1. Using the Urban Dynamic Model to design transport investment to support city-regional development
Tuesday, 07 May 2019
Steer Davies Gleave
28-32 Upper Ground
London, SE1 9PD
+44 (0)

2. West Yorkshire 000’s Popul’n Jobs Leeds 758 450 Bradford 526 218
Kirkless
425
172
Wakefield
328
148
Calderdale
205
100
Total
2,242
1,088

3. Background City Deal agreement
Combined Authority
£1 billion West Yorkshire Transport Fund
Deliverable within 10 years
Primary objective of the Fund is to maximise an increase in employment and productivity
Two criteria aimed at improved access to employment for poorer areas:
A better than average improvement in employment accessibility for residents in the most deprived 25% of WY communities
Every WY district to gain an average improvement in employment accessibility no less than half the average across WY
No net increase in CO2

4. The Urban Dynamic Model
A simulation of how an urban area – or an entire region - evolves over time, focusing especially on the interactions between:
Transport
Businesses & the local economy
Population
Land use
Simulates how events change in small time increments
Three months
Long periods – up to 25 years in this case
Views an urban area as a system with interactions and feedbacks

5. UDM Contents In each of 202 zones:
Households and the workforce they bring
Housing units
Land built on and land available for new houses
Employers and the jobs they bring
Employer premises
Land built on and land available for new employment premises
Transport networks connecting the zones
Highways (with congestion)
Rail (with crowding)
Bus
Walk and cycle

6. Outputs available Households and workforce
Jobs (‘posts’ and ‘jobs filled’)
GVA
Residents employed
Travel to work matrices, by mode
Accessible jobs
Vehicle-kms and passenger-kms
CO2 emissions
User benefits

7. How does transport investment contribute to economic growth
By improving the ability of employers to recruit
By improving residents’ access to employment
By improving B2B connections
Retail is a special case
And what limits that growth?
Congestion and crowding on the transport system
Rising fares and fuel costs
Suitable premises for new employers, and the land to build them on
The size of the workforce … the housing stock … the land to build them on

8. Background forecasts of economic growth
The Yorkshire and Humber Regional Economic Model (REM) projects employment and population growth to 2026 by District
But:
It assumes transport costs are fixed
This provides a means to benchmark the UDM

9. Creating a Baseline
First the UDM was primed to deliver REM growth to 2026
While holding all transport times and costs fixed.
Next the UDM was re-run while letting transport costs rise
Congestion
Crowding on rail
Real fares and fuel costs
And some costs to fall
Primarily NGT
This creates a shortfall in the number of jobs compared to REM of about 22,000. This is a benchmark for employment that can be ‘won back’ by transport investment

10. Impacts of changes in transport costs: West Yorkshire

11. Analysis of impacts: Jobs per Km2

12. Analysis of impacts: Residents in employment per Km2

13. Developing the Package
Sixty schemes were identified and tested singly
Schemes were ranked on ratio of GVA gain: capital cost
Top 27 were selected to a capital cost of £1bn

14. The Whole Package Generated over 18,000 jobs
Compared to 22,000 initial loss
Put an extra 15,000 WY residents into employment
Plus some inward commuting
Generated GVA ~£1.2bn pa
Conventional BCR of between 4:1 and 5:1

15. Some lessons
The importance of land-use policy: Jobs and households have to go somewhere…
Spatial effects can be complex: Shifting patterns of gainers and losers
PT doesn’t necessarily reduce congestion
It increases the total carrying capacity of the system
CO2 reductions are difficult: mode shifts offset by increased employment & trip numbers.
Job numbers were smaller than scheme promoters often seem to claim – but their associated GVA is still valuable
The focus on employment and GVA still led to a conventionally good package:

16. Acknowledgement
This work was carried out for West Yorkshire under the leadership of West Yorkshire PTE (Metro)

17. Thank you