The Royal Commission on London Traffic was a royal commission established in 1903 with a remit to review and report on how transport systems should be developed for London and the surrounding area. It produced a report in eight volumes published in 1905 and made recommendations on the character, administration and routing of traffic in London.
Establishment
The Royal Commission on London Traffic was established on 10 February 1903. It had 13 commissioners and was chaired by Sir David Barbour. Its secretary was Lynden Macassey and the other commissioners were:
Earl Cawdor, Chairman of the Great Western Railway
Viscount Cobham
Baron Ribblesdale
Sir Joseph Dimsdale MP, member of parliament for the City of London and former Lord Mayor of London Sir Robert Reid MP, former Attorney General Sir John Dickson-Poynder MP, member of the London County Council
Sir John Wolfe Barry, former President of the Institution of Civil Engineers
Sir Francis Hopwood, Permanent Secretary to the Board of Trade
Sir George Trout Bartley MP, member of parliament for Islington North
Charles Murdoch, Assistant Under Secretary at the Home Department
Felix Schuster, Banker
George Gibb, General Manager of the North Eastern Railway
Remit
The commission's remit was to report on London's traffic arrangements and: (a) as to measures which the commission deem most effectual for the improvement of the same by the development and inter-connexion of Railways and Tramways on, or below, the surface; by increasing the facilities for other forms of mechanical locomotion; by better provision for the organization and regulation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, or otherwise; (b) as to the desirability of establishing some authority or tribunal to which all schemes of Railway or Tramway construction of a local character should be referred, and the powers which it could be advisable to confer on such a body.
The area of the commission's scope covered the Metropolitan Police District, an area of and a population of more than 6.5 million in 1901. In its report the commission described this as "Greater London" and the urban developed area at its centre as "the Metropolis". The area beyond the Metropolis was described as "Extra London".
Investigation
The commission held 112 meetings and interviewed 134 witnesses. Members of the commission carried out fact-finding visits to New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington in 1903 and to Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Cologne, Dresden, Berlin, Brussels and Paris in 1904.
An advisory board of three engineers was appointed to give the commission technical advice. The board consisted of Sir John Wolfe Barry (also a member of the commission), Sir Benjamin Baker, former President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and William Barclay Parsons, Chief Engineer to the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners of the City of New York.
Report and recommendations
The commission's report, Report of the Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire Into and Report Upon the Means of Locomotion and Transport in London, was published in eight volumes on 17 July 1905.
The report examined the historic development of road, rail and tram transportation and the current condition. It made recommendations for improvements to roads within London's central area and arterial roads; for improvements in tramways including new routes and for improvements in railways of all types including their connections to one another. Recommendations were made as on road traffic regulations and the commission recommended the establishment of a Traffic Board to manage traffic developments in the Greater London area and carry out preliminary reviews of bills for traffic schemes before they were submitted to parliament.
Roads
The report identified that road traffic was constrained by the narrowness of many of London's roads which reflected the historic development of the city.
The report recommended that a comprehensive plan should be developed to improve road provision and routing to be carried out over the long term and that new roads should be constructed to standard widths depending on their importance and that existing main routes should be widened when possible.