Analytical Framework

The Analytical Framework comprises datasets, tools and transport models which form a comprehensive system to analyse and forecast economic, social, and environmental impacts of a transport scheme in the North of England.  

The framework consists of a number of datasets, analytical tools and models, referred to as ‘features’. Those are the main building blocks for the Analytical Framework and are shown in the diagram above, and more detail can be found by clicking on each feature. 

The Northern Economy and Land Use Model (NELUM), is the key future-year travel scenario exploration model and is used to simulate future travel markets for different land use scenarios, for the application within the more conventional transport models. 

Underpinning this is the Northern Transport Modelling System (NorTMS), which consists of Northern Rail Modelling System (NoRMS) that focuses on rail networks, stations and service simulations; and the Northern Highway Assignment Model (NoHAM) which predicts highway demand in the North. 

NorMITs, the Northern Model Integration Tools build a base (a snapshot of current demand) and future year travel markets based on external changes using trip generation modelling. It also integrates NorTMS and NELUM within the Analytical Framework so is a translator between the two. It aggregates the representation of the transport network from NorTMS to feed into NELUM. In a similar way NorMITS aggregates the population distribution metrics from NELUM into a simplified version to be used in NorTMS. 

For freight multi-modal modelling, the Analytical Framework focuses on using the Great Britain Freight Model (GBFM) enhanced by supporting tools such as the warehouse and distribution centre location model. 

 

TAME’s business case capabilities 

All components of Analytical Framework are built and used for nationally significant business cases and meet requirements set out in Transport Appraisal Guidance by DfT, with enhanced capabilities. 

Our two main standard transport models (NorTMS: NoRMS and NoHAM) provide main outputs for business case development and calculation of the Benefit Cost Ratios. 

NELUM – the Northern Economy, Land Use Model explores the impact of the new transport schemes on land use development. Post-processing of those outputs provide monetary value of level 3 benefits, along with wider economic impacts: number of jobs, land value uplift, static or dynamic agglomeration. 

 

Supporting Strategic Case objectives

Further analysis to establish ‘levelling up' needs, social, environmental and place-based impacts of a new scheme, bridging the gap between monetary outputs and context of the North: 

o   Transport Related Social Exclusion metrics to assess the impact the new transport schemes would have on improving transport accessibility and reducing vulnerability of places (Place Based Analysis) 

o   Considering spatial variation in transport intervention impacts on different social groups (Distributional Impact Appraisal) 

o   Calculating carbon impact of the schemes (NoCarb) 

o   Explaining the scheme’s impacts by contextualising what the modelling outputs signify for the residents and communities near the scheme (People Centred Analysis)