The Trans-Pennine Corridor stretches from coast to coast across the North of England from Lancashire in the West through Yorkshire to Humberside in the East. It provides a trading link to the North Sea countries from North West England, North Wales, and Ireland. In December 1997, the Regions in Partnership Steering Group commissioned MVA to undertake a Strategic Environmental Assessment in the Trans-Pennine Corridor (SEATPC). This paper describes the SEATPC study, which aimed to look forward over a 25-year planning period and focus on long-distance movements and their interaction with local movements. The main goals of the corridor's Environmental and Development Strategy were that expected transport changes should support the land-use and economic elements, and that the expected land-use changes would support the transport elements. The article first describes the study process, which included strategy objectives and the appraisal process and its tools. It then describes the main features of the transport model used to forecast passenger and freight travel demands; the model is incremental and thus requires trip matrices for the base year, 1996. After that, the paper discusses the forecasts, ten policy options, and the results of their appraisal. A strategy, based on intensive developments of non-car modes and some price-based car travel reduction, could be suitable for the corridor.
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