What does it mean to take a “vision-led” approach to transport planning?

13/11/2024

As part of Cambridge Ahead’s Infrastructure Gap programme, in this blog Charlene Rohr explores the potential for a step-change in transport planning and what it could mean for the Cambridge city region.

On 30 July 2024, the new Labour government set out proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework alongside other changes to the planning system. An important addition to the chapter on ‘Promoting Sustainable Transport’ is the requirement to adopt a “vision-led” approach. This blog delves deeper into why this is appropriate and what it means for transport planning in the 21st century.

This blog goes on to discuss what this might mean for transport planning in Cambridge, at a point where so much national and local focus is – rightly – on the city region’s infrastructure gap. Today in Cambridge, traffic congestion and lack of good alternative options to the private car negatively impacts drivers, the delivery of high-quality public transport services, reduction of carbon emissions, our health, air quality, the urban realm, and the local economy. The prospect of a move to vision-led transport planning is vitally relevant right now in the Cambridge city region.

The need for a “vision-led” approach

In the past, transport plans largely adopted what is called a “Predict-and-Provide” approach. This involved making predictions about the size and make-up of the future population, their employment (and the location of these opportunities) and their travel patterns: the latter largely derived from an analysis of past travel behaviour.

A growing number of transport planners have been conscious of challenges with this approach.

First, that it is impossible to (confidently) predict future travel behaviour. The Covid-19 pandemic illustrated perfectly why this is so. The pandemic saw a sizeable shift in the number of people who immediately started working from home, supported by digital systems that provided good substitutions for previous in-person activities. Many of these people have been slow to come back to working in an office five days a week (and some never will). Further, more people shopped online than ever before, contributing to the decline in in-person shopping that has been happening over the last decade.

Thinking to the future, other significant transport changes are on the horizon. Most planners expect a switchover of the person vehicle fleet to zero emission (electric) vehicles, which could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But these vehicles will continue to contribute to congestion and emissions from tyre wear, as well as affecting road safety (impacting the propensity to walk and cycle). If the cost of driving in electric vehicles is significantly reduced, then we should also expect to see significant increases in driving. The possible introduction of self-driving vehicles could have even greater impacts across the transport system. It is clear that trying to predict the future is plagued with uncertainty.

The second observation is the growing recognition that transport (and wider) planning has a significant effect on transport outcomes. There is substantial evidence that building roads can lead to more road travel, whereas providing better cycling infrastructure can lead to increases in cycling. It is becoming apparent that planners reap what they sow in terms of their transport plans.

A third critical point is that if we are to meet legal targets for carbon emission reduction then we need to change the current trajectory and reduce car travel. It is not good enough to adopt a “more of the same” approach, we need to make significant changes. The good news is that there can be significant co-benefits in making such changes, including in terms of improving air quality and public health.

Thus the idea of “vision-led” planning was born. If as planners we recognise that it is not possible to predict the future and the policies you adopt impact outcomes, then the “vision-led” approach is what logically follows. This is especially so when “more of the same” is not good enough and when transport and society appear to be in a notable state of flux.

Lyons and Davidson (2016) took this idea one step forward in their “decide and provide” planning paradigm, emanating from work by the New Zealand Ministry of Transport in 2014, a vision-led approach that accommodates uncertainty. The core proposition is to decide upon a preferred future and chart a robust course of action that is able to navigate uncertainty ahead to move towards the realisation of that vision.

So how do you adopt a vision-led approach?

Mott MacDonald and the University of the West of England drew upon this foundational work to set out the vision-led “Decide and Provide” FUTURES (Future Uncertainty Toolkit for Understanding and Responding to an Evolving Society) approach to help policymakers make robust plans in an environment of uncertainty.6

The FUTURES approach incorporates six stages, summarised in the diagram below:

1. Gearing up: Understanding the current transport system, including its strengths, weaknesses, as well as future opportunities and threats. This also involves exploring aligned systems, in terms of land-use planning, digital services, energy – and how these may influence future transport.

2. Preferred Futures: Setting out an inspiring vision. The aim here is to engage a wide range of stakeholders to develop an inspiring vision that can create buy-in and guide future plans.

3. Opening out: Exploration of future uncertainties – usually through scenario planning – to understand how the future could play out.

4. Options: Understanding the range of policy and investment decisions that could help reach the vision, considering the wider system of interest.

5. Closing down: Identifying a policy and investment pathway that is robust across the range of uncertainties, i.e. those that work well across plausible future conditions rather than are optimum in one central forecast. This pathway should set out what interventions are needed now and what adaptations may be needed in future to adjust for changing future conditions.

6. Review: Monitor key trends and revisit the strategy making adaptations as is necessary.

The FUTURES approach draws on systems-thinking, considering how impacts from the wider system, in terms of land-use, transport and digital systems may impact travel patterns as well as considering solutions that cut across all relevant systems (something Lyons and Davidson called the ‘Triple Access System’).

 

Possible next steps for Cambridge?

The Cambridge city region is seeking transformational change in terms of providing sustainable transport, in terms of its future bus system, its active travel network and in terms of developing the Greater Cambridge Transport Strategy. This is an opportune time to adopt a vision-led “Decide and Provide” approach.

As a first step it would be important to understand what a successful city region transport system would look like in 2050 and beyond for different city stakeholders. What would the measures of success of such a system be, in terms of accessibility, decarbonisation, safety, the economy, equality, our urban realm, health and wellbeing, and quality of life? What is most important? How ambitious can our vision be? What trade-offs would different stakeholders be willing to make? What would we retain from our current system and what needs transformation?

It would be important to consider wider system influences (and solutions), including the close links with land-use planning and digital services, drawing on the Triple Access Approach.

We also need to understand what future changes may happen that are largely outside of the control of city region planners. How could social and demographic change influence future travel? What new technologies might arrive? How might they influence people’s travel? How might future funding influence future plans?

This information could be used to test how different proposals meet the vision, and under what future conditions. What are strengths across the different options? How robust are these to future challenges? Is there scope to build in possible adaptation to help address future uncertainty?

The ultimate aim would be to develop a robust, adaptable and resilient plan that meets the vision of people in the city region.

Over the next few months, I will be working with Cambridge Ahead to explore what information we have to inform a local vision as well as to review and assess the different transport options and plans to identify how well these align and where there are significant gaps.

Charlene Rohr

Technical Principal, Mott MacDonald