Regional Transport Strategies

It is Government policy that transport planning should be fully integrated with land use planning at the regional and local levels. The preparation of a Regional Transport Strategy (RTS) as an integral and clearly identifiable part of Regional Planning Guidance (RPG) is of key importance to achieving this integration. The RTS will identify regional priorities for transport investment and management across all modes, including trunk roads and local highway authority roads of regional or sub-regional significance. Regional Planning Bodies (RPBs) may use multi-modal studies to help formulate their RTSs.

RTS will provide the long-term regional framework for local transport plans and transport providers, including the Highways Agency. In many cases, especially where the formulation of the RTS has been informed by a multi-modal study, it will identify the problem to be addressed and significantly reduce the range of potential solutions to be considered. In particular, it will often identify the solution as a road improvement scheme, rather than (or perhaps complementary to) a project involving other modes. Thus, the work leading up to the RTS will often meet the requirements of highway appraisal Stage 1.

Key Entry Points:

Those working on Regional Transport Strategies should be aware of the basic principles of transport appraisal, as summarised in An Introduction to Transport Appraisal (TAG Unit 1.1).

Where multi-modal studies are being used to inform the RTS, Multi-Modal Studies: An Introduction to GOMMMS (TAG Unit 1.2) provides a useful starting point.

Further information

The primary source of guidance on Regional Transport Strategies is Planning Policy Guidance Note 11 (PPG11, DETR 2000), which sets out new arrangements for Regional Planning Guidance.

Further guidance on good practice in RTS is provided by Guidance on Regional Transport Strategies, published April 2003.

See Planning Links for links to these publications.

The reports on a number of Multi-Modal Studies are available on the web, those that are known to us are listed in Multi-Modal Studies links.