engagement

Promote sustainable mobility through research and citizen engagement

GOAL

8 Goal 8 aims to improve research and citizen engagement around sustainable mobility and collaboration with other government departments, agencies and stakeholders in delivering the Policy.

The secretariat will be provided by the Department of Transport and it will avail of relevant specialist expertise to guide and support delivery, including programme management, transport research and modelling, and legal expertise.

Effective and timely delivery of this Policy will require strong leadership by the Department of Transport and enhanced collaboration across government, the NTA, TII, the regional assemblies, local authorities and other key stakeholders. Given the Government’s ambition for climate action and the important contribution which sustainable mobility can play, the Policy will also need to facilitate delivery and demonstrate success in terms of carbon abatement and other co-benefits. Most importantly, the Policy will require strong stakeholder buy-in, particularly from citizens who remain the central focus of this Policy.

The Leadership Group will look to practical models for accelerating delivery in the transport domain, building on the innovative and collaborative experiences across the public service over the COVID-19 pandemic. It will also seek representation to support its work and bring international perspectives and a peer review discipline to its work.

Leadership Group

The Leadership Group will publish an annual report, utilising the data from the new annual National Household Travel Survey to detail progress against the Policy’s targets and outlining implementation progress against the actions in the action plan.

A Leadership Group will be established to oversee and drive implementation of the Policy and delivery of the action plan. The group will be chaired at Assistant Secretary level within the Department of Transport and report to the Minister for Transport on a quarterly basis identifying achievements, areas for improvement, impediments and corrective actions. These reports will complement reporting processes for the wider Climate Action Plan.

Pathfinder Programme

Given the need to act quickly to demonstrate a pathway to achieving the ambitious climate goals set for transport, a first task of the Leadership Group will be to agree a mechanism to deliver a programme of “pathfinder” projects of scale at local level over the next 3 years. It is intended that these projects will provide a template of peoplefocused development which can be replicated and scaled up. Experimental and innovative approaches will be encouraged where they can be delivered and at pace. These projects should demonstrate their capacity to achieve carbon abatement, air quality and/or other co-benefits in line with the goals of this Policy

The Leadership Group will comprise senior decision makers within the Department of Transport responsible inter alia for climate action, active travel, public transport service and investment and roads, as well as representatives from other relevant government departments, including the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It will also include senior representatives from the key delivery agents named in the action plan at national, regional and local level, including the NTA, TII, the County and City Management Association and the regional assemblies.

National Sustainable Mobility Policy | Principle 2: People Focused Mobility