We start with the National Rail services.

That seems to be the emerging consensus view. I trust the SoS is not saying that no one in his department has not sat down with him and taken him through the background on such a key policy for London?

Edited by Carla Novak and Ellen Ward Will we drive in robot cars, cycle in the sky, or be stuck in endless traffic?From the Great Stink to Oxford Street smog and 'pea-soupers' to the Clean Air Act, what can the history of air pollution tell us about the future of London's lungs?

London 2050 has largely restated the known Network Rail schemes, and then added further schemes to suit the potential spatial formats. Two thirds of the total increase in jobs are expected to occur in the Inner London boroughs.This points once again to increased, heavy reliance on rail travel to and within Inner and Central London, including radial and orbital flows and large-scale passenger distribution from termini.The sequence adopted for the rest of this article is therefore:Merging the LSE RUS and LTPP estimates of projected demand flows (and taking PGS as the upper limit), shows below, in the next two tables, the following gaps in demand and supply on London’s National Rail corridors in 2031, and in 2050+. Or is this a case of “I’m the boss, I wait for others to request a meeting with me.”?

Life on an urban earth presents unique challenges, from transport and food production to pollution and housing.

Demand for underground and rail services is likely to increase by 60% and 80% respectively

I think it’s a tad harsh to criticise the “develop brownfield sites” point.

By 2050, London’s population could rise to 13 million citizens. I assume that TfL and the Department have been in discussions about a wide range of things on devolution for many, many months. It could require 200,000 more homes in south-west London alone, Lord True added, or two boroughs the size of Sutton or Kingston.“Such population and housing growth would irreversibly change the character of many parts of London,” he told Parliament. Even so full relief is not guaranteed.

These are external links and will open in a new windowLondon's population is set to increase by 37% to more than 11 million by 2050, according to the mayor's report on how the city will accommodate the increase.Boris Johnson said London faced a series of serious challenges in its infrastructure.

It strikes me South Eastern could take a lot more off peak traffic if the service was more attractive.3. In this part (and the next) of our continuing series we’ll look at the ‘quantity and quality’ schemes arriving at this electronic platform now for rail (above ground and below), surface transport and integration and interchange.Because there’s a lot to say, we’ll focus first on the overall shape of what’s offered, and particularly on the National Rail element within London and the Home Counties.We can now review, also in context, the transport schemes which individually and jointly are brought forwards in London 2050 – and those which appear absent from such advocacy.So this is not a prioritised list in the sequence in which it is published, although such measures are set out in the TSP tables. Thus there needs to be very strong support from the DfT to provide the dosh. It plays to the electorate’s demand for much more housing, it makes sense to have better transport to support mobility from new housing and it’s in the broad sweep of government policy around more housing. It is a contender for the title of biggest soft launch of a transport upgrade, certainly in recent times. Someone is going to get a chunk of money for telling them they can’t afford it… (as the to do list is so much long and more expensive than West Anglia Overground start with 5x multiplier and then increase).4. A 3 hour inbound peak volume would then be perhaps 1.15 million passengers, a throughput over 70% more than in 2010. These figures also ignore reverse-flow commuting, which is a growing phenomenon in London and the Home Counties.Multiply that by roundly 1,100 to 1,250, and you see the annualised volumes rising to 1.26-1.43 billion, so that London’s National Rail network would on its own be handling nearly as many passengers as the whole of Britain’s main line railways do currently.About half of the inbound passengers would be standing, including outer commuters, if they could get on the trains (and would be less likely to find space, any space, on the inners), in the unfortunate event of no new capacity being provided in the intervening decades.Even with solutions to capacity gaps, the standee London commuter will be a more typical experience on National Rail, in future decades. I would assume that background includes info on what has been achieved to date across a wide range of measures / attributes plus the general policy thrust for the future. I would expect TfL to order new stock – possibly large quantities of it to give more peak capacity per train where feasible and to allow off peaks to be bolstered too. This is lower in PII, where strong UK economic growth is driven by burgeoning domestic production located outside of large city centres, and London and Home Counties employment growth after 2023 is forecast at 0.67% per annum, compound 26.7% from 2011. I need to see the Mayor’s proposals about how he thinks he can enhance services in London—I am looking forward to seeing them—before I consider any changes.”@ Anon – thanks for that update. The city would not reach its pre-war peak of 8.61 million people until 2015.London's continued growth relies on an influx of people from elsewhere in the United Kingdom and the world.

The magic cure is to actually fund adequate staffing levels so the gates remain in service all day. Hence the average peak user would probably get a better deal with more metro stock from a conventional franchise arrangement between DfT and a TOC… (One potential bidder pricing up binning all the existing SE metro stock)6. So it can be 2043 plus or minus some variation – providing that a similar economic geography is anticipated.We’ve shown that, whether you like it or not, the forecasting processes are largely geared towards more of the same, at least for jobs – additional radial-centric commuting.