheavals apart, and it is hoped that good government has contingency plans for the former and viable social policies for the latter, the real wealth in the UK is likely to increase steadily up to and beyond 2007AD. The basic necessities of life, including food and despite the not infrequent setbacks due to pollution of the mass production food chain, are more and more readily produced, in greater quantities, at lower costs and - as the increase in average lifespan attests - of better quality. The increased production of the basic necessities; food, clothes, homes, heating, health care, entertainment and so on, is due to automation, in turn due to constant improvements in computerisation and communications technologies. Though some may feel they do not get their fair share of this increased real wealth - the increase is nevertheless a fact. One of the most tangible demonstrations of general increases in wealth is increased liesure time - and in particular, the explosive growth in tourism.

Millions of people now travel as tourists every month, using every mode of travel possible. By 2007AD, this industry will have grown to provide many more options for all forms of tourism. UK road and communications traffic will be substantially involved, though not necessarily badly affected.

.............................etc

14.8 Travelling - Business road use in 2007AD

14.8.1 Road Networks

14.8.2 Vehicles and improvements

14.8.3 Traffic monitoring and guidance equipment

14.8.4 Public and mass transit systems

14.8.5 Numbers of Business Users - changes since 1997

14.8.6 Summary of Changes in Business Road Traffic

Business road traffic changes 1997-2007 - due to telecommunications improvements

	1997	2007	1997	2007	changes	Cars	Vans	Lorries	Public Transport
Miles for Work	peop	peop	‘Bml	‘Bml	‘Bmls	+/-	+/-	+/-	+/-
City dwellers
Town dwellers
Suburbs dwellers
Rural dwellers
Workforce -			‘M	‘M	‘M
Factories
Offices
Shops
Primary Ind
Educt - Youth
- Adult
Leisure
- Tourism
Totals - miles

15. Twenty Years on - 2017AD

15.1 Living

15.2 Working

15.3 Learning

15.4 Playing

15.5 Travelling - Business road use

16. 11. Conclusions

16.1 Index

17. Definitions

17.1.1.1 Telework

Is “Using advanced communications to save Time, Space and Travel costs -” This is the generic term for a wide range of telecommunications enhanced ways of carrying out tasks and liesure activities. The definition applies particularly to business and paid work but is equally valid for unpaid necessary activities, such as the regular work of carers. Telework literally means - Tele (Greek - at a distance) - work; Work at a Distance. Telework occurs anywhere that traditional organisational methods are replaced or supplemented by increased use of telecommunications resulting in savings and efficiencies.

17.1.1.2 Telecommuting

Is generally understood as “Working at or from HOME by telephone, particularly to save commuting time and costs.” Telecommuting is an American term, coined about 25 years ago in California. It has been broadened to include working at local telecentres and is often swapped indiscriminately with Telework.

17.1.1.3 Teletrade/Telecommerce

These terms refer to the business done via wire, via the Internet, via telecommunications. The people making the transactions are teleworking but may not necessarily be telecommuting.

17.1.1.4 Teleshopping

An increasing use of teletrade, via telephone, via the Internet and, rarely at present, via Television sets. The good are generally delivered by trades-van or by post. The traffic implications of teleshopping are examined in this report.

17.1.1.5 Telemedicine

Delivering medical services via telecommunication networks. This can be as simple as a GP reassuring or diagnosing a patient via telephone or as complex as carrying out a surgical procedure using robotic “hands” controlled from a distance. The medical practitioners will be teleworking but not necessarily telecommuting (at or from Home).

17.1.1.6 Distance Learning - or Tele (i.e. distance) Learning.

As practised by for example The Open University who teach up to 100,000 students a year, using postal and broadcast material. Distance Learning is at present one-way - i.e. broadcast to the students who have no immediate methods to communicate with the tutors.

17.1.1.7 Interactive Distance Learning (IDLE)

Is currently a rare form of Distance Learning where the communications allow immediate interaction between tutors and distant students. The transmission costs of such interactive tuition confines IDLE to special circumstances. A well established example of IDLE is the Australian School of the Air - the two way radio school for children living on remote farms.

17.1.1.8 Business

In this report “business” includes commerce, industry and all work activities. For example schools, hospitals and police duties are the business of the people employed in those sectors.

17.1.1.9 CFZ’s Communication Free Zones

Geographic areas which are as free from telecommunications and road links as is possible in the modern World; particularly holiday or vacation areas or, for example, special buildings or events such as Opera Houses. Or areas not necessarily free of roads and telecoms but where stringent controls are exercised over their use.

17.1.1.10 Convoy

A line of moving vehicles; cars, vans, buses, lorries - spaced apart to travel safely at speed, and/or bunched in slow moving or stationary traffic queues.

17.1.1.11 ITC - Information Technology Communications

A commonly used generic term embracing networks, peripherals, software and support systems and services.

17.1.1.12 CHOF’s - Cyberspace Head Office

An electronic environment providing virtual individual offices, corridors and floor levels - where dispersed or remote teleworkers can electronically see and be seen by colleagues and superiors. Replicating the ability to be seen “at your desk” by those who matter, and to have access to assistance and information including office gossip.

17.1.1.13 Nintendo Generation

The younger generation, reared on Nintendo computer games and trained to use computers at school. Probably born after 1976, wholly comfortable with ITC. Phrase coined by Gil Gordon, the USA telecommmute expert and publisher of Telecommuting Review.

17.2 Bibliography

(NB IR page 61 Benefit in Kind shows 260,000 only get home telephone - define home? and 230,000 get mobile phone )

YIMBY - Yes, its in my backyard - who escapes from overcrowded roads? - there is no escape - Scotland and the Western Isles perhaps.

END

[1] ECTF - European Commission Telematics Forum members

[2] Yorkshire Water and Britsh Gas engineers

[3] Jobs Work & Employment in the Information Society ..also Partnership for a New Organisation of Work - both DGV, EC Brussels

[4] Duncan Bythell, Durham Univ. The Sweated Trades; Batsford Academic

[5] Open University - also Australian School of the Air

[13] Vehicles are able to travel at differing average speeds on multiple lane roads

[14] Teleworking Explained - Wiley & Sons 1993

[15] NB - BT 130K employees 11k co cars 8.5% - 42k vans/trucks 32% [p15 BT Eco Rep] Inland Rev p61 - 1.7m co cars 7.08% nat workforce - 1.7m private health b-i-k - 110k vans.

[16] check note - £1,857 p.a. or £270 per worker p.a.

[18] Oxford Scientific Instruments - also see Cowley car factory