Inspired by Messrs Clarkson, Hammond and May, the TPS held its very own “Race Across London” on 14 July 2010. 

Six groups from Arup, PBA, Halcrow, MVA and SDG, with a total of around 25 participants, started the race from their different offices and converged by foot, bike, scooter, motorcycle, bus, tube, ferry and taxi on the Cross Keys pub near the Chelsea Embankment - probably the pub most distant from a tube station in the whole of Central London! 

Overall, we found that, based on average speeds across all the journeys, two wheels are the fastest way to get around, with little difference between motorised and leg-powered forms.  Taxi came in third, whilst taking the tube and running came in at about the same speed.  Next came bus, then walking (although walking was quicker than the bus for some journeys).  The ferry came in last, although that was entirely down to having to wait for 40 minutes for the next service!

We also found that popular on-line route planners, e.g. TfL, walkit, cyclestreets (other journey planners are available) are, with a number of exceptions, pretty good in estimating journey times. 

Discussion over a few beers after the race revealed that the Halcrow team had included in their journey times the time taken to get changed into cycling gear and trainers, raising the interesting question of whether this should be included in transport models, and if so, what weighting should be applied to it?!