This week it was the turn of the Tory Party conference to share their transport priorities with us on our board. And participants took up the challenge, sharing a range of ideas for improving cities. For an overview of our work on the directions for transport policy in cities, check out Policy Futures. Let’s take a look at some of the suggestions, and our work in these areas, in more detail.

You may, or may not, be surprised to find that there were a lot of similarities between the transport priorities raised at both the Labour and Conservative party conferences.

Buses were a recurring theme, and seem to bridge the political divide.

You can find more in our Bus Policy briefing, where we argue the importance of buses to public transport. Increased oversight of bus routes and ticketing was highlighed as a priroriy for improving cities transport, and the forthcoming Buses Bill will devolve more powers to city regions.

You can find out more about this in our Buses Bill FAQ.

Integration of bus routes is something else that was raised as a priority for city transport, something which the Buses Bill should also help to address.

Congestion was raised as a challenge for urban transport. At UTG, we argue that greater priority for buses is a key strategy for reducing congestion in cities, and the Case for Bus Priority can be found here. You can also find lots more work on the value of buses to our city regions here.

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Electric Vehicle Charging was a point that came up at the Conservative Party conference, and you can find our work on transport sustainability here.

Lots of people across both conferences highlighted cycling as their number one priority for improving urban transport. Our Cycling Hub shares our work on this area, as well as providing direction to other organisations who are delivering evidence on the case for cycling investment.

Finally, we were thrown a bit of a curve ball, with the question of ‘Where are the canoes and kayaks”? This isn’t something that we’ve looked at, but it did spark a debate in the office about the possibilities of kayaking for commuting in Leeds! Hopefully, for those of you who shared your transport priorities, across both conferences, this is a useful way of finding out more about our work on these areas.