PJA was commissioned with WSP and Mott McDonald by the Department for Transport to prepare Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIP) for several local authorities across England.
The purpose of each project is to provide support to the local authority in the preparation of their plan. The level of support can vary depending on the internal capabilities of the authority.
The focus of LCWIPs is on an evidence-based process to determine where cycling and walking infrastructure is needed to meet the government’s aim of increases each’s mode share.
The first stage across all LCWIP projects is inception. This involves formalising the scope of the plan and data gathering to inform the second stage. Following this, data analysis is undertaken to understand the existing walking and/or cycling network, as well as the current and potential demand. The majority of this analysis is undertaken within a GIS software.
Where the authority has GIS capability, PJA has provided training days on possible GIS methods which can inform the LCWIP process. Where the authority does not have the capacity to undertake their own analysis, PJA has undertaken bespoke network analysis to calculate potential existing route demand, alternative route options and forecasts of future potential demand.
The outputs of the GIS analysis is an understanding of where there is high demand for short trips on the network, and where the network lacks the density of infrastructure to meet that demand. At this stage, audits of the existing infrastructure and potential new or alternative routes is undertaken. The purpose of this is to create a plan of the proposed network based on the demand on the network and the realistic infrastructure options.
PJA provide training on the use of the LCWIP cycling and walking audit tools, and also undertake a number of preliminary audits with the local authority. The output is a scoring of each audited route based on its suitability.
When the future network has been identified and audited, the LCWIP process requires a prioritisation plan. The factors to influence the prioritisation are largely selected by the local authority, but examples include traffic congestion, obesity and deprivation. PJA will aid the authority at this stage through the creation of a spreadsheet analysing the proposed network based on these factors, or undertaking multi-criteria analysis using raster surfaces in GIS.
