A chance to share our ideas and experiences

South Yorkshire Combined Authority is delighted to host this year's Local Transport Summit and to welcome those from around the country who recognise the role better transport investment has in improving the lives of everyone.

It is, in fact, the second transport summit on our patch this year as Mayor Oliver Coppard hosted our own South Yorkshire Transport Summit, jointly held with the Connected Places Catapult, in Doncaster in March. That Summit was a collaborative exercise to lift South Yorkshire’s ambitions, and to co-create a vision for a more ambitious, sustainable, human-centric future transport system. It was a key milestone towards a future vision for transport in South Yorkshire to transform access to opportunity, services, learning, and leisure. Economic prosperity, social cohesion and access to better jobs depend on attractive and sustainable choices of travel.

Bringing together top thinkers and doers from a variety of UK locations and disciplines – including policy makers and transport futurists – is an excellent way to identify fresh ideas for the future, as well as sharing the tried and tested. South Yorkshire expects to enhance our own understanding and perhaps to provide the benefits of our own experience, for instance on our pioneering tram-train pilot, the outcomes of which have informed new schemes such as the South Wales Metro.

But we are also here to learn. We will be bringing our tram concession in-house next March before undertaking major renewals of fleet and infrastructure. And, like many people around the country, we’ll be keeping an eye on Greater Manchester’s bus franchising journey and will be learning from them as we undertake our own legally-required franchising assessment process.

We also have great plans for active travel led by Active Travel Commissioner Ed Clancy who joined us earlier this year. Since then, and having met with people who want to walk and cycle more, but don’t feel like they can, we are even clearer about the need to support people in getting started and making the investment in the infrastructure that allows active travellers to feel safe.

As our Mayor Oliver Coppard put it: “Fixing South Yorkshire’s public transport system is critical for our region to thrive. If we want to grow our economy, get healthier and create great places to live, a smarter, greener, faster public transport system is vital.”

Bringing together the experts in the field in Sheffield this month can hopefully contribute to all our objectives, share best practice, discuss new ideas and find solutions to improve the travel experience for everyone, whatever their mode of choice.

Martin Swales is chief executive of South Yorkshire MCA. He will be speaking at the Local Transport Summit