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Sustainability

Transport has a key role to play in cutting carbon emissions and improving air quality as well as making our city regions more climate resilient and bio-diverse. To achieve this we will need to make more journeys by more sustainable means.

We also need to decarbonise urban vehicle fleets and make the connections across transport, energy and the built and natural environments.

Resources for this topic

View documents, reports and other material.

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

The Good Life: The role of transport in shaping a new and sustainable era for suburbs

We are a nation of suburbanites. However, the ubiquity of suburban living is often not reflected in transport policy. And there can be no decarbonisation of transport without specific measures to decarbonise transport in the suburbs. This report presents four foundations of suburbs for a new era – one which offers all suburbanites the promise of the ‘Good Life’ whilst addressing the climate crisis.
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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

Making the connections on climate: How city regions can join the dots between transport, energy and the built environment

This report draws together practical examples of the links that can be made on climate at the city region level between transport and energy, and between transport and the decarbonisation and adaptation of the built environment.
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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

The cross-sector benefits of backing the bus

This report highlights how investing in bus services is key to achieving a wide range of policy objectives across Government. 

The report also finds that the way in which bus services are funded is mired in complexity, with no oversight within Whitehall of how the various funding streams from different Government departments impact on bus services overall.

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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

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

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

LSTF Monitoring and Evaluation Guidance - Final Report

Building on the work of the Department for Transport, pteg commissioned AECOM to prepare additional guidance for PTEs and other Local Transport Authorities to assist in the monitoring and evaluation of Local Sustainable Transport Fund projects. The guidance provides a practical approach to developing cost effective and affordable monitoring and evaluation programmes.

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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

Cycling in the city regions: Technical report

This document reports the results of a series of modelling exercises intended to estimate the potential impact and value for money of a step change in the delivery of interventions to support and promote cycling in the six PTE areas. The purpose of this exercise is to support decision-makers in developing effective strategies aimed at increasing cycling levels in the metropolitan areas.

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Report

Cycling in the city regions: Delivering a step change

This report explores the potential impact of a step change in the delivery of interventions to support and promote cycling in the English city regions outside of London. It finds that the greatest potential for increasing cycling in the UK can be found in the city regions.

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Press release

New transport technologies must promote equity and inclusion to deliver just transition to net zero, says report

Embracing new technologies will play a key role in decarbonising transport and help towns and cities to achieve net zero emissions – but steps must also be taken to ensure that the way new technologies are applied does not marginalise some groups or reinforce existing inequalities.
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Press release

100 million car and taxi trips in city regions could be replaced by e-bikes if Government delivers target for shift to cycling, new report shows

Over 100 million car and taxi trips made in city regions each year could instead be on e-bikes if the Government is able to deliver its target for mode shift to cycling, according to a new report by consultants Steer for the Urban Transport Group (UTG).
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Press release

Cities have opportunity to address climate crisis & create more liveable places by joining dots between transport, energy & built environment

City regions in the UK and beyond have the opportunity to address the escalating climate crisis whilst creating healthier and more liveable cities, by making connections between the transport, energy and built environment sectors.
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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

Climate advisors’ ‘clear route map’ for tackling transport emissions welcomed by city region transport authorities

The Urban Transport Group - the UK's network of city region transport authorities - has today welcomed the Committee on Climate Change’s new advice for Government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, and specifically its recommendations for the transport sector.
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Press release

Urban Transport Group launches ‘Healthy Streets for All’ programme with public health expert Lucy Saunders

Healthy Streets for All, a new programme to raise awareness and support UK cities in shaping urban environments around people and their health, has been launched today by the Urban Transport Group in collaboration with renowned public health expert Lucy Saunders.
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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

Climate emergency declarations - briefing note

This document provides a summary of which authorities have declared a climate emergency and what targets they are committing to. It does not cover all authorities but focuses primarily in those in the city regions, with some additional key urban areas included for interest. This document represents a snapshot in December 2019, as authorities are continuing to declare climate emergencies and set targets.

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Briefing

Air quality

Working to improve air quality is a key challenge and priority across our members. Here are our five operational asks of Government which would help us to achieve this aim.

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