Delivering our vision of a thriving North of England requires us to develop policies and plans that align with the principles of the North’s elected leaders who make up TfN’s Board. As an evidence-led organisation, we are committed to delivering the compelling and credible evidence that demonstrates how transport investment can unlock economic growth, support decarbonisation and reduce social exclusion.
Transport for the North has set a high-level long-term vision for the North through our Strategic Transport Plan. That vision is underpinned by our evidence which demonstrates the level and type of investment in the North’s infrastructure that’s required to achieve our STP ambitions of rapid decarbonisation, reducing transport related social exclusion and achieving sustainable economic growth.
A robust evidence base is essential to underpin the recommendations we make around pan-regional transport infrastructure and cross-border policy priorities; and allows us to advocate at local and national level, more effectively.
TfN was established to evidence the link between investment in connectivity and the economic, social and environmental benefits of that connectivity over the next 25 years. Such a long term, transformational approach urgently requires radical new approaches to understanding how transport investment is planned, funded and delivered.
Our evidence base and strategies demonstrate that the criteria upon which investment decisions are made needs to be reflective of a broad range of measures that include the economic, environmental and social benefits that any interventions will deliver.
Our topic specialists across economics, social research, freight and decarbonisation also mean we can provide technical support, evidence and research to our partner authorities to support them with the development of their own plans and business cases at a local level.
Our Strategy and Policy team focuses on key, cross-cutting policy issues including developing and implementing our;
Our Decarbonisation Strategy sets the need to achieve near zero carbon emissions of surface transport by 2045. To support that our work at TfN includes generating evidence and developing tools that help our partners reduce carbon emissions from surface transport in the North. With changes to our climate already ‘baked in’ as a result of the emissions already released, we are also working to better under the vulnerability of our transport infrastructure to these future changes. Read more about our Decarbonisation and Climate Change Resilience and Adaptation work.
In addition, we are actively working across a range of policy areas which are embedded within our Strategic Transport Plan including International Connectivity and Rural Mobility.
Our Economics and Social Research teams manages a programme of research and analysis to ensure there is a robust and comprehensive evidence base to inform our policy recommendations, and for use by our partners in their own transport planning and business case development.
Our key areas of evidence include:
Transport Related Social Exclusion (TRSE) refers to the ways in which poor or unequal access to transport can limit individuals’ ability to access essential services and opportunities, often resulting in social exclusion. TRSE is a focus of our major research programme and a strategy to reduce risk of TRSE in the North.
Read more on TRSE and Social Inclusion
Northern Powerhouse Independent Economic Review (NPIER) is a long-term programme of economic research and scenario development, evidencing the North’s strengths and opportunities, and modelling a vision of a transformed, more prosperous North by 2050, as well as modelling how this can be achieved with additional public investment across a range of policy areas.
Read more on NPIER
Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) enables us to measure progress towards our strategic and programme objectives, and the North’s progress against the headline objectives within our STP, across a range of social, economic and environmental indicators. Through our M&E Strategy and Framework we embed a cycle of evidence-based policy-making across everything we do.
Read more on M&E
Northern Transport Voices (NTV) is TfN’s online research community, which aims to give voice to a diverse group of Northern residents about their experience of transport in the North, while strengthening our evidence building and policy making with new insights from transport users on topics such as rural mobility, EV charging, rail accessibility, and more.
Read more on NTV
Click below to download some of our reports that underpin our work. For more please check out our reports section
This document highlights the importance of enabling travel by foot and bicycle. It also identifies TfN's role, links to workstreams and TfN's suggested role in Active Travel
This document identifies the need to join-up transport options across different modes. The potential role of TfN in achieving better integration between Strategic Road Network
TfN’s position for international connectivity and aviation has been developed in the context of the impact of Covid-19, decarbonising transport, optimising the green econom
In developing our position on spatial planning, our objective is to support partners in adopting a place-based approach to the development of local plans and strategies, as we
The transport and health policy position sets out the health challenge that exists around the transport system in the North, the links between this challenge and other key pol
This policy position recognises there are different types of rural areas across the North, and identifies the need for a place-based and targeted approach for individual rural
This report summarises the work from the Northern Powerhouse Independent Economic Review (NPIER) update programme, that concluded with the publication of the economic scenario
At a glance is the summary version of the Transport Decarbonisation Strategy.
Summary | Adaptive planning to deliver our strategic vision in an uncertain future
The capability and capacity provided by TfN is greatly valued by its members and is seen as something that needs to be retained and nurtured. This Business Plan builds on tho
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