Urban Transport Analysis: Capacity and Cost

1.2 While the outputs of this study provide the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) with an order of magnitude estimate developed for twenty case study town and city centres (referred to as ‘cities’ for the remainder of this report), the study approach has been developed to be sufficiently generic to allow its application to other English towns and cities, and the extrapolation of its finding. [...] July 2018 | 2 Urban Transport Analysis: Capacity and Cost | Study Report 2.6 The current capacity of urban transport networks is considered in the development of the Urban Transport Capacity Metric, as discussed in Chapter 3. [...] Normalisation is necessary to account for: • The difference between theoretical capacity and actual capacity; • Gaps in geographic coverage and level of service; and • Recognition that user perception of the theoretical spare capacity on a mode influences travel behaviour in terms of mode choice and the timing of a trip. [...] Due to the overlapping and complementary nature of many of the interventions on the long list, final packages were developed based on the core interventions required to deliver the bulk of capacity (e.g. [...] For example, Table 5.7 shows the average cost of £350m to uplift capacity by 5% for large cities is broadly equivalent to the cost of the Metrolink Trafford Park line and approximately 30% of the cost of the Reading Station redevelopment.