CIHT has responded to the Second National Infrastructure Commission Assessment and the Department for Transport consultation on the Whole Industry Strategic Plan for rail. Our responses highlights the need to develop overarching strategies and calls for the government to develop a National Transport Strategy.
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CIHT has responded to the Second National Infrastructure Commission Assessment and the Great British Railways Transition Team consultation on the Whole Industry Strategic Plan for rail.
Our responses highlight the need to develop overarching strategies and calls for the government to develop a National Transport Strategy.
Echoing CIHT's position to develop a National Transport Strategy, as mentioned within our Comprehensive Spending Review Submission in September 2021. Our CSR submission called for:
"the government to provide a clear vision and strategy that sets out how transport will contribute to key policy areas. CIHT will work with government, other national bodies and sub-national transport groups to develop the vision and strategy."
CIHT FUTURES was published in 2016 and highlighted the need to embrace uncertainty in future transport decision-making. The techniques and tools in this report should be taken account to shift from ‘predict and provide’ to ‘decide and provide’; using a regime-testing approach to decision-making on transport investment.
As the transport sector prepare to transition and deliver net zero commitments it is vital for change to be made. This shift should transcend through the sector, we can no longer afford to have individual consultations and discuss individual modes of transport. There is a need to improve the links between planning and transport – too often we build first and then think about transport infrastructure afterwards - as highlighted in our ‘Better Planning, Better Transport, Better Places’ document.
Without a National Transport Strategy the transport sector will remain disjointed and lack coordination.
CIHT responses further highlights the need to establish a National Transport Strategy (NTS) as this is lacking in England and that the Great British Railways strategy would be a component of this. A NTS would help the government to provide a clear vision and strategy that sets out how transport will contribute to key policy areas.
The strategy should set a clear framework of requirements over a minimum 10-year period for all elements of our transportation networks. This strategy should include the strategic and local highway networks, rail, aviation and ports and set out how those networks integrate with one another.
It should include a pipeline of infrastructure investment that would encourage business to invest in the resources needed to deliver in a wide range of government policy areas – equality, health, sustainability and developing a prosperous economy.
Currently there is a lack of coordination of transport strategy at a spatial level across the UK. From local and central governments and regional transport partnerships implementing policies, to businesses and individuals taking account of their actions; the national strategy should set a long-term direction and urgent and immediate priorities.
CIHT's response addressed three key areas: asset management and resilience, urban mobility and congestion and interurban transport across modes.
Within asset management, there is a need to develop a top-down objective to have more aligned decisions being made effecting the way in which we determine asset usage thereby allowing the impacts of climate change to be considered across the infrastructure stock. In support of this, there is need to improve the pipeline of programmed works, through an enterprise framework, to empower better planning around the resilience of transportation decision-making to be made, regardless of transport mode.
Within urban mobility and congestion, there is a need for an effective demand management model, in the forms of car park charging, low emission zones and park and ride facilities, as well as congestion charging.
Within interurban transport across modes, there is a need for a National Transport Strategy to be developed which ultimately will provide a strategic framework for all areas discussed. Interurban transportation requires a long-term planning and future-proofing to cater to rapid developments in technology and behavioural change such as online shopping, home working, etc.
This consultation covered the following areas:
CIHT's response highlighted that to address all these areas a whole industry approach should consider focusing on the whole of the transport industry.
With the development of a Whole Industry Strategic Plan, this should be undertaken in consultation with other transport bodies – particularly with National Highways – as the freight implications from the strategy need to be considered across all transport modes. And other strategies e.g. the Government has a Bus Strategy – how the Rail Strategy connects to this must be considered alongside CIHT’s ‘Buses in Urban Developments’.
CIHT would see the Office for Road and Rail (ORR) to ensure that it has a role in sharing best practice between the road and rail sectors.
Establishing a whole industry strategic plan - or as previously mentioned - a National Transport Strategy, would remove the lack of coordination within decision making across the transport industry.
The government should investigate the need to establish a long-term investment pipeline and strategy, which is taken out of the political arena to prevent the current boom and bust approach. All interventions will be expected to contribute to inclusive, sustainable, transformational economic growth while also aligning with the other national transport objectives, which are all equally weighted, in order to increase opportunities and protect and enhance the environment in which they are located.
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