An insightful report from economic consultant Volterra highlights the inadequacy of the standard approach to transport investment appraisal, which focuses on time savings to travellers as the supposed main benefit. As Bridget Rosewell, author of the report, observes, there is a mismatch between central government’s ambition to boost jobs growth and economic prosperity in cities and the system used to prioritise transport investment and funding. She rightly argues that better transport, land use planning and devolution go hand in hand, and that for London and other cities, an integration of land use planning and development with the transport investment is central to economic growth.
It is significant that this study was commissioned by Transport For London and Transport for Greater Manchester, both organisations evidently dissatisfied with the Department for Transport’s approach to centralised decision making