Transportation is a broad sector, encompassing many sub-sectors such as freight logistics, traffic engineering and network management, air transport, passenger transport, transport policy, and development planning. "Transportation Planner" is a generic job title for a practitioner who is responsible for the day to day planning and delivery of programmes and infrastructure across the many sub-sectors of transportation.
My work in transportation planning in the United kingdom over the past 17 years has generally focused on development and infrastructure planning. My training in both town planning and transportation planning has given me a unique perspective on the interactions and inter-dependencies between transportation and land use.
As a transportation planner working in the area of development planning, my typical day involves collaborating with the many professionals (such as Town Planners, Architects, Transport Modellers, Civil Engineers and Lawyers) involved in major development proposals in London. Typically, my work involves examining development proposals at the preliminary stages as part of a multi-disciplinary team, meeting with transportation consultants to define the scope of the transportation elements of development proposals, to identify the local and strategic transportation problems and priorities, the transportation needs of a specific development, the methodologies to be applied for assessing the impacts of said development, and the appropriate interventions that will need to be deployed to mitigate any potential adverse transportation impacts that are likely to arise from the developments concerned. These are the typical activities that precedes a formal planning application.
Once a formal planning application has been submitted to the Local Planning Authority, it will include a Transport Assessment Report that I will review and provide an independent statutory written response for consideration by the decision-makers, who will deliberate on the transportation and other merits of the development, in order to arrive at a decision. The decision-making body is typically a committee consisting of elected representatives (local councillors). Part of my responsibilities involve attending these committee meetings as the transportation expert, to explain the transportation provisions for the development, its implications for the local transportation network and to articulate the justification for any mitigation packages sought.
Planning is a quasi-legal process and in addition to my duties as the transportation expert at planning committees, I am often called upon to provide evidence at public enquiries, where planning appeals are heard by representatives of the Planning Inspectorate. The outcome of planning appeals is either a decision to uphold or quash the decision by the Local Planning Authority.
In terms of assessing the transportation impacts of a development, I will typically require an applicant to consider the residual effects of the development on the adjoining highway and public transportation networks. These assessments include the use of modelling software and the analysis and interpretation of associated data. For example, to test the impacts of a development on the highway network, a model of the existing network (referred to as a base model), using current average daily traffic flows will need to be built. This base model is used to establish the current capacities of the junctions and links in the vicinity of the subject development and is used to test the effects of additional traffic generated by the development.
Where the outputs of a traffic model shows that a junction or link is at or near capacity and would be severely impacted by a development, appropriate mitigation such as junction enhancements, modifications to the phasing of traffic lights or widening of existing roads are considered and tested in the model in order to determine which intervention would be most effective. Similarly, a model of the existing public transportation network, using data on existing passenger loads, is built to test the effects of a development on public transport services, and determine suitable interventions to mitigate those effects. Highway models include micro-simulation and macro-simulation models such as VISSIM and SATURN. Public transportation models include RailPlan, which is used to determine the capacity and impacts on existing public transport modes such as, rail, underground and buses. In my current and previous roles I commission strategic transport studies that utilises one or more of these models to assess the impacts of different development scenarios for a strategic growth area, and provide the evidence-base for supporting future interventions.
Planning legislation in the United Kingdom empowers Local Planning Authorities to seek financial contributions to pay for measures that are reasonable and necessary to make a development acceptable in planning terms. Part of my job involves negotiating financial contributions with developers and securing these through the appropriate legal mechanisms, typically an agreement under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 that sets out the various obligations, financial amounts and the triggers for payment of the financial contributions agreed. Other legal agreements includes an agreement under Section 278 of Highways Act 1980, which obligates a developer to pay for improvements to the adjoining highway.
In relation to transport infrastructure, my role typically involves identifying existing problems; coordinating the design of schemes (including option appraisals to final design); developing and submitting bids to funding bodies such as the Department for Transport to pay for the delivery of those schemes; or allocating funding from the Local Authority's highways and transportation capital budgets to deliver schemes, in line with local transport priorities.
For an appreciation of how transportation planners identify transportation challenges and opportunities, and the typical approaches employed in appraising future options, I provide links below to the Lower Thames Crossing - Traffic Economic Appraisal, and the Old Oak Park Strategic Transport Study.
In summary, my day starts and ends with a task related to one or more of the transportation activities described above.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fred Raphael
Fred Raphael is a town planning and transport planning practitioner with 17+ years experience of working in London for various public sector organisations including Transport for London, which is the strategic transport authority in London and one of the executive agencies of the Mayor of London. He currently works for Thurrock Council as the authority's Transport Development Manager, leading on the development of business cases to secure central government and European grant funding for transportation and highway initiatives and infrastructure; and engagement with the Department for Transport and their agent Highways England on the biggest transport infrastructure project in the United Kingdom – the £6 billion Lower Thames Crossing, which consists of a new tunnel under the Thames and a road link to the existing M25 motorway.
Published: 2018-10-27