Ends and means - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 137

Part III
Ends and means
The first two parts of this topic have provided much of the context needed to
understand the contemporary situation surrounding transport policy and planning.
Part 1 described the trends in travel and transport themselves and their impacts. Part
2 charted the involvement of the State over time, altering the physical development of
transport networks and the way they are planned, managed and funded.
Had past governments acted differently the starting point for contemporary policy-
making - the present mix of transport networks, travel behaviour and attitudes,
institutional arrangements and so on - would be different from the one we have today.
An interesting illustration of this is the different transport conditions which prevail in
the neighbouring countries of continental Europe which are broadly similar in their
social and political traditions and in their economic development. (These differences
are not explored here, but see CfIT 2006.)
The physical legacy of past policies is largely incremental so that what exists today is
essentially the sum of the developments described in Part 2. Each generation tends to
adapt and improve the inherited infrastructure to meet contemporary needs and adds
new elements of its own. Only rarely are former transport developments obliterated
by new ones.
The situation with what might be termed the institutional infrastructure - the
agencies responsible for planning and managing the transport networks, their duties,
powers, funding etc. - is rather different. Here too there will be elements which have
grown incrementally over time. In this case however, as new elements are introduced,
the opportunity is normally taken to amend or withdraw previous legislation,
government advice etc. so that the framework within which executive bodies have to
work is reasonably coherent and internally consistent. Sometimes, as we saw in Part
2, it is possible for major elements of the institutional infrastructure to be replaced
completely. This has occurred most notably in the ownership and regulation of
transport industries and in the structure of local government.
The main purpose of Parts 3 and 4 is to describe the cumulative effect of these
past initiatives as represented by the institutional arrangements in operation today.
Part 3 deals with aspects of policy choice surrounding 'ends' and 'means', i.e. the
objectives to which transport policy should be directed and the instruments available
to pursue them. These define the broad repertoire of possibilities which are open to
decision-takers. Part 4 then deals with planning procedures, i.e. with the requirements
or 'guidance' which national governments set for the detailed planning activity
undertaken in particular areas or on particular topics in order to determine which
combination of ends and means (from the pool of possibilities) is most appropriate to