Technology innovation in the mobility sector is moving at a rapid pace. Many emerging technologies are having or could have a significant impact on people’s preferred mode of transport over the next twenty years. This technology-driven paradigm shift provides an opportunity for significant change in traveller behaviour without necessarily requiring major infrastructure investment or legislative intervention. Indeed, this could result in a substantial difference in future transport network demands, emissions and contribute to healthy lifestyles.
Harnessing the potential of technological development can make more efficient use of existing transport infrastructure and services, as well as facilitating the introduction of new and improved ones. For example, passenger information systems could increase bus occupancy, improving the case for investing in service improvements, thereby encouraging further modal shift.
The pace of change is such that it could be a challenge for road and transport authorities to understand the potential impacts and timescales associated with a wide range of technologies. Once a new technology has appeared, it can also be difficult to assess its impacts. As a result there is a knowledge gap for authorities wishing to understand how to support, respond to or invest in the technologies that will deliver their preferred outcomes.
STTRIDE has identified and analysed technologies which can be seen to affect positive modal change over the next 20 years and to support CEDR authorities in two ways: by providing a toolkit for selecting investment options for new technologies and a common evaluation framework (summarised in the diagram) for assessing their impacts.
This document provides a common framework for CEDR authorities and their consultants to use when evaluating the impact of technology-based interventions aimed at encouraging modal shift. It is intended to provide a consistent basis for planning, conducting, analysing and reporting on such interventions that will enable the various authorities to share and compare their results, learn from the lessons of others and build an evidence base for decision-making. It provides a ‘menu’ from which authorities can plan their evaluations within an overall project management programme, taking account of their own national and local objectives and priorities and national guidance on evaluation, potentially incorporating this into their own guidance documents.
It has been developed on the basis of experience and best practice in evaluation guidance for transport interventions. It makes the case for evaluation, sets out the role of evaluation in the project lifecycle and considers the most appropriate approach to use for evaluations within the scope of the STTRIDE project.
The evaluation framework provides guidance on each stage in the process of evaluating interventions involving new technologies to achieve modal shift. It also provides common frameworks for writing evaluation plans and reporting results to enable road authorities to compare their results.