ICE submission to the Integrated National Transport Strategy call for ideas

The UK government has committed to developing an Integrated National Transport Strategy (INTS) for England.

The ICE has previously recommended a national transport strategy be developed to provide an overarching strategic plan.

This response sets out the ICE’s views on how a national strategy could strengthen decision-making and make the UK’s transport network more ‘joined-up’.

It also explores how data and technology could be used to improve the transport network.

It makes the following key points:

• The INTS should be ‘vision-led’, setting out the government’s wider social, environmental and economic objectives and the outcomes transport must deliver to help achieve them.
• Infrastructure is a system of systems. The INTS can help join up planning between transport and related sectors, particularly energy and digital, and align transport and spatial planning.
• Decision-making should give more weight to outcomes and the wider benefits of transport investment.
• Establishing a ‘golden thread’ of desired transport outcomes across modes and levels of government can strengthen coordination across central government, national agencies and devolved bodies.
• Long-term decision-making is crucial to improving infrastructure delivery. Stop-start decision-making has pushed up project costs and overruns.
• The INTS should be joined-up with the government’s wider strategic planning framework, particularly the 10-year national infrastructure strategy and the new industrial strategy.