Introduction to the G Project

1. Introduction to the G Project Matthew Page Institute for Transport Studies M.Page@its.leeds.ac.uk

2. Project G Motivation Came from Local Authority concerns about: • Appraisal as a barrier to the delivery of sustainable transport schemes • Role of appraisal in decision making • Particular concerns: • Importance of travel time savings • Appraisal of small schemes and ‘soft’ measures • Distribution of impacts

3. Findings from the first questionnaire and the first workshop • Reinforced the issues we wanted to pursue • However, we should: • Reduce emphasis on technical aspects of appraisal • More emphasis on: • Looking at how appraisal is used and could be improved • Improving appraisal for small schemes and behavioural and attitudinal measures • Work within our budget

4. Barriers identified • Some impacts are not well represented in appraisal • We don’t know what the impacts of certain policy instruments are • Appraisal/assessment methods for some policy instruments are not well developed • Appraisal can be time consuming, onerous and expensive • What should the relationship be between appraisal, VfM, and the choice of schemes to deliver policy? • The distributional impacts of projects are not easy to represent in appraisal Also: • Concern about the accuracy of valuations • Philosophical issues about valuation of impacts

5. Research Issues • Is it possible to develop an initial/outline appraisal method for earlier use? (from 4) • Can we develop a simple assessment method for small schemes? (3) • How could we represent distributional issues in appraisal (6) • What should be the role of appraisal be in decision making (5)

6. Research Issue A Product G1 proposed - A method for initial outline appraisal of schemes and strategies: • Based on NATA (results comparable) • Less onerous data requirements • Indicate VfM of a proposal • Allow “early warning” • Allow appraisal results to feed into decision making

7. Problems with product G1 • Is this genuinely useful to LAs? • Will the robustness of the results be open to challenge? • What about STAG and the regional prioritisation processes? • The product won’t help to address the potential conflict between appraisal/VfM and “policy fit” (or achievement of targets)

8. Political and practical issues • Identified as important by the Steering Group • Frequently mentioned by Officers • Related to the Policy versus appraisal/VfM debate • John Forrester, SEI-Y, going to mention this later

9. Progress so far • Deliverable G1 which summarises much of this • discussion on the relationship between appraisal, VfM and policy • Reassessment of the G products: G2 – An assessment method for small schemes G3 – Tools for representing and appraising the distributional impacts of policies G4 – A review of the ways of overcoming the inconsistencies between targets and appraisal

10. Introduction to today’s speakers Morning - local and regional aspects: David Jones, Nottingham City Council Mike Padgett, Y and H Assembly Afternoon – national perspectives: Hugh Gillies, Transport Scotland Steve Grayson, DfT Update on strategic modelling in DISTILLATE – Tony May

11. Two Parallel workshops G2 – An assessment method for small schemes G3 – Tools for representing and appraising the distributional impacts of policies Your feedback is important to us • What do you think? • Where should we go from here?

12. All presentations will be available from the DISTILLATE website: www.distillate.ac.uk • Next DISTILLATE event: Project F workshop on Enhanced Analytical Tools, July 4th in Leeds