National Transport Strategy
The second National Transport Strategy (NTS) was published on 5 February 2020. NTS sets out an ambitious and compelling vision for Scotland’s transport system for the next 20 years: we will have a sustainable, inclusive, safe and accessible transport system, helping deliver a healthier, fairer and more prosperous Scotland for communities, businesses and visitors. There are four priorities to support this vision:
- reduces inequalities
- takes climate action
- helps deliver inclusive economic growth
- improves our health and wellbeing.
The NTS Delivery Board is the main governance body that oversees the implementation of the Strategy. The Board consists of organisations with a shared responsibility for successful delivery of the Strategy, including Regional Transport Partnerships, who produce Regional Transport Strategies aligned with NTS, along with local authorities.
The actions taken by the Scottish Government to support the delivery of the NTS are set out in Delivery Plans, with the second Delivery Plan published on 8 June 2022. These Plans do not set out what local authorities and other partners are doing to deliver the aims of the strategy, but reviewing the actions set out in the Plans should aid the development of Local Transport Strategies.
Key to understanding and evaluating the progress of the NTS over the short, medium and long term is to routinely monitor and report on progress towards its outcomes. In August 2021, we published our detailed NTS Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy. We will monitor and evaluate a number of indicators that span the four priorities of the strategy. The indicators range from transport emissions to the proportion of short journeys made by active travel to transport related casualties, among many others. Where possible, these indicators are broken down and analysed by demographic and geographic variables to demonstrate how experiences of transport vary across society and to ensure that interventions are measured in terms of their impact on all people in Scotland.
NTS Priority: Reduces inequalities
The ‘Reduces Inequalities’ priority ensures everyone can use transport as an enabler to access opportunities. The route map to a 20% car km reduction recognises the importance of ensuring that measures which disincentivise car use do not disadvantage people who use cars as mobility aids. However it also recognises that disabled people are less likely than the general population to have access to a car, and maintaining a status quo in which car travel is prioritised over other sustainable travel behaviours is in itself inequitable.
It is therefore critical that local authorities consider accessibility from the very beginning stages of LTS development (via the EQIA process, as set out under the section on impact assessments).
A number of organisations including the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland, Inclusion Scotland and Disability Equality Scotland provide resources which local authorities can use when they are considering how to ensure that their LTS promotes accessibility and is developed with engagement from disabled people and groups representing disabled people.
NTS Priority: Takes climate action
In 2020, the Scottish Government published an update to the Climate Change Plan (CCPu) which recognises that there are unique challenges to reaching net zero emissions in the transport sector. Transport continues to be Scotland’s biggest emitting sector, accounting for around a quarter of total emissions , with cars currently accounting for almost 40% of transport emissions.
The CCPu included a number of transport commitments to meet Scotland’s statutory obligations for greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2045, including a commitment to reduce car km by 20% by 2030 and support for transformational active travel projects.
In recognition of the need for joint ambition and action at both a national and local level, the Scottish Government and COSLA have co-developed a route map to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030, in order to enable healthier, fairer and more sustainable lives. In addition to meeting our statutory obligations for greenhouse gas emissions, the route map also recognises the benefits that re-thinking the way we travel can have on our individual and community health and wellbeing, as well as the fairness of our society and the inclusiveness of our economy.
NTS Priority: Helps deliver inclusive economic growth
The NTS sets out how the transport system plays a crucial role in the successful performance of Scotland’s economy and ensuring regional cohesion. Transport enables people to access education and employment and ensures firms are able to get their goods and services to markets in Scotland and beyond. It is an important contributory factor in Scotland’s competitiveness, impacting on productivity of our labour force and the efficiency of businesses.
Scotland's National Strategy for Economic Transformation sets out our vision for a wellbeing economy. It contains bold actions – within the powers currently available to us - to deliver economic prosperity and wellbeing for all of Scotland’s people and places, within safe environmental limits.
The LTS should align with and consider how transport can support national, regional, and local economic strategies and plans, such as supporting commuters, tourism, events, retail, and goods delivery.
NTS Priority: Improves our health and wellbeing
The NTS states that our transport system will enable a healthy, active and fit nation. It recognises that transport plays an important part in delivering the fully inclusive society we want, therefore while we tackle inequalities, our actions will simultaneously reduce poverty, in particular child poverty.
Our transport system also needs to be safe and secure and give users trust and confidence that they will reach their destinations without threat. It should also allow people to make active travel choices to improve their health and physical and mental wellbeing and seek to reduce health inequalities.
Increased levels of walking and physical activity are desirable for health and environmental reasons, as well as being an essential element of a sustainable and integrated transport system. The Scottish Government has committed at least £320 million, or 10% of the total transport budget, to active travel by 2024-25.