Open lecture with Glenn Lyons: Handling uncertainty in transport planning and decision making

"While the future has always been uncertain, uncertainty currently about what lies ahead is widely recognised to be ‘deep’ with a number of dynamics at play in terms of social, technological, economic, environmental and political drivers of change.

Approaches to transport planning and analysis in past decades have been framed by an era of car dependence and an ever-present trend of growth in road traffic. Our modelling and forecasting tools have not always been blind to handling uncertainty but significant questions are now becoming persistent in terms of whether, by themselves, they are sufficient for the nature and extent of uncertainty faced? Scenario planning is receiving more attention as part of an appetite to evolve how we handle uncertainty.

The proposition has been put forward that instead of reactive policymaking that is vulnerable to policy failure due to unanticipated change (predict and provide), we need proactive policymaking that helps guard against policy failure through adaptability to unanticipated change (decide and provide). However, charting a course through this territory is highly challenging for the parties involved."

- Professor Glenn Lyons