Insights Midlands Connect Regional Transport Strategy

Midlands Connect is an independent partnership of Councils and Local Enterprise Partnerships which is funded by the Government to research, identify, develop and recommended the strategic infrastructure requirements and prioritise for the Midlands region.



Atkins managed preparation of Midlands Connected first Regional Transport Strategy. This involved:

• Advising the Programme Director on the overall direction of the strategy-Development of all the core concepts in the strategy such as definitions of Conditional outputs and common appraisal framework
• Programme management of time-critical activities of work package consultants drafting the narrative describing how transport investment supports economic performance
• Regular engagement with senior stakeholders

Atkins also led the largest technical work package in which we were responsible for the identification and appraisal of strategic road and rail options to form part of the overall strategy. This involved:

• Identification of long list of options, with significant stakeholder engagement through pioneering workshops
• Shortlisting of the option long list using EAST and recommendation of options to be taken forward for further consideration
• Development of a bespoke highway model for option testing and use of PLANET rail option testing
• Preparation of interim technical reports and regular engagement with stakeholders
• Preparation of strategic outline business cases for the preferred options
• Technical and drafting input into the final Transport Strategy

Our team was made up of project and programme management, engagement specialists, transport policy advisors, option identification and multi-criteria option sifting and comparison specialists, traffic modellers along with analysts and junior staff supporting these specialists. We also engaged with our highways team to undertake concept designs and our rail planners for some infrastructure work. And graphic designers were also instrumental in bringing to life the final Transport Strategy.