Glossary

Accessibility - The accessibility of an activity to an individual is the ease with which the individual can get to the places where that activity can be performed.

Analytical - Rational, usually numerical, approach to understanding an issue.

Appraisal - A process of assessing the relative merits of strategies before they are implemented.

Barrier - An obstacle which prevents a given policy instrument being implemented, or limits its implementation in some way.

CBD - Central Business District

CONCERT project - Cooperation for Novel City Electronic Regulating Tools

Consensus - Broad agreement among stakeholders.

Constraint - A restriction on the feasibility of implementing a policy.

Cost-benefit analysis - Appraisal of the economic efficiency of a strategy, by weighing the costs of a strategy against the benefits it might bring, over a number of years into the future.

DBOM - design build operate and maintain

DETR - Department for the Environment Transport and the Regions

Efficiency (or economic efficiency) - Economic efficiency may have different meanings. In this case it means maximising the benefits which users can gain from the transport system, after taking account of the costs of provision and operation of the system.

ELGAR - Environment Led Guidance And Restraint

Environment - The environmental impacts of concern to transport include noise, atmospheric pollution, vibration, visual intrusion, severance, fear and intimidation, and the loss of flora and fauna, ancient monuments and historic buildings through the consumption of land. The environmental protection objective involves reducing the impact of transport facilities, and their use, on the environment of both users and non-users.

Equity - Equality, especially between different groups in society, in opportunities to travel, costs of travel and environmental and safety impacts of travel. For Intergenerational equity, see sustainability.

ERP (Electronic Road Pricing) - ERP is an electronic system that deducts appropriate charges automatically from the vehicles entering the restricted zone. This system consists of the communication device called In-Vehicle Unit, the roadside antenna and the enforcement system.

featured sections

Level 2 - Road Pricing - Taxonomy and description - Technology

ERDF - European Regional Development Fund

Evaluation - The process of finding out, after implementation, what the real impacts of a strategy have been and how they compare to what was expected beforehand.

FHWA - Federal Highway Administration

Generalised cost - A measure of total disutility in monetary terms of a particular journey. The generalised cost generally consists of the monetary cost of the journey (e.g. petrol or fare) plus the monetary value of the individuals places on the time spent travelling. Travel time is often weighted according to the "pleasantness" of the means of travel. An example generalised cost formula for a bus journey is given below.

Value of Time equals £0.11 per minute; and Walk and wait weighting equals 1.6.

Journey elements	Time spent (T)	Time spent x Time weighting (W) x value of time £ (VoT)	Monetary value £
Walk access and egress	10 minutes	10 x 1.6 x 11 = 176	£ 1.76
Wait time	5 minutes	5 x 1.6 x 11 = 88	£0.88
In-vehicle time	15 minutes	15 x 1 x 11 = 165	£1.65
Fare £1.50
Total generalised cost £5.79

GLA - Greater London Authority

GMML - Greater Manchester Metrolink Ltd

GMPTE - Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive

GPS - Global Positioning System

Horizon year - The future year to which a planning activity is directed.

HERS - Highway Economic Requirements System

HOT - High Occupancy and Toll Lane

Indicator - Indicators are ways of quantifying objectives. For example, accident numbers would measure the overall safety objective. This type of indicator is often called an outcome indicator, in that it measures part of the outcome of a strategy. It is also possible to define input indicators, which measure what has been done (e.g. length of bus lanes implemented) and process indicators, which describe how the transport system is responding (e.g. number of bus users).

Infrastructure - Transport facilities requiring major capital expenditure (e.g. railway projects, new roads)

Instrument (or policy instrument) - Also known as measures, policy instruments are the specific means by which policies are implemented8 (e.g. lower bus fares, road pricing)

Integration - Integration is combining policy instruments so that they reinforce one another in meeting objectives. Hence also integrated package and integrated strategy.

Land use - A term meaning the function of a given area of land. Examples of types of land use include: residential, industrial, commercial, agricultural and recreational.

LERTS - Leicester Environmental Road Tolling Scheme

Light rail - Rail system with a light volume traffic capacity compared to ‘heavy’ or standard rail. Light rail may use shared or exclusive rights-of-way. Also known as light rapid transit (LRT) or tram.

Liveable streets - Pleasant street and outdoor conditions in residential areas. It includes the positive external effects on social, cultural and recreational activity in neighbourhoods, freedom of movement on foot and bicycle, and reduced sense of danger for these modes. It is linked to, but separate from, the environmental and safety objectives.

LRTA - Light Rail Transit Association

Management (or traffic management) - How the transport system is managed and operated, usually to reduce congestion, protect the environment, improve residential streets and reduce accidents. Demand management encompasses measures to affect how people travel.

MOBILPASS - Mobility Pricing by Automatic Systems in Stuttgart

Mobility - Ease of moving about. Often specifically meaning access to a private vehicle for travel. (NWM)

Model - A representation of the relationships which occur between supply and demand within the land use / transport system. Usually expressed in mathematical form, models are widely used to predict the outcomes of transport strategies.

Monitoring - A continuous or regular programme of measuring changes and trends in the transport system. Monitoring conditions, using similar indicators to those for objective analysis, is also a way of identifying problems.

Multi-criteria appraisal - Appraisal against more then one criterion or objective.

Objective - Objectives are broad statements of the improvements which a city is seeking in planning its land use and transport system. Objectives specify the directions for improvement, but not the means of achieving them.

Objective function - One or more objectives incorporated into a mathematic expression, usually used in modelling as part of an optimisation process.

Optimal - An optimal strategy is one which achieves most against its.objectives

Optimisation - A (mathematical) process to determine the optimal transport strategy. Optimisation procedures can offer a rapid way of selecting the best combination of policy instruments from a longer initial list.

Option - A choice. In transport, usually meaning one possible strategy among several alternatives.

Park and ride - The provision of car parking facilities at public transport terminals, to encourage car users to change mode to bus or rail, particularly for journeys to urban centres. Parking is generally free or significantly less expensive than in the urban centres.

Participation - The involvement of stakeholders in the process of development of a transport strategy.

Performance - The degree to which an action is successful, or predicted to be successful; usually judged against one or more objectives, indicators, thresholds or targets.

Policy - A broad approach towards the achievement of one or more objectives. A policy is put into practice through the implementation of one or more policy instruments. For example, a policy might be to reduce the use of private cars and promote public transport use: this policy might be achieved through the instruments of road pricing and lower public transport fares.

Pricing - The way in which transport users are charged for their use of the transport system. This includes not only direct charges such as fares and congestion charges, but also fiscal measures such as licence fees and fuel taxes. Road pricing is a pricing system where motorists pay directly for using a particular roadway or for driving in a particular area.

Private transport - (Travel by) vehicles which are privately owned and for private use.

Problem - The real or perceived failure of current or predicted future conditions to meet stated or implied objectives.

PTE - Passenger Transport Executive

Public transport - Transport which is available for public use: e.g. buses, railways, taxis.

Reliability - For the road system, reliability means little daily variation in travel time. For the public transport system, it means that vehicles depart on time and arrive at all stops on schedule (punctuality).

Revenue - The amount by which income from transport pricing exceeds costs.

Road pricing - The term road pricing is a rubric for a variety of mechanisms that charge motorists by their consumption of road space, clean air and other natural and community resources.

featured sections

Level 2 - Road pricing
Level 2 - Fares structures, such as flat fares, zonal fares and monthly passes;

Robust - Likely to be successful in a wide range of future scenarios.

Safety - Minimising the number of all types of road traffic accidents. Usually expressed through total traffic accident costs or by accident risk per vehicle kilometre.

Scenario - Possible future situation in terms of a range of factors such as economic growth, changes in population and household size, income and car ownership.

Sensitivity - The susceptibility to change of one thing in relation to a change in another. Sensitivity analysis is a programme of tests of a strategy to find out how its performance changes with changes in the assumptions.

Stakeholder - All those people and organisations which have an interest in the transport system, whether as users or non-users.

Strategy- A combination of policy instruments, as they are applied over time.
Sustainable / sustainability- Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (This particularly relates to global warming, consumption of land, and depletion of non-renewable resources).

SYCC - (South Yorkshire County Council)

Synergy- A condition where the component instruments of a strategy have a greater beneficial effect than the sum of their parts.

SYPTE - South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive

Target - An aimed-for value of an indicator.

Threshold - The value of an indicator which should not be exceeded

TOD - Transit Orientated Developent

Traffic calming - Roadway design features that reduce vehicle traffic speeds or flows or both.

TRANSPRICE - Trans Modal Integrated Urban Transport Pricing for Optimum Modal Split

UK - United Kingdom

US - United States

UTOPIA - Urban Transport Operations and Planning using Intelligent

Weight: Relative importance - usually of one objective in relation to another.