Changing attitudes to travel as a result of the pandemic, increased awareness of climate change and the ongoing digital revolution all have a part to play in the evolution of transport provision – trends that need to be incorporated into future plan making now.

Although fully autonomous travel for all vehicles is unlikely to be around the corner just yet, our earlier blog (What could digitisation and behavioral changes in transport and travel mean for development?) set out the implications that the rollout of self-driving cars and drones, for example, could have on the built environment. There are far-reaching consequences for land use planning, potentially resulting in the creation of new land uses and even making some redundant. These consequences should start to be incorporated into today’s decision making.

However, there are few local plans, if any, that are doing more than referencing ‘future technology’. Local plans should cover a period of at least 15 years (with the recent consultation on proposed updates to the NPPF proposing strategic policies with a 30-year vision), and traffic modelling has to respond to the development being planned over that period. Proper consideration of the emerging patterns is therefore essential. 

The notable recent challenges in planning for garden towns and villages further highlights the relevance of this point. In north Essex, inspectors concluded that four out of five proposed garden communities were unsound because of uncertainty around funding for the required transport infrastructure and the failure of the authorities to include an appropriate contingency allowance when estimating costs. 

Not all of the proposed rapid transport systems were demonstrated to be deliverable. Notwithstanding this point, there was little evidence as to how other ‘future technology’ had been taken into account in the evolution of the plan. This is particularly relevant given the development was planned to come forward over several decades.

Where necessary evidence is available, it is questionable whether it remains a justified position for sustainable development in sustainable locations to be declined on the basis of outdated modelling and highway network capacity.

For forward-thinking authorities, this could be an opportunity to revisit land uses and how areas are masterplanned ahead of the market naturally dictating how these changes will affect our lives.  With greater reliance being placed on the transmission of large amounts of data, those forward-looking areas with the ability to incorporate 5G or greater transmission speeds will be at the forefront of this new technology.

Responding today to tomorrow’s opportunities

Today’s masterplanning of large strategic extensions should be mindful of the future opportunities presented by technological change. For example, a ‘flexible planning’ approach could be taken to incorporate car parking into new development now with the ability to alter the land use at a future date, if and when parking is no longer required due to the proliferation of self-driving cars, for example. 

Another area to grapple with will be the transport modelling work so critical in feeding into the progress of a local plan.  Covid-19 has made it difficult to update those assessments reliably, and future technological changes could add further questions to how much weight can be placed on this data when predicting future patterns of travel.

Changing travel patterns could present the opportunity to plan for more sustainable places, no longer focused around the car, but around communities and people’s wellbeing. Incorporating flexibility in designs, for example through the provision for home working and/or garden offices and the future inclusion of super high speed broadband and 5G, will help enable developments to be future-proofed and returns optimised. 

A changing approach will become even more critical as Generation Z, with a different mindset to travel and car ownership, starts to become more influential in decision making. 

To embrace these opportunities fully it will therefore be important for the changing travel patterns and associated opportunities to be more actively considered in masterplanning and emerging policies today to ensure appropriate and arguably sustainable development can be planned for tomorrow. 

Further information

Contact Julia Mountford

Contact Savills Planning

What could digitisation and behavioural changes in transport and travel mean for development?

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