Nexus House, Newcastle

Governance

Devolution works on transport as our major urban areas are better at making the right calls on transport plans and priorities than remote control from Whitehall could ever be.

Find out more about progress so far and how governance of transport works.

Resources for this topic

View documents, reports and other material.

Report

Dream ticket? The challenges and opportunities of delivering smart ticketing in the city regions

There are multiple obstacles to giving public transport users in the city regions a London-style smart and simple ticketing system. This report suggests a new approach is needed, and recommends more leadership from Government, better resourcing of the transition, and more collaboration between all the key players.
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Report

Future Streets: Challenges and opportunities

Streets are often the most contested spaces in any town or city. There are a large number and wide variety of calls on street space (at least 160 legitimate calls), and they simply can’t all be met. This report seeks to help local highway and strategic transport authorities rise to the challenge of better street and kerbside management.
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Report

Leading Light: What Light Rail can do for City Regions

This report, produced by Steer for the Urban Transport Group, shows how Britain’s light rail systems have supported economic growth in the areas that they serve, promoted social inclusion and led to environmental gain, including a reduction in carbon emissions.
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Report

What next for urban transport?

This report - published to coincide with the 2019 Autumn Party Conferences - identifies four urban transport challenges and four solutions needed to overcome them.

It also details what transport authorities need from Government to bring about these changes. 

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Report

Policy futures for urban transport

The latest edition of Policy futures for urban transport emphasises how a new deal on funding and powers is essential to keep the UK's cities moving forward.

The report sets out the 10 key policy changes that are needed to make cities healthier, fairer and more prosperous.

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Report

Urban Transport Review 2017

"A lot has changed in urban transport over the past year," writes Lilian Greenwood MP, and Chair of the Transport Select Committee, in the foreword to the Urban Transport Review 2017.

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Report

Policy Futures

Policy futures for urban transport sets out how, with more focused governance in place, the city regions are delivering major investment programmes including on public transport, highways and active travel, and smart ticketing. The report says that - with the right national policy framework - further and faster progress can be made, including:

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Report

Rail Devolution Works

Our ‘Rail Devolution Works’ report argues that further rail devolution will enable other regions and areas to also radically transform rail services in a way that supports economic growth at the same time as improving the journey experience for passengers.

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Report

Total Transport: a better approach to commissioning non-emergency patient transport?

‘Total Transport’ schemes pool resources and vehicle fleets from across the public sector which are currently used to provide separate mainstream, social services, education and healthcare transport provision. Through pooling and coordination a better overall service can be provided at less cost to the taxpayer.

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Report

Devolution, Integration and Franchising: Local Public Transport in the Netherlands

This report provides an overview of how local public transport has been devolved in the Netherlands in a way that still maintains a national integrated public transport network. It also analyses the different approaches that have been taken to the franchising of local public transport networks and the lessons that can be learned.

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Report

A new era for urban transport

This supplement to Passenger Transport magazine marks the transition from pteg to the Urban Transport Group.  It includes interviews with our Chair, Jon Lamonte, our Director, Jonathan Bray, TfL's Richard de Cani on joining the network as a full member, and a retrospective on 50 years since the Act that created the PTEs.

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Report

Horizon scan of implications of technological and social change

This report aims to provide decision makers with a guide to the implications for urban transport of transformative social and technological change and how they can best respond. 

The report (which was produced in collaboration with Arup Foresight) identifies four key overarching trends: 

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Report

Changing Highways Policy

This report to pteg by Atkins focuses on the most important recent and forthcoming changes to highways policy and the implications of these for Metropolitan areas, including in respect of air quality, carbon emissions, technology, the Strategic Road Network, road maintenance, road safety, planning, freight, management of road space and parking policy.

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Report

Thriving Cities - Integrated land use and transport planning

Setting out the stark choices ahead in new planning reforms, this report recommends three 'golden rules' for future planning policy. The report also highlights good and bad practice on transport and land use planning and calls for local authorities and Local Economic Partnerships to proactively draw up highly sustainable masterplans for development sites of key significance.

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Report

Total Transport - Working across sectors to achieve better outcomes

This report highlights the essential role of public transport, walking and cycling in achieving key health, social care and employment policy goals. It warns that this contribution could be put at risk unless there is more focus on collaborative, cross-sector funding and delivery of transport interventions.

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Press release

Urban Transport Group welcomes appointment of Rt. Hon. Sajid Javid MP as Chancellor and sets out city region transport priorities for Spending Review

The Urban Transport Group has today welcomed the appointment of Rt. Hon. Sajid Javid MP as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and set out its priorities for urban transport in the Government’s forthcoming Spending Review.
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Press release

National Infrastructure Commission is right to make devolved transport funding for cities a key test for Government’s future infrastructure plan

The National Infrastructure Commission’s call for Government to make devolved funding for urban transport to cities a key test of the Government’s forthcoming National Infrastructure Strategy is hugely welcome, says the Urban Transport Group.
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Press release

Case made for continuing focus on investment and devolution at Urban Transport Group parliamentary reception

At a reception attended by more than 100 parliamentarians and key players in the urban transport debate Tobyn Hughes, Managing Director of Nexus and chair of the Urban Transport Group said that urban transport is the beating heart of successful cities, and to ensure city regions continue to thrive they need to have more power over their own destiny.
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Press release

New report finds NHS missing opportunity to save millions on costs of getting people to hospital

- Calls for NHS to get more involved in ‘Total Transport’ schemes - 

A new joint report from an alliance of local transport authorities and the Community Transport Association has identified the potential for massive savings for the NHS through reducing the cost of getting people to hospital.  

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Press release

UK's largest urban transport authorities set out vision for future of transport in the city regions

Following on from the EU referendum, the formation of a new Government and with the start of the party conference season, the Urban Transport Group has set out a vision for how UK transport policy could unfold in a way that will enable the nation’s largest urban areas to deliver inclusive growth in a smart and sustainable way.

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Briefing

Briefing on the Transport Bill

A briefing on the Transport Bill announced as part of the Queen's Speech in May 2022, including what we know so far and what the Bill should contain to transform urban transport for the better.

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Briefing

Doing more for less - How working together on transport cuts costs and saves time

The Urban Transport Group brings together and promotes the interests of Britain’s largest urban areas on transport. Through working together as a network, we help to save time and money for our members by doing things once and collaboratively – rather than separately and expensively. Saving significant costs for our members is just one benefit of being part of our organisation.

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Briefing

Policy Futures - Seamless public transport

This policy futures paper highlights the growing appetite for giving larger cities outside London more of the benefits that London enjoys on public transport, and brings together the ideas from the other policy futures papers.

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Briefing

Policy Futures - Highways

This Policy Futures paper sets out the changes needed to better co-ordinate national and local highways policy to achieve wider economic, environment and social goals.

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