Written evidence submitted by Campaign for Better Transport (JUJ0049)

About Campaign for Better Transport

Campaign for Better Transport is the leading national transport charity working across England and Wales to make transport better, greener and fairer. Our vision is for all communities to have high quality, sustainable transport that meets their needs, improves quality of life and helps protect the environment. With over 20,000 supporters, we work with politicians, civil servants, and industry to influence national and local government to maintain, expand and improve the transport offering for all.  Since the 1970s, we have successfully advocated for an integrated transport system – a system that is both internally/inter-modally integrated and integrated with development planning, health, energy, economic regeneration and the wider economy.

Related publications include:

• Destination Passenger: Towards a Door-to-Door Railway (2001), which fed into the Government’s Door to Door Strategy (2013)
• Fixing the Link (2014) on integrating station access with walking, wheeling and cycling
• Integrated Transport: A New Generation of Interchanges (2018).

This submission draws on that experience.

(a) What are the key features that make a transport system feel joined up to the user? How would ‘integrated’ transport look different to current services and networks?
 

Fully integrated transport enables people to access the goods, services and opportunities they need and to make seamless, point-to-point journeys using the most appropriate and most sustainable mode. It replaces fragmentation with integration and gives the public the sense that both their journey purpose and the quality of their whole journey, from door to door, has been considered. An integrated system feels simple, seamless and safe.

For the user, that means:

• Maximising access: The system maximises access to goods, services and opportunities (e.g. work, education/training, healthcare, shopping, friends and family) while reducing the need to travel long distances, particularly by car. All journeys should be fully accessible for all, regardless of their individual characteristics.

• Physical connectivity: direct, safe, well-signed connections between modes are essential. Well-designed transport hubs where different modes converge, supported by clear signage and real-time information displays, enable easy interchange. Larger hubs should include rail, trams, local buses, pedestrian access, cycling infrastructure and parking, taxi ranks, micromobility hire, car clubs and electric vehicle charging. transport hubs should also be well connected to local high streets. Our Fixing the Link (2014) research found that improving routes between rail stations and town centres can increase footfall by up to 30 per cent.

• Operational coordination: reliable journeys and timetables that work together. This requires aligning train, bus and other local transport operations and timetables to reduce waiting times and facilitate easy transfers, particularly in rural and suburban areas where services are less frequent. Switzerland’s ‘clock-face’ coordination between buses and trains is the global benchmark; in Britain, disjointed schedules remain a barrier when trying to help people combine modes.

• Integrated ticketing and fares: implementing a single ticketing system covering both long-distance modes and buses, trains, trams and other modes in city regions enables passengers to plan, pay and travel across modes without friction. Capped daily, weekly or monthly travelcard packages and capped contactless payments across modes, similar to London’s Oyster card or the Bee Network in Greater Manchester, make travelling by public transport simpler and easier and encourage multimodal journeys. This can increase ridership, cut queue times and reduce confusion. Nationally, the goal should be to use technological innovation to harmonise approaches to multimodal capping and contactless acceptance, particularly with the recent expanded trials of digital ticketing.

• Clear accountability for improving transport choices: 70 per cent of trips are under five miles. Where a single body oversees the planning, funding, delivery and operation of transport and its links to the wider economy, as in London or Greater Manchester, voters and passengers know who is responsible and see integrated planning and consistent branding, information and service standards. The continued devolution of stable funding and decision-making authority to regional and local authorities to support place-based planning and investment will bring clearer accountability for integrating the planning and delivery of local transport.

(b) What stops effective integration happening now, and how can these barriers be overcome?

Barriers that stop effective integration include:

The focus in national policy and funding on mobility rather than access:  

Most travel is a derived demand, because transport is one means by which people can get access to the goods, services and opportunities they need to lead full and productive lives.  The key challenge for transport policymakers and planners is how to increase and improve access in all communities, while reducing the need for people to travel ever longer distances. Over the past 40-50 years, national transport policy has been driven by the assumption that what people want is greater mobility. Transport policy and funding should start instead from the premise that the goal is to increase access. That means integrating transport with other policies and increasing access through spatial planning, improving digital connectivity and improving sustainable transport choices. 

