Open the National Transport Model to more scrutiny, say MPs

MPs have questioned the value of the DfT’s road traffic forecasts and urged the Department to open up the National Transport Model, which produces the forecasts, to more scrutiny.

The recommendations come in two new reports from the House of Commons transport committee, one on the Government’s roads policy and the other on the draft National Policy Statement (NPS) for national networks, which was published last December (LTT 23 Dec 13). 

 The committee calls for “wider scrutiny” of the Department’s National Transport Model (NTM), saying its outputs are “a matter of great contention between supporters and opponents of increasing capacity on our road network”.

“We heard concerns that the DfT does not make available the assumptions and methodologies underpinning the NTM in sufficient detail to enable a thorough and independent assessment to be undertaken,” says the committee, contrasting the DfT unfavourably with modelling done by the Treasury and Office of Budgetary Responsibility.

The draft national networks NPS includes the NTM central forecast that traffic on the strategic road network will rise 46% between 2010 and 2040 as a consequence of population growth, economic growth, and a fall in the cost of fuel. 

The AA and the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport were among groups who told the committee that the forecast was a useful guide for roads planning but environmental transport groups such as the Campaign for Better Transport and the CTC questioned the forecast’s plausibility. 

Roads minister Robert Goodwill told the committee it would be “irresponsible” of any government not to use forecasts to formulate policy. But the committee states: “Given that it is impossible accurately to predict local and national planning policy, demographics, types of industry, and the extent to which people will want to live in urban areas, a road strategy based on forecast future growth in traffic seems questionable.”

The committee criticises the Highways Agency’s programme of route strategies for the trunk road network, saying it makes little sense to consider one transport mode in isolation. It wants the Department to commission integrated passenger and freight plans for strategic transport routes or regions. 

The committee welcomes the proposed five-year funding plans for the strategic road network but cannot understand why ministers want to turn the Highways Agency into a Government-owned company. 

“Its remit will not be extended; it will not have new funding streams; and it will still be subject to changes in Government policy. We are not persuaded that increasing salaries will be a value for money way of increasing skills in the company.”

Robert Goodwill told the committee the national networks NPS would ensure that planning inquiries into projects focused on their local impacts and not on broader government policy, illustrating the point by citing a fictional bypass in Lincolnshire. 

“While it is absolutely important that local considerations about air quality and the effect on habitats are taken into account, there should not be an opportunity posed by the planning inquiry to open up the whole debate on the emissions strategy for trucks, the overall issues about how the country addresses its CO2 obligations and the forecasts that have been made for overall traffic.

“It is very important that we stop the ice caps melting and that we protect polar bears but a planning inquiry on a bypass round a small market town in north Lincolnshire is not the place for it.”

Discuss this at LTT's Modelling World Event this June