Exclusive
By Richard Johnstone
A leading transport academic has called for more powers to be given to the regional transport partnerships (RTPs) in Scotland, and has described the current range of powers given to RTPs as “a complete waste of time”.

Professor Jon Shaw, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Transport at the University of Plymouth, who has co-edited the book Traffic Jam: 10 Years of “Sustainable” Transport in the UK, released last week, with Dr Iain Docherty from the University of Glasgow, said that regional transport planning authorities should be able to raise revenue for transport projects.

The book examines what the editors say are the transport policy failures of the Labour Government in the last decade, and Shaw added that similar issues have affected transport policy in Scotland.

He said that while national transport governance is important in terms of addressing major transport issues, “there has to be an appropriate level of devolution down, and they have to have an appropriate level of funding which allows things to happen, and apart from London that’s always the problem we’ve run into” in transport planning.

He said that the RTPs “are in no way as effective as they could be if they had a different kind of structure and more funding opportunities available to them”, adding “if you have genuine regional transport planning, you need to make sure that they have proper powers.”

He highlights the investment that regional localities put into French or German transport schemes, and their ability to raise funds, as a potential example for an extended role for a body with similar powers to the former Strathclyde Passenger Transport authority, the forerunner of today’s Strathclyde Partnership for Transport.

Shaw said: “If it could make funding decisions about Glasgow and its travel to work area then [it becomes] the kind of Glasgow Metro-type concept. The idea being that if you’ve got all of your transport modes in an urban agglomeration and hinterland under control of one organisation then the theory goes that you should be able to coordinate your investment much more effectively and you can avoid waste and duplication.

“But also you’ve got a fundraising mechanism [and] you could have it in place where you’ve got genuine strategic planning of the transport network, in order to promote economic growth.”

Responding to the comments, a Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Through our historic agreement with COSLA we have given local authorities more funding than ever before, more powers than ever before, and more freedom than ever before to invest in local priorities. Councils and Regional Transport Partnerships, as part of the local government family, are working closely together on identifying opportunities to use this increased investment and greatly enhanced autonomy to improve local transport services.”