20th November 2025
Mon 07/09/2009 17:34
Dear Mrs Oliver,
I am writing in response to your request for information below (ref 2092).
Please find attached the information you requested.
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request you are entitled to ask for an internal review. Any internal review will be carried out by a senior member of staff who was not involved with your original request. To ask for an internal review, contact foi.officer@stockport.gov.uk in the first instance.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of any internal review, you are entitled to complain to the Information Commissioner. To do so, contact:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
01625 545 745
Yours sincerely,
Claire Naven
Claire Naven
Data Protection & Freedom of Information Officer
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
From: Sheila Oliver [mailto:sheilaoliver@ntlworld.com]
Sent: 10 August 2009 19:07
To: FOI Officer
Subject: A555 FOI and EIR 2004 request
Dear Ms Naven
From the SEMMMs meeting minutes 23/7/07 it was decided:-
“A meeting is to be held in Stockport to discuss the assessment of the retail
impact of development. It was agreed that Richard Bradley will attend, both in
respect of SEMMMS and his involvement in the town centre model.”
Please may I have the minutes of that meeting.
Kind regards
Sheila
Project: Stockport Town Centre Modelling Support
Project Number: C5011-00
Technical Note: Transport Multi-Modal Modelling Overview
Introduction
Following the attendance of the Bridgefield Transport Modelling Workshop (Thursday 30th August 2007) Richard Bradley (ANSA Consultants) was requested to prepare an overview note providing brief details of the likely approach for multi-modal modelling of Stockport Town Centre. This is contained in the discussion below.
Modelling Overview
Currently the Stockport Town Centre Modelling System (STCMS) includes 2006 weekday and Saturday Highway Assignment Models (HAMs), accompanied by a compatible 2003 weekday Public Transport Assignment Model (PTAM). The HAM allows vehicle routing through the Stockport town centre area, and surrounding ‘areas of influence’, to be modelled. The PTAM models the route public transport passengers are likely to take, including the choice of sub-modes walk, bus and rail. Notably the PTAM does not include the capacity of vehicles, and therefore the effects of crowding are not modelled.
Current work includes the preparation of a Reference Case (RC) demand scenario, which represents a future year against which schemes can be assessed. This includes preparing future year travel forecasts that have not been fully constrained to travel costs, at least at the local level. It should be borne in mind that a plethora of traveller and land use choices are represented in the Greater Manchester Strategic Planning Model (GMSPM), used to provide ‘upper tier’ forecasts. However, GMSPM is too strategic to properly represent traveller decisions at a level appropriate for local planning and scheme design, hence the need for STCMS.
An initial task to further enhance the STCMS is to update the weekday PTAM to 2006. This should be possible using existing ticket information, passenger counts and service information. If crowding is currently thought to be a problem in Stockport, or potentially one in the future (depending on the level of modal transfer), this task would present the best opportunity to introduce vehicle capacity, derived from GMPTE data.
A further initial task is to prepare an automated mechanism to update the travel times in the PTAM to reflect those modelled in the HAM. This would also allow highway infrastructure changes, represented in the HAM, to be automatically transferred to the PTAM.
These two initial tasks would allow the current and future year costs of travel to be properly derived, and these could be used to indicate levels of accessibility. However, the separate use of the HAM and PTAM does not allow the transfer of passengers from the main modes of Car to PT to be understood, which would required the introduction of a demand model. Demand models vary greatly in their level of sophistication and understanding the appropriate level of detail is important. Therefore, it is proposed that the current ‘baseline’ demand for travel is analysed as well as the current and future travel costs and levels of accessibly, as derived from the HAM and PTAM. The RC demand would also provide a forecast of travel demand, affectively aggregated by travel mode. If there are significant increases in travel cost in a transport corridor or area with current or future high travel demand, and in particular if current highway congestion and delay is high, then a demand model is likely to be required.
The demand model is likely to only require the modelling of main mode transfer and park and ride, in particular because of the role of GMSPM. However, a steer from DfT will help determine whether this level of sophistication is appropriate.
The approached used to determine the need for a demand model can also be used to determine the need for a Saturday PTAM. This approach requires the transport supply element of the Saturday PTAM to be assembled, which is expected to be relatively easy. This would probably be best undertaken during the updating of the 2003 model to 2006.
The 2006 Saturday ‘supply only’ PTAM would allow Saturday travel costs to be prepared, excluding the effects of crowding. However, the travel demand would be a much more serious undertaking, including the need for passenger interview surveys. It is therefore proposed that a decision is made as soon as possible as to the need for Saturday PT data collection. It may be prudent to undertake such surveys this autumn in advance of this decision – to miss the autumn survey window would delay surveys to February 2008 at the earliest.
