Sustainable Development Appraisal of the Future of Transport White Paper

Appraisal methodology

An underlying objective of the Transport Strategy White Paper, The Future of Transport: a Network for 2030, is to balance the increasing demand for travel against our goal of protecting the environment effectively and improving the quality of life for everyone - whether they are travelling or not. The White Paper sets out how transport will continue to ensure that we can benefit from mobility and access while minimising the impact on other people and the environment, now and in the future. This means adopting solutions that meet long-term economic, social and environmental goals. The following appraisal demonstrates how the White Paper will contribute to those goals, consistent with the aims of the government's new Sustainable Development Strategy ¹ .

This appraisal table is largely based on the categories employed in the guidance for the revised Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA), and incorporates the impacts covered in the Integrated Policy Appraisal Tool which the Department helped to pilot. Given the strategic nature of the strategy, assessment of the impacts across a range of factors - economic, environmental and social - is chiefly qualitative, but is supported by quantitative analysis where available. Moreover, since quantitative modelling developed for the strategy can only provide estimates of trends for key transport indicators rather than showing the results of a specific policy or combination of policies, it has only been possible to carry out a high-level appraisal of specific sustainable development impacts. Further details on the modelling forecasts used in this appraisal can be found in the modelling paper, Future of Transport: Modelling and Analysis.

Nor is the appraisal exhaustive. It assesses the impacts of the policy proposals and subsequent workstreams that make up the proposals in the White Paper, looking ahead to 2015 and beyond, but focuses only on areas within the Strategy of most relevance to each of the categories. To avoid repetition, impacts have generally been assigned only to that category where they are most significant. Strategic decisions set out in the Air Transport and Rail Review White Papers are covered only in outline. A more detailed analysis of each can be found in the respective documents.

¹ See Securing the Future: Delivering UK sustainable development strategy (March 2005).