City Science was commissioned by England’s Economic Heartland (EEH) to develop a Transport Strategy Evidence Base Report to support their refreshed Transport Strategy. The Evidence Base Report aimed to provide a high-level and comprehensive assessment of the region’s current economic, social and environmental status. Funding changes imposed by the DfT mean EEH will no longer be updating their Transport Strategy, however the Evidence Base Report provides significant value to EEH and local authority partners as they look to support internationally significant developments in the region.
Scope
EEH is a Sub-national Transport Body (STB) which stretches from Swindon in the west, to Cambridgeshire in the east, encompassing the entire stretch of the Oxford-Cambridge Arc. Across the region, councils work together to plan transport and other related infrastructure, with the long-term objective of boosting connectivity, supporting economic growth and achieving transport decarbonisation.
The Evidence Base included 55 topic areas grouped into three themes:
- Place: 16 different topic areas covering the geography of the EEH region, environment (e.g. noise and air quality), planned growth (e.g. planned housing, job creation and planned employment) and geography (e.g. urban/rural classification, Gross Value Added (GVA) and economic growth).
- People: 11 different topic areas including population (e.g. population growth, age ranges and population by place type), health and deprivation.
- Transport: 28 different topic areas including journeys to work (e.g. distance and active travel split), road congestion and trips, safety, public transport, accessibility and sustainability.
Figure 1: Summary of datasets
Our Approach
The City Science approach to developing the EEH Evidence Base Report included:
- Engagement with EEH was crucial to developing an effective Evidence Base Report and included initial conversations to define the framework of evidence, report structure and appropriate datasets to support the framework.
- We developed an Excel-based database as a collaborative decision-making tool, allowing City Science to discuss the approach for each data point in turn. The database allowed for clear communication of any limitations with proposed datasets and provided a space to explore alternatives and revise the initial approach.
- Within our Excel-based database we developed the narrative approach used to explain each data point within the Evidence Base Report. The narratives were developed collaboratively with EEH as the key stakeholder.
- Using our in-house tool, Cadence, we presented high quality datasets that provided the most up-to-date insights of the EEH region (e.g. Figure 2 and Figure 3). All project outputs were available online in an interactive format, accessible via Cadence.
Figure 2: Rural urban classification (ONS, 2021)
Figure 3: Road OD flows between the top 10 Built-Up-Areas by population DfT (2023)
Outcome
City Science produced an interactive and detailed Evidence Base Report to provide a solid foundation to support future decision making. The report used data insights to highlight key narratives associated with place, people and transport. Whilst the report will no longer inform a refreshed Transport Strategy, the Evidence Base will be used internally to support and inform transport policy in the region.