It’s an interesting time for the roads programme. There’s benefit being gained as a result of the 5-year programme of investment mapped out in the Road Investment Strategy but there is still more for the profession to do if we are to gain the trust and confidence of users – our residents and businesses – that when we will do what we say we’ll do and deliver investment on time and within budget. Delay in delivering planned investment has a real impact on people’s lives and the productivity and profitability of businesses. It can also cause a potential business investor to doubt whether they should push the button and make their own commitment. We know that one of the biggest concerns amongst wider society is that proposals for new growth are not supported by timely investment in infrastructure and services. We can – and must – do better to deliver programmes of investment.

A key to this is undoubtedly ensuring that we have sufficient skills and capacity across the profession to enable us to achieve that requirement. One of the key roles that CIHT provides is ensuring there are the qualifications and training programmes there that help ensure the flow of talent continues. One of the many tasks as President is to personally sign all the certificates of membership. The summer has been particularly full in this regard as members have taken up the opportunity to gain the recently accredited Chartered Transport Planning Professional qualification. It’s a very tangible reflection of how valued qualifications are across the profession and as someone who’s spent a large part of their professional life working in transport planning (but not all by any means) I’ve been particularly pleased to see the work put into the CTPP bearing fruit.

One of the challenges I highlighted in my speech was that of ensuring that we use the investment available to deliver outcomes – not just another new piece of infrastructure, after all rule 1 of transport planning is that travel is a derived demand.
From my day job I know that a number of our Sub-national Transport Bodies were a little frustrated at the way in which the list of criteria for proposals to be eligible for the Major Road Network programme were drawn up. Their argument went along the lines of: if the outcome sought is improved conditions on the Major Road Network we might achieve that by investing in schemes off the network – like a busway, or a new rail station, after all if we can encourage some trips to switch mode then there’s the opportunity to realise benefits for those who still need to use the Major Road Network. Surely this is what an integrated approach to strategic investment is all about?

The STBs might not have won the argument this time around, but as they produce their Transport Strategies there’ll be further opportunities to mainstream this thinking, not just in policy frameworks but in our investment decision making. For whilst it will continue to be the case that there is a need to invest in our road network we must ensure that the proposals we develop are fit for the 21st century. We need to remind ourselves that some of the decisions on investment taken today may not be delivered for some 10 years or more. As we look to some of the challenges facing wider society, we need to ask ourselves whether our proposals are consistent with the need to reduce the environmental impact of our transport system. History shows us that we can achieve tremendous feats of engineering in relatively short periods of time if we have clarity of vision and effective leadership. CIHT and its members are right in the front line of these debates and we need to use our skills and ability to provide both vision and leadership.