Carbon Assessment Playbook

Data, tools and guidance to support evidence-informed carbon reduction in local transport planning

Tackling climate change by decarbonising transport must be a priority outcome of local transport planning if legally binding targets to achieve carbon budgets and net zero by 2050 are to be realised.

Whilst many local authorities have made their own commitments around decarbonisation and net zero, there exists a requirement to understand the range of local transport interventions that will prove necessary in order to meet them.

The Department for Transport’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan committed the Government to drive decarbonisation and transport improvements at a local level by making quantifiable carbon reductions a fundamental part of local transport planning and funding.

Local Transport Authorities are uniquely positioned to help realise the place-based solutions needed to decarbonise transport. However, each place has a different baseline of emissions and there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution.

The Carbon Assessment Playbook has been developed by England’s Subnational Transport Bodies to provide an evidence-informed, quantifiable approach to carbon reduction in the development of local transport strategies and plans. The data, tools and guidance it provides can help authorities to:

Understand the ‘emissions gap’ in their area – the baseline dashboard and report provide a breakdown and projections of current and future emissions in each local transport authority, as well as scaled decarbonisation pathways to guide levels of ambition.
Test the carbon impact of different transport outcomes – ‘levers’ included in each baseline dashboard enable authorities to visualise how different transport outcomes could contribute towards decarbonisation ambitions relative to their local baseline.
Inform option generation and assessment – the intervention cards summarise the carbon reduction potential and parallel co-benefits associated with 29 different types of local transport intervention. The policy builder can be used to develop bespoke policy packages to understand the possible carbon impact of measures when delivered in different local areas.
Quantify the carbon impact of a strategy or plan – the potential cumulative impact of a local transport strategy or implementation plan can be visualised in the policy builder. This data can be exported for external analysis or to present in a different format.

To access the baseline dashboard, you will first need to register with the Subnational Transport Body that covers the local transport authority area. All other resources are openly available from this site.

The following guidance documents have been produced to provide background information and support when using the resources included in the Carbon Assessment Playbook:

The approach adopted across the resources provided aims to help Local Transport Authorities in fulfilling the Transort Decarbonisation Plan commitment of making quantifiable carbon reductions a fundamental part of local transport planning and funding. Going forward, Local Transport Plans will need to set out how ambitious quantifiable carbon reductions in transport will be achieved, taking into account the differing transport requirements of different areas. This will need to be in line with carbon budgets and net zero.

The Carbon Assessment Playbook is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0

If you have any questions or issues with use of this tool, please contact CAP@wsp.com.