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First paragraph: Transport plays a vital role in every day life. The efficient movement of people and goods is an essential part of a productive economy as well as being important for social cohesion, health and well-being. Investment or policy intervention in the transport system is, therefore, in support of these other wider objectives or to tackle externalities such as climate change or congestion. The institutional structures underpinning transport have, however, developed around modes and networks and around the industries of transport. The arrangements vary significantly between modes and, increasingly, across areas. There is a multitude of governance networks rather than a single overarching ‘governance of the transport system’. This makes it difficult to achieve integrated outcomes.

First paragraph: The overall aim of this thematic review is to identify the current state-of-the-art of our knowledge of the relationship between infrastructure and productivity. The paper focuses on two particular forms of infrastructure, namely transport and digital/broadband. This is because other basic infrastructures, such as water, drainage and electricity, are effectively ‘binary’ in their supply – i.e. individuals and firms are either connected to these networks or they’re not, and the services supplied via these infrastructures either function or they don’t – whereas the *level* of service provided by transport and digital connectivity varies. The impacts of transport infrastructure investment is also a key concern of the authors’ own research work. The paper is structured as follows: first, it reviews the longstanding debate about the links between transport infrastructure and the economy, and the recent debates about the impacts on economic agglomeration, which are seen as key to productivity enhancement. It then goes on to examine the more limited research base on digital connectivity. Finally, the issue of the level of productivity within the infrastructure sector is addressed. The paper draws on a recent review carried out by the authors for the Scottish Cities Alliance (SCA) on the relationship between transport infrastructure and the economic aspirations of City Deals, and we are grateful for the assistance of colleagues in the city authorities in developing the analysis developed here. The section on digital connectivity draws on another earlier SCA review paper produced by our colleague Prof Donald Houston, now of the University of Portsmouth.

No abstract available.

The current focus of transportation policy around disruptive events is to adopt an engineering resilience-oriented approach, which focuses on returning assets to good workable order as soon as possible. This will remain critically important in the future to reduce the scale and severity of disruptive events which are likely to become more commonplace in many locations due to climate change. It is, however, only one part of ensuring that such events have more limited impacts on society and the economy. A broader consideration of societal resilience and responses outside the transport sector is needed. People travel in order to take part in activities (work, education, caring and so on), and a smarter resilience response requires us to better understand these activity patterns and intervene accordingly. There is significant adaptive capacity within society that could be better harnessed to reduce the impacts of disruptive events. The work also shows that many of our assumptions about the short and long run impacts of disruptive events need re-examining to get a fuller picture of the true economic effects of disruptive events on society and the economy. Without this it will be difficult to make the case for many types of resilience investment. This briefing paper presents evidence collected from new studies of behavioural adaptation during disruptive events and uses this to identify four areas for action to improve how we plan for resilience and how we assess the worth of different types of investment strategy: 1. The development of Smart Resilience Strategies - which are a combination of transport and non-transport responses which work together to minimize the impacts of temporary infrastructure loss; 2. Measures to improve the usefulness, impact and co-ordination of communications with the public and businesses during disruptions, enabling social adaptation and reducing time wasted in unnecessarily perilous and extended journeys; 3. A continued programme of developing the capacity of travellers and businesses to adapt to different events through greater multi-modality and an increase in smart and flexible working practices; and 4. A reassessment of the approach to understanding the economic impacts of disruptive events which extends well beyond the apparent reductions in flows and increases in journey times observed on the networks and captures the societal and economic impacts in a more holistic way.

This paper presents an analysis of Transport 2010, the government’s ten‐year plan for transport. It develops discussions held by members of the RGS‐IBG’s Transport Geography Research Group (TGRG) in September 2000. It is argued that the plan marks something of a return to previous policies designed to accommodate increasing mobility.

This document outlines the case for continued investment in urban local transport through the recession and beyond. Investing in better transport has been an important part of the stimulus package implemented by government in order to support key sectors of the economy through the recession. Continuing and sustaining this investment for the long term will be an equally important part of the recovery phase, since improving local transport is one of the most effective means of supporting jobs and businesses

This thesis explores the impacts of geographical structures of local governance upon the development of passenger rail transport policies in the Merseyside and Strathclyde urban regions. Rather than evaluate policy outcomes, it describes and analyses the systems and processes through which strategic rail transport policy-making is shaped and constrained. The impacts upon urban local rail transport policy-making of the statutory Passenger Transport Authorities and Executives, other local authorities, public and private sector bodies and individuals, which together comprise the prevailing structure of local governance in each area, are traced. The theory of the urban policy regime is applied to explain the development of particular policies from their basis in local political and popular concern, through to their implementation or rejection in order to illustrate the influences of each member of the policy community in practice. The two study areas and 1986-1996 timescale are chosen to represent the period when two differing territorial structures of Passenger Transport Authority (PTA) co-existed in the UK. Strathclyde Regional Council, which acted as PTA for the Clydeside conurbation and surrounding area in the west of Scotland, was the last remaining example in the UK of a strategic urban local government with jurisdiction over an entire city-region. In contrast, Merseytravel, the PTA responsible for local rail transport development in Merseyside, an urban region of similar economic, social and rail transport structure to Strathclyde, was jointly administered by five smaller local authorities acting under the quasi-market principles of public choice theory. Through a detailed exposition of the development of urban rail transport policies in each area, the ways in which both types of institutional arrangement influenced the structure and operation of the local policy regime, and its pattern of policy discourse, are analysed. The opportunities arising for the effective expression of public accountability under each system are highlighted, since this is a central aspiration of the abolition of strategic city-region wide local authorities inspired by public choice theory.