Appraisal and Modelling Strategy: Informing Future Investment Decisions event

TAG Conference 2022: various timings, 23rd February – 4th March 2022, on Teams

From Liz Jacobs, Deputy Director, Transport Appraisal and Strategic Modelling, DfT

In May 2021, TASM released its Appraisal and Modelling Strategy: TAG Update Report which brought forward a number of major changes to TAG, including changes to underpinning economic growth projects, optimism bias, enhanced guidance on the recommended appraisal period, an uncertainty toolkit and updated landscape values. 

This conference is an opportunity to discuss the future direction of appraisal and modelling, taking stock of these developments but also reflecting current policy priorities around levelling up and decarbonisation. Spread over three days, it will cover following topics:

• Stock-take and progress update on the Appraisal and Modelling Strategy (AMS), the Department’s medium-term analytical plan for developing modelling and appraisal guidance.

• Reflections on progress since the Green Book review, and discussion of the DfT’s next steps in this area.

• Decarbonisation and appraisal, covering approaches to capturing whole-life carbon effects of transport investment (including embedded carbon). 

• Wider economic impacts, including a discussion of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on agglomeration and research on the transformational impacts of transport investment.

• The future of modelling, including discussion of the National Trip End Model developments, a wholesale review of TAG modelling guidance, the use of our national models for National Road Traffic Projections, and scenarios in appraisal.

• An update on the ‘people and place’ AMS theme, providing and update on the current thinking and future research direction of the DfT on range of appraisal topics, including distributional analysis, people-centred business cases and plans to update values of time.

Please find the agenda and joining information online here.

Embedded hyperlinks are included at the session titles, which will take you to the relevant online sign-up page. The MS Teams invites will be sent closer to the event.

It is possible to attend as many sessions as you like. For the five themed workshops, the format is intended to be more interactive, facilitating a two-way dialogue between the Department and its stakeholders on emerging analytical issues. 

We hope this event presents a good opportunity to learn about upcoming developments in DfT’s Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG), and particularly for young professionals to hear first-hand from DfT on the development application of modelling and appraisal methods. We hope to see you in a few weeks’ time and that you will find the events useful and stimulating.