Due to the ambition growth that the city will experience, our work assessed the transport impacts of development within areas designated as 'Green Belt'.
The plan was developed by Birmingham City Council as a central part of its local development framework. As with any land use policy, the way the Birmingham Development Plan is supported by transport services and infrastructure was an essential element to its delivery.
Similarly, the way in which the transport system develops to respond to the implementation of the plan is also fundamental to its ongoing effectiveness.
The work was delivered over a number of stages, including scoping, establishing context, strategic modelling, junction modelling, infrastructure delivery and support at the examination in public.
Strategic modelling was a key stage in the methodology as this is where the Birmingham Development Plan’s transport impacts – both positive and negative – are quantified using The West Midlands Policy Responsive Integrated Strategy Model (PRISM).
Value and benefits
PRISM, a state of-the-art, regional strategic transport model, was developed in partnership between Mott MacDonald and RAND Europe to test the impacts of a range of transport and land use planning policies and strategies. It can quantify the effect of interventions including road pricing, motorway capacity enhancements and rapid transit corridors as well as the transport impacts of local development frameworks.
We operate, maintain and develop PRISM on behalf of the client. The outputs from this fed the assessments on how to mitigate for the impacts of the Green Belt Development on the local network.