Bath: A Planning and Transport Study The terms of reference for this study are,

"To consider the traffic problems in the City as a whole, to advise on the primary (highway) network and environmental area system, to give special attention to the problems arising in the central area and

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to consider the balance between private and public transport." 4.1.6 In-house Studies

A number of studies completed in-house by the officers to the authority

do not state explicitly any terms of reference. However the

recommendations imply that the only objective of most studies was to prepare a future highway plan for the study area. For instance, the Outline Transportation Plan for the City of Southampton states that, "The report puts forward transportation proposals for Southampton and indicates how these fit in to the international, national, regional and sub-regional transportation pattern. The principles of two recommended inter-related road networks (regional road network and

Q

4.04

In the publication, Traffic in Nottingham : A Traffic Plan for the City, it is stated that,

"The Traffic Plan was selected as the first subject of the city's replanning to be presented because traffic is the major urban planning problem that must be solved most urgently, and whose solution will make other planning objectives easier to obtain ... The major subject

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of the present Report is the Primary Highway Network." 1 An in-house study in which the aims are explicitly stated is the

Hertford Ware and Hoddcsdon Transportation Study. This was conducted by the officers of the Hertfordshire County Council. The aims of the Btudy are,

(i) To forecast the volume and nature of demand for personal and goods transport in the study area when the vehicle ownership of the planned population has reached saturation level and at intermediate stages.

(ii) To assess alternative ways of meeting the expected demand and their effect on landuse.

(iii) To plan a phased network of primary roads and environmental areas as a basis for building development, re-development and budgeting for expenditure on roads.

(iv) To provide information and techniques which can be used elsewhere in the County.

Based on evidence such as that above, I conclude that the primary objective of transportation studies, completed in the past two decades, was to forecast the local traffic growth over the study period, normally ovei 15 to 20 years and to SPECIFY in detail a PLAN for efficiently catering for it through infrastructure investment, essentially roads. Plowden, Atkins and a number of those who submitted evidence to the Environment and Home Office Sub-Committee on Urban Transport Planning also confirm my view of the primary objective of transportation studies.1 0

,

It has been observed that the preparation of transport studies

resulted in secondary benefits such as the enlightenment of planners. Such "spin-offs" were rarely mentioned at the time the studies were commissioned, and ore in any case rather intangible.

4.05

The first test of success of transport studies should be an assessment of fulfillment of the primary objective, in other words a measure of similarity between the investment pattern (plans) that the studies recommend and subsequent actual investment. This is called an implementation measure. It records directly whether the plan was acceptable. It also indicates indirectly whether the plan was robust, in the sense that the projects it contained were still seen to be beneficial some years after the plan's completion.

A transport plan specifies a sequence of discrete investments or projects. A measure of implementation could record how CLOSELY the recommendations were followed, whether they were followed at the specified RATE or whether in the specified ORDER. 1 have however disregarded the last of these measures because most transport plans do not give an ordered programme of work for implementation. Even in the few cases where such a programme was given, (for instance lists were readily available in the case of conurbation studies) it is always difficult to interpret meaningfully the delays associated with the implementation of individual projects. I have derived separate measures for the first two criteria. These are called the

"quantitative11 and "rate" measures respectively. 4.2.1 Quantitative measure of implementation

Where a high proportion of actual investment in new infrastructure is for projects contained in the long-term plan, there would appear to be continuing confidence in the plan. Conversely, where many projects undertaken during the plan period lie outside the plan, it is possible that the latter is too inflexible to accommodate changes in socio-political and economic goals. An informative measure i? thus:

LEVEL OF NEW INFRASTRUCTURE DOTH RECOMMENDED AND IMPLEMENTED

Q = LEVEL OK ALL NEW INERASTRUCTURE IMPLEMENTED IN THAT PERIOD

giving MQ = 100 when only planned facilities were built. MQ will be zero when the plan has been totally disregarded and all capital projects undertaken were outside the plan.

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.

The first test of success of transport studies should be an assessment of fulfillment of the primary objective, in other words a measure of similarity between the investment pattern (plans) that the studies recommend and subsequent actual investment. This is called an implementation measure. It records directly whether the plan was acceptable. It also indicates indirectly whether the plan was robust, in the sense that the projects it contained were still seen to be beneficial some years after the plan's completion.

A transport plan specifies a sequence of discrete investments or projects. A measure of implementation could record how CLOSELY the recommendations were followed, whether they were followed at the specified RATE or whether in the specified ORDER. 1 have however disregarded the last of these measures because most transport plans do not give an ordered programme of work for implementation. Even in the few cases where such a programme was given, (for instance lists were readily available in the case of conurbation studies) it is always difficult to interpret meaningfully the delays associated with the implementation of individual projects. I have derived separate measures for the first two criteria. These are called the

"quantitative" and "rate" measures respectively. 4.2.1 Quantitative measure of implementation

Where a high proportion of actual investment in new infrastructure is for projects contained in the long-term plan, there would appear to be continuing confidence in the plan. Conversely, where many projects undertaken during the plan period lie outside the plan, it

is possible that the latter is too inflexible to accommodate changes in socio-political and economic goals. An informative measure is thus:

lOOX LEVEL 0F NKW INFRASTRUCTURE BOTH RECOMMENDED AND IMPLEMENTED

" LEVEL OK ALL NEW INFRASTRUCTURE IMPLEMENTED IN THAT PERIOD

4.2 IMPLEMENTATION MEASURES TO ASSESS THE .SUCCESS OF TRANSPORT STUDIES

giving MQ = 100 when only planned facilities were built. MQ will be

zero when the plan has been totally disregarded and all capital projects undertaken were outside the plan.

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. . 0

MR - lO O x __________________________________________________________

LEVEL OF ALL NEW INFRASTRUCTURE RECOMMENDED FOR THAT PERIOD and employ it as a test of plan realism.

MQ and MR have the same numerator. They have been expressed in terms of "levels" of investment. These levels can be defined in either physical or financial terms, each having particular difficulties of application. Using financial units, MQ and MR become FMQ and FMR respectively, where, for example.

COST OF THOSE PROJECTS PLANNED AND IMPLEMENTED FMR = 100 x ---

COST OF ALL PROJECTS PLANNED FOR THAT PERIOD

The difficulties associated with quantifying physical measures are more severe than those associated with the financial ones. A convenient physical measure would be one actually quantified in the recommendations of transport studies, capable of accumulation over the full range of projects and usable with available data. None of the popular physical measures (such as lane-miles of highway, route-miles of bus service, capacity of Metro) satisfy all these conditions. Moreover, simple physical measures cannot handle important variations in quality such as speed, safety or comfort. For the above reasons, I have primarily directed my attention to the two financial measures of plan imple­ mentation, FMQ and FMR.