October 2009
The Commission for Integrated Transport (CfIT) has launched a powerful new guidance tool for planning practitioners, local authority officers and councillors.
The guidance is based on a comprehensive review of international literature, data analysis and case study interviews, undertaken by Halcrow, Peter Headicar (Oxford Brookes University) and Professor David Banister (University of Oxford).
Planning for Sustainable Travel is a web-based resource with a summary practice guide. It identifies the 11 key land use levers that planners and transport planners can use to help achieve lower trip rates, shorter travel distances and greater use of sustainable travel modes. This is vital in an increasingly congested environment and as a contribution to reducing transport carbon dioxide emissions. There is currently no comparable evidence-based guidance on the linkages between land use and transport covering the regional, sub-regional and local scales.
Corinne Swain OBE, the CfIT Commissioner leading the work, said “This website and associated material provides a user-friendly source of evidence and best practice advice for local practitioners and councillors involved in making some of the most influential planning decisions in the UK today. It also seeks to break down professional barriers between town planning and transport planning – responsibilities that are often divided between different tiers of local authorities”.
Halcrow’s Dr Robin Hickman comments “Urban structure and mobility are inextricably linked – the location and form of development provides the physical rationale for travel. We feel that practitioners can give more attention to the transport consequences of major development proposals, particularly at the strategic scale of the planning process. This includes consideration of strategic development location, transport network improvements, density, accessibility, mix of uses, neighbourhood design and layout, and traffic demand management measures.
More effective integration of the planning and transport disciplines, in policy, process and implementation, can help to avoid building in car dependency".
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