Balancing prescription and guidance for local transport plans Available to Purchase

The UK has a long tradition of local transport plans as a means of articulating and implementing transport strategy. That approach is now being emulated by the European Commission. This paper assesses the appropriateness of past and current practice in England outside London as a basis for application more widely in Europe, and advocates improvements in the ways in which guidance might be provided to local authority staff. It draws on the international literature to identify the requirements for effective local transport plans. In particular it outlines the evidence on the policy instruments which are likely to be most effective, identifies the barriers to implementing them and summarises the development of decision-support tools which could help to overcome these barriers. It then reviews, on the basis of the literature and personal experience, the development of transport policies and programmes and local transport plans in England. Combining these two analyses, it assesses the effectiveness of these procedures for local transport planning in England, and recommends improvements.