Funding
There needs to be longer term and enhanced capital and revenue funding for transport in urban areas if our city regions are to have modern and effective transport networks capable of supporting their economies in a sustainable way.
Find out more about the funding challenges urban transport faces and the case for how best they can be resolved.
Future funding for urban public transport
What are the current funding challenges facing local public transport? And what should the Government do to address them?
How we work on funding
Laura Shoaf, Chief Executive of West Midlands Combined Authority, and Chair of the Urban Transport Group is the lead Board member for funding, working with Jonathan Bray, Director, as the lead member of staff on funding.
Leading Light: What Light Rail can do for City Regions
Back the Bus to Level Up
Continuing COVID Funding Support for Urban Public Transport
Submission to the Comprehensive Spending Review 2021
This is our submission to HM Treasury's Comprehensive Spending Review 2021. In our submission, we warn Government that wider objectives for carbon reduction and levelling up (as well as the specific objectives of the national active travel and bus strategies) cannot be met without increased spending on local transport. Indeed, without additional funding bus patronage (and bus network size) are likely to remain at levels well below what they were pre-pandemic (when patronage and network size were already at an all-time low).
To fully realise the benefits of enhanced, devolved and longer term funding for local transport we need city region transport authorities which are fully empowered to take decisions across the modes in a way which reflects local circumstances and aspirations.
The Local Transport Lottery - The costs and inefficiencies of funding local transport through ad hoc competitions
This report takes an in-depth look at the implications of an excessive reliance on competition funding for urban transport projects.
The research shows how such a reliance impacts local authorities’ ability to deliver value for money and places pressure on authorities and their staff.
Banks, bytes and bikes: The transport priorities of the new economy
Our report, Banks, bytes and bikes: The transport priorities of the new economy, highlights how transport needs in urban areas are changing amid the growth of the so-called “flat white economy”.