Tackling the growing demand for transport - both passenger and freight - is a common theme identified in the scenarios. Between 1996 and 2031 car traffic could grow by more than half, according to the central estimate of the National Road Traffic Forecasts. Van and lorry traffic is forecast to grow even faster. Although it is difficult to predict how drivers will react to increasing congestion, DfT estimates that journey times will increase substantially especially on urban motorways and during the peaks. Air travel is forecast to double both globally and in the UK in 15 years and providing efficient surface access to airports will be a critical success factor. Demand for rail travel has been steadily increasing over the past five years, and growth is forecast to continue as long as capacity can be provided and service quality improved.

Increasing congestion and growing environmental concerns are imposing rising costs on the freight industry and society. In the longer term, an essential task is to transfer some road freight to other modes but logistics operators are unlikely to use costly and inflexible rail and waterway networks unless they are integrated intelligently and efficiently.

Future Scenarios

Visioning and scenario planning are techniques for helping the organisation look ahead in an uncertain future. Scenarios are tools for helping organisations take a long view in a world of great uncertainty. Scenarios are specially constructed narratives about the future.

For each narrative, planners develop a set of strategic implications which are not confined to today's world and are not limited to excluding the unthinkable. They are not exact predictions of the future but rather represent the boundaries of possibilities.

Scenario planning challenges traditional thinking by requiring planners to imagine multiple futures based on a specific trend or factor. Each scenario must present a different image of the future rather than an extension of the past.

In the Vision 2030 project three alternative socio-economic scenarios were developed each associated with a vision for the future of the transport network. They are "Global Economy" - a market-driven approach; "Sustainable Lifestyle" - a community based way of living; and "Control and Plan" based on greater regulation of movement.

Each of the three scenarios was elaborated with reference to the following categories: Policy, Economic, Societal, Technological, Legal and Environmental. The PESTLE tool is commonly used in strategic planning, as it seeks to identify those external factors in industry that there is little or no control over, such as government policy. By identifying these factors, at least the organisation can construct a narrative based on an optimistic or pessimistic assumption for that factor.

The PESTLE analysis considered implications not only for the HA but also for its customers, the motor industry, intermediaries, and other stakeholders.

The three Vision 2030 scenarios are summarised in the text boxes that follow and are the subject of a project report "Socio-Economic Scenarios and Future Transport Visions".

>> see also

Sustainable Lifestyle Scenario
Global Economy Scenario
Control and Plan Scenario
Comparison of Scenarios