Tyne and Wear Transport Planning - Centre of Excellence

In February 2002, the Tyne and Wear Local Transport Plan received a Centre of Excellence award from Central Government. Only 18 plans nationwide have received this accolade, in recognition of excellence and innovation in local transport planning.

Tyne and Wear was noted for its innovation with regards to public transport accessibility. Our methods for accessing and monitoring local accessibility complemented long term programmes to improve public transport services in partnership with operators.

A key element of this approach has been the development of analytical modelling and mapping capabilities to monitor and plan public transport accessibility across the conurbation.

These capabilities can be applied to key elements of the strategic and development planning processes, including;

· Routine and regular accessibility monitoring for Annual Progress Reports;
· Accessibility audits to inform location-specific planning guidance and development control processes;
· Strategic network planning, for instance in the evaluation of home-to-school travel strategies;
· Accessibility planning as part of strategic development and land-use plans

In recent months, the approach has been adapted to reflect good-practice guidance on planning for accessibility as part of strategies to address social exclusion. Accessibility to key destinations – including employment, schools, food shopping and health care - can be assessed for defined groups in the local population.

An overtly spatial approach is adopted, defining accessibility with regard to the travel opportunities that result from local land-use, demographic characteristics and the transport infrastructure.

An open database structure supports a range of applications, giving the analyst control of key variables that drive the model e.g. day-of-week, time-of-arrival. Fundamental to the approach is “Autoaccess”, a collection of software engines, web pages and database tools to provide a comprehensive analysis of the public transport system. The accessibility database is derived from comprehensive timetable databases compiled and maintained by Nexus (Tyne & Wear PTE). The analysis uses the Ordnance Survey OSCAR road network definition as the basis for a walk-to-stop network, which compliments the in-vehicular components of the public transport trip to represent the whole journey.

Outputs from the analysis have two principal forms;

· The overall travel-time between any two pairs (of some 7,000) bus stops, Metro & rail stations, and ferry terminals in Tyne & Wear;
· A breakdown of the discrete links that make up a journey between two stops for a given time and date;

Outputs from the accessibility tools can be linked to GIS systems to provide powerful methods of mapping accessibility criteria spatially, offering a visually picture of the performance of a complex public transport network in providing levels-of-service to a wide range of destinations across Tyne & Wear.