Version 5 of Visual-tm software from Peter Davidson Consultancy will be launched later this year. It has been more than two years in preparation, a fact which reflects the increasingly complex environment in which transport planners are now working. Peter Davidson says two major drivers for change have come together in the new software. The first is that DfT's guidance on how to bid for funds to build a transport scheme has been changing rapidly over the last few years. 2009 updates were released at the end of last year* and they require the promoter to forecast the traffic, the revenue, the effect on other modes of transport, improvements in carbon, the environment and impacts on the local economy. It is a far cry from the days when all that was required for, for instance a bypass scheme, was a simple calculation of the time savings.
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