Local transport – a view from the summit. Contributions and insights from the first and second Local Transport Summits, Oxford 2016 and Manchester 2017

Planning and delivering successful local transport involves making sense of transport system supply and demand, reflecting user needs as necessary and advising on how wider social, economic and environmental considerations can be taken into account. It recognises the central importance of connectivity to economic prosperity and social wellbeing in an evolving society, and also the broader impacts transport can have. This is a challenging task in a world in which multiple drivers of change are presenting new dynamics, opportunities and unknowns. In this context, professional dialogue and constructive challenge to existing approaches and solutions are vital. Such engagement helps ensure that our approach to, and application of, transport planning continues to be reviewed, questioned and potentially revised. The Local Transport Summit is Landor LINKS’s initiative to facilitate this dialogue. This report provides an account of the first two Summits and the insights that have emerged from them. It represents a reference point for what are ongoing developments in thinking and professional practice in a period of significance for the sector and beyond, as transport devolution gives increasing prominence to local transport issues and choices. The intention is that the report helps to share more widely the matters the Summit has addressed – matters that are now under discussion more widely in the professional community.