Institutional silos

Departments and agencies still treat modes separately. For example, planning for railway stations without ensuring bus access or cycling links. The Department for Transport’s own 2013 Door to Door Strategy recognised these gaps but that was never embedded. With vision provided by the forthcoming Integrated National Transport Strategy, it is vitally important both that modes are considered in totality within the Department for Transport, and furthermore that other departments, particularly the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, consider transport as a core element of their decision-making around planning, housebuilding and placemaking.

Fragmented governance and funding

Transport infrastructure and operations are planned, funded, delivered and operated by multiple different actors in both the public and private sectors – central government departments; arms-length bodies like National Highways and Network Rail/GBR; regional and local authorities; and private sector operators. The creation of Great British Railways (GBR) will integrate track and train on a regional basis, as well as coordinating strategy and services at the national level. GBR and National Highways should be required to integrate their planning and investment with each other and other key decision makers, particularly regional transport authorities. The Integrated National Transport Strategy should set out how institutional integration can be achieved, including by setting out how rail managers can facilitate travel to stations by different modes and empower local authorities to align rail with local bus, tram, active travel and shared transport.

Inadequate fiscal powers for local authorities

Local transport authorities (LTAs) have limited means to fund integration. Despite having powers for congestion charging or workplace parking levies, few have used them since the powers were granted in the Transport Act 2000. Research by Centre for Cities and the County Councils Network shows that this is because local areas find that the overall revenue-raising potential is not significant enough to make the political risk worthwhile, and a parking levy may be more politically challenging to deliver than a combined set of taxes all going into a transport pot. ‘Grant dependence’ – the reliance of regional and local authorities on specific national grant funding for transport – has discouraged innovation and long-term planning. The advent of long-term integrated funding settlements for regional authorities is positive and welcome. The current Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill should also include the power for LTAs to pilot locally retained transport levies or land-value capture schemes, and for various options for local revenue-raising to be hypothecated, bringing more confidence to local political decision makers. International evidence is clear: regions that raise and keep local revenue invest more efficiently in integrated transport networks, and local economies grow faster as a result.

c) What kinds of interventions and policy decisions are needed to provide joined-up transport, including in areas beyond transport such as planning?

Integrating planning and transport policy
 

National planning policy should require new housing and commercial developments to be explicitly planned around sustainable transport access. Local Plans and spatial frameworks must embed rail, bus and active travel connections from the outset, not as afterthoughts. This includes aligning Local Transport Plans, Local Plans and Local Skills Improvement Plans through shared governance and common evidence bases.

Reforming developer contributions and planning obligations
 

Planning guidance should be strengthened to ensure developers contribute fairly to sustainable transport infrastructure. Section 106 and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) mechanisms should explicitly support local public transport networks, mobility hubs and active travel corridors, with clear requirements for integration with nearby rail or rapid transit. Transport funding should be ringfenced and protected from reallocation to road or parking expansion.

Land use and car parking policy
 

National and local planning frameworks should set maximum, not minimum, parking standards, particularly near rail stations and high-frequency public transport corridors. Reduced parking provision should be paired with improved public transport access, car clubs and shared mobility options. Local authorities should have stronger powers to designate ‘low-car’ or ‘transit-oriented’ zones within new housing and regeneration areas.

Empowering local authorities and devolved bodies
 

Effective coordination requires devolved powers and funding certainty. Mayoral Combined Authorities and transport authorities should have greater statutory influence over land use decisions, including call-in rights for developments that undermine sustainable transport plans. Multi-year settlements for local transport and regeneration should replace short-term competitive funding pots, as is already happening with integrated funding settlements to regional transport authorities.

Planning for sustainable economic development
 

As mentioned, national policy should reframe economic development around accessibility rather than mobility — ensuring that new housing, employment, and services are located so they can be supported and accessed through public transport and active travel. A ‘sustainable transport first’ test could be introduced for all major developments, requiring demonstrable sustainable access before planning approval. This approach would ensure that public transport, shared mobility, walking, and cycling are the natural, convenient choice from day one.

(d) How should transport integration and its benefits be measured and evaluated, including the impact on economic growth, decarbonisation and the Government’s other ‘missions’?

Integration should be evaluated not by inputs, such as miles of track or number of buses, but by outcomes: how well the transport system supports access, inclusion, decarbonisation, and growth.

We suggest these core outcome measures:

• Connectivity and accessibility: percentage of the population within 400m of a frequent bus route, mobility hub, or railway station, and average journey time to key destinations (employment, education, healthcare).
• Affordability and fairness: cost of a capped multimodal weekly or monthly ticket as a proportion of median disposable income, benchmarked across regions.
• Reliability and convenience: average transfer time between modes, punctuality of connecting services, and network coverage during evenings and weekends.
• Mode shift and usage: percentage of trips made by public transport and active travel, and reductions in trips by car and car mileage per capita.
• Decarbonisation and air quality: annual reductions in transport-related CO₂ and NOx emissions within local areas.
• Health and wellbeing: changes in levels of physical activity, social isolation, and access to essential services, linked to the NHS Active Travel Impact Model.

Setting clear targets and accountability
 

Government should set national and local Transport Integration Targets to be met by 2030, such as:

• 90 per cent of urban residents and 70 per cent of rural residents living within a ten-minute walk of a frequent public transport service.
• 50 per cent of all trips in urban areas made by public or active modes by 2030.
• Annual five per cent reduction in average household transport emissions.
• Year-on-year increases in integrated ticket sales and multimodal journeys recorded through smartcard data.

These targets should be embedded within Local Transport Plans, devolution deals, and the new Spatial Growth Missions, with annual reporting aligned to the Government’s mission dashboards on growth, health and net zero.

Economic and wider value
 

Cities with integrated networks consistently show higher productivity and resilience. Centre for Cities has found that matching European levels of integration could raise UK city productivity by up to two per cent. Long-term benefits can also be assessed using a Whole-System Benefit Framework, combining Treasury Green Book principles with accessibility, health, and social inclusion metrics. This could demonstrate cross-departmental returns on investment.

Learning and transparency
 

Regular publication of local connectivity scorecards could benchmark performance across areas, creating accountability and sharing best practice. Integration outcomes should be independently evaluated by the Office for National Statistics or NISTA to maintain transparency and consistency.

e) How should the cost of interventions needed to deliver transport integration be assessed and appraised? Will proposed changes to methodology in the Treasury’s ‘Green Book’, including the introduction of ‘place-based business cases’, change this?

The Treasury’s 2025 Green Book update introduces place-based business cases and distributional weighting, both of which are crucial to evaluating integrated transport fairly, so this will change assessment and appraisal, potentially for the better. Traditional appraisals have undervalued small but transformational local schemes. The new guidance should allow better recognition of long-term health, inclusion and decarbonisation impacts.

Government should go further by requiring that all local transport appraisals assess integration benefits explicitly. For example, how a new railway station improves bus patronage or active travel use and supports improved access to goods, services and opportunities. Integration creates compounding benefits that conventional cost-benefit analysis struggles to capture.

(f) Will integration itself deliver wider benefits such as mode shift and behaviour change?

Yes. Experience of place-based planning and investment in London and other cities demonstrates that full integration along the lines set out above is the foundation of mode shift. Where accessibility to goods, services and opportunities is high and the transport system feels coherent, people drive less. London’s public transport mode share (nearly 70 per cent of all trips to central London) shows what’s possible.

Benefits include:

• Better health outcomes: more active travel and lower air pollution; walking and cycling to stations cut all-cause mortality by up to 20 per cent.
• Reduced congestion: each ten per cent reduction in car use can cut delays by up to 25 per cent.
• Stronger local economies: integrated transport brings people to local shops and services rather than out-of-town centres.
• Improved equality: our Left Behind Neighbourhoods work found that 84 per cent of such wards have below-average connectivity, and 40 per cent of households have no car. Integration closes those gaps.

g) What is needed to ensure that integration is inclusive and meets the diverse needs of transport users? Will integration necessarily lead to better outcomes for accessibility?

Integration must be designed for everyone. That means:

• Accessibility by default: step-free interchanges, level boarding, real-time audio-visual information.
• Affordability: simple capped fares and concessionary schemes.
• Safety: well-designed and well-lit infrastructure, public spaces and routes, visible staff, safe cycling infrastructure.

Transport integration should embed equality impact assessment in every local transport plan. Consistent design standards should ensure that interchanges meet the needs of older and disabled people and support independent travel.

h) Will the meaning of integration vary across different kinds of areas and for different kinds of journeys? (such as rural and suburban areas, and inter-city journeys)

Yes. Integration looks different depending on geography. Urban integration required a focus on multimodal ticketing, capacity, and reliable frequency. Suburban is more likely to include park-and-ride, last-mile bus links and cycling access to rail, while rural areas need coordination between scheduled buses, demand-responsive services and rail, with digital ticketing and real-time information where possible to bring simplicity and certainty.

Each of these areas would do well to have an integration plan aligned with local settlement patterns. National standards should set expectations, while local plans should tailor delivery.

i) What lessons can be drawn from attempts to integrate transport elsewhere in the UK and around the world? What examples should the Government seek to emulate?

In the United Kingdom, we have some useful examples with which we are familiar:

• London: people travelling in London benefit from the integrated governance of Transport for London, which itself has become entirely dependent upon locally-generated revenue. The Mayor’s Transport Strategy (MTS) must in law conform with the London Plan. The London boroughs are legally obliged to prepare local transport plans (LIPs) that conform with the MTS, and their local development plans must conform with the London Plan. Transport infrastructure and new development are planned and delivered in an integrated way. The road network is designed and operated to optimise use by different road users to maximise social, economic and environmental benefits. Customers enjoy simple, capped fares, and generally clear and consistent information provision. Contactless, capped ticketing now covers 95 per cent of journeys, and bus use per capita is more than double the national average. Three quarters of journeys are made by walking, wheeling, cycling, shared transport or public transport, contrasting with the national average of one third. While different approach work for different places, those statistics are a clear indication of the lessons to be learned from London.
• Nottingham: Nottingham is a relative outlier in the UK in having used the powers enabled by the Transport Act 2000 to implement a Workplace Parking Levy (WPL).  The WPL funds trams, electric buses and integrated ticketing, and has brought over £1 billion of direct reinvestment into that network. Public satisfaction with transport has risen steadily since 2015 and, with safe walking from the railway station to buses, trams and shared cycles, it feels like a city designed with people in mind, thanks to its integrated transport.
• Greater Manchester: Transport for Greater Manchester has developed a model of integration with London as an initial inspiration, to form a distinct approach, with a different combination of transport modes. Tram is the main mode of regional transport rather than, as with London, the Underground. The Bee Network demonstrates the impact of unified branding and contactless capping.

International examples

• France: over 25 cities have integrated light rail systems funded by local transport levies, linking housing and transport planning.
• Germany: regional transport associations (Verkehrsverbünde) coordinate timetables and fares across vast areas, supported by predictable local tax revenues.
• Switzerland: national coordination ensures every train and bus meets on a clock-face pattern, backed by consistent national branding and ticketing, with one ticket for all modes of transport within the system.
• Japan: private and public operators integrate seamlessly through unified ticketing (Suica, Pasmo), dense land use and long-term investment.

October 2025