Lynda Addison OBE is former chair of CIHT’s sustainable transport panel, former chair of the Transport Planning Society (TPS), 2019 CIHT Transportation Professional of the Year and winner of the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award. Lynda highlights the key issues for transport professionals raised in the recently published Computer says Road article.

I read David Milner’s article about outdated transport models that highlights many of the key issues with our current methodologies for designing the future transport network; reinforcing concerns raised by CIHT and TPS over many years. Although it must be said that there are people who have pursued a different approach, albeit sometimes against much resistance.

The demand for change in these methodologies and approach is growing with increasing pressure on the DfT to radically change their requirements. It is essential we change now to achieve the outcomes required.

The solutions proposed in this article are key pieces of this complex jigsaw. The author calls for transport professionals to address:

1 The critical role we have as a profession in shaping the future and ensuring that it is a more sustainable and healthier one.

The whole profession must change fast to understand the different approaches needed whether they are technical or behavioural. So much of what we have done in the past and how we have done it needs to change from modelling to working with communities, so people and place become the focus, and how we want to live. Designing for people not cars, collaborating with communities not just consulting them, should become the norm.

2 A clearly articulated vision of the future that has been derived from working with communities must underpin this new approach.

It needs to be sufficiently explicit to drive change and a deliverable action plan. It should be developed in a way that supports communities to understand the issues for their community and they become part of the drivers for change: they own the vision and action plan.

3 Living in an increasingly changing world makes it very difficult to predict the future hence we need to plan in a way that gives flexibility to change as behaviour and technical changes occur.

The pace of change is fast, and we need to be in front. Planning for flexibility will need a different approach and different skills – it is much more complex. Understanding where the local community wishes to be in 10 or 20 years’ time, and planning for that vision, is part of the process we need to follow.

4 Politicians and officers in government have a key role in understanding the need for a different approach and delivering it fast.

Rather than being behind the curve we can at least keep up with the changes taking place as far as the law, policies and methodologies are concerned.

5 Planning and transport must be seen as intrinsically inter-connected, to create a vision for a better future where healthier people and a well-designed and functioning place form the core objective.

The current structures and processes make this extremely difficult to achieve whether on a voluntary or compulsory basis. Before the formal changes can be made, we need to work much more collaboratively across these fields, at all levels and organisations.

In conversation with Pamela Cahill.

Read David Milner’s paper Computer says Road published in Feb 2022.