Summary of Outcomes
Summary of Transport Appraisal Outcomes
The following provides a comparative overview of the key outcomes from the appraisal of the Refined Package and Full Dualling against the appraisal criteria. Each assessment criterion was evaluated without applying any weighting, and both the Full Dualling and Refined Package options were independently appraised against a Reference Case (i.e. assuming no improvements or enhancements to the corridor).
TPO1 – A sustainable strategic transport corridor that contributes to the Scottish Government’s net zero emissions target
The Refined Package would result in a marginal increase in vehicle kilometres travelled (with a marginal increase in greenhouse gas emissions), however the Refined Package includes measures to promote a shift towards sustainable transport modes throughout the corridor. Full Dualling would have a much larger increase in vehicle kilometres travelled and an increase in emissions approximately 15 to 65 times larger than the Refined Package.
TPO2 – An inclusive strategic transport corridor that improves the accessibility of public transport in rural areas for access to healthcare, employment and education
The Refined Package would make public transport more accessible, especially with improvements to rail services and investment in Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) and Mobility as a Service (MaaS). This would help encourage people to use public transport instead of driving. Full Dualling would not significantly improve access to public transport. However, it might slightly reduce traffic and congestion in towns, leading to minor improvements in public transport travel times.
TPO3 – A coherent strategic transport corridor that enhances communities as places, supporting health, wellbeing and the environment
The Refined Package would have some environmental impact during construction, but it would benefit communities by encouraging more walking and cycling in towns, which supports better health, wellbeing, and environmental outcomes. Improvements in public transport would also help reduce social isolation and make it easier for people to access healthcare services. Full Dualling would have more significant adverse environmental effects and outweigh any benefits to communities such as improved air quality, reduced division and the potential for increased active travel within the bypassed town centres.
TPO4 – An integrated strategic transport system that contributes towards sustainable inclusive growth throughout the corridor and beyond
Both provide minor positive contributions. The Refined Package would provide a degree of journey time benefits to business road users and would provide businesses with sustainable access to job opportunities and improved rail freight capacity encouraging more sustainable movement of goods. Full Dualling would provide greater benefits in terms of reliability and efficiency for business road users and road freight movements, however it would predominantly benefit road users and would be unlikely to increase sustainable transport choices.
TPO5 – A reliable and resilient strategic transport system that is safe for users
The Refined Package would reduce accidents at specific locations through the targeted road safety improvements intervention and the bypasses of Elgin and Keith, whilst also enhancing the resilience of the road and rail networks. Full Dualling would result in a larger reduction in accidents overall as well as a greater reduction in high severity accidents and would improve the resilience of the road network to disruption through the provision of a new dual carriageway.
Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) Criteria
Environment
The Refined Package would have a minor negative impact on the environment although the scale of infrastructure and the physical works required would be much less significant than Full Dualling. This would outweigh any benefits of reduced noise and air quality impacts, such as those resulting from traffic reductions within Elgin and Keith. Full Dualling would have major negative impacts on the environment as the scale of physical works required for the new infrastructure is much greater than for the Refined Package. This would significantly outweigh any benefits attributed to reduced noise and air quality impacts from the traffic reductions created as a result of bypassing communities along the route.
Climate Change
The Refined Package would result in an increase in greenhouse gases including emissions from the materials and energy used in construction associated with the Elgin and Keith bypasses and the rail intervention, and through the minor increase in vehicle kilometres travelled during operation. There would be some benefits in terms of adaptation of the transport network to the effects of climate change where infrastructure improvements are introduced. Full Dualling would result in a significantly greater increase in greenhouse gases in comparison to the Refined Package, including both emissions from the materