On this the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta, celebrations, discussions and exhibitions around the UK and the world mark the significance of a document hailed as the foundation for political freedom, human rights and countless democratic movements throughout history.

For decades we have been demanding ever more from our streets. It is not just that people are travelling more. Now there are multiple elements to manage: reconciling the movement and place functions our roads have to perform; prioritising various users in the competition for road space; servicing the economy and society through the utility services under the surface; and more.

The Urban Transport Design Award recognises highways, traffic and transport schemes that do much more than just facilitate movement, and urban realm schemes that do much more than look good...

New highway schemes and developmental infrastructure should ideally be designed and implemented in accordance with safe systems principles.  One way to help achieve this is through the appropriate use of road safety audits, non-motorised user audits and quality audits.  There have been significant developments in this field in the last 12 months with Transport for London introducing a new Safety Audit Procedure in May 2014 and more recently the publication of the long awaited departmental standard for Road Safety Audit; DMRB HD19/15.  The new HD19/15 standard, which...

Whilst you listlessly stare out your office window wondering when the day will come that you do not shudder the moment you walk outside or when you can finally retire your deerstalker cap for yet another season,  we at PTRC are busy preparing for our full summer of trainings and, of course, our annual Transport Practitioners’ Meeting (TPM). This year marks the 13th Annual Transport Practitioners’ meeting, and whilst 13 is not a number that traditionally calls out for  celebration or particular fanfare, we are confident that this year’s conference will...

Many of you will have seen last week’s email flagging up the TPM abstract submission deadline extension to Monday 16th February.  That’s next week!  We’ve had an excellent response so far and without wishing to prejudge the deliberations of the TPM committee, I’m expecting that many of the abstracts we’ve received so far will be accepted and make excellent papers. Several authors have been studying the links between parking provision and economic vitality, and coming to some very different conclusions.  Similarly, people’s propensity to change travel behaviour comes under scrutiny by a...

Last November, a Court of Appeal ruling raised some interesting issues for developers, highways engineers and asset managers alike.  The case centred around the question of whether on-going maintenance costs of highway infrastructure delivered by developers can lawfully be incorporated into Section 38 Highways Agreements.  By way of background, Section 38 of the Highways Act (1980) provides a mechanism by which the local highway authority may agree to adopt infrastructure constructed by developers as “a highway maintainable at the public expense”.  By entering into such an agreement, the...

After almost a year of uncertainty, the DfT document 'Guidance on transport assessments' (GTA) was withdrawn from circulation in October 2014. Initially not mentioned within the guidance superseded by Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) in March 2014, it was instead marked as ‘archived’, before quietly finally being finally withdrawn as a current government document. The length of time taken to remove the paper from circulation could be taken as a sign of the importance that it's taken within the development planning industry. But what does its withdrawal actually mean? What did GTA offer and...

For several weeks now, I’ve been navigating past the hordes of people making their way to Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland, and now that the second week of December is nearly over, must grudgingly concede that it’s time to break out the mince pies, don the Christmas jumper and head out in search of mulled wine… Since starting in post back in January, I’ve had a fantastic time at PTRC.  The year has flown by; courses have been selling out like hot cakes, TPM was a great success, Transport Modellers Forum goes from strength to strength and we’ve got more great events coming up in the New...

LAST CHANCE TO BOOK:   HS2 Conference: Building in the local benefits, 25th November, London HS2 is coming - but what do Local Authorities, LEPs, developers and transport consultants need to do to realise the full potential of this extraordinary project? This conference considers the evidence available from similar projects in the UK and mainland Europe, setting out practical steps we will need to take to achieve the benefits HS2 is promised to deliver. Confirmed speakers include:     Richard Brown - chairman of the Department for Transport's Franchise Advisory Panel, Robert Goodwill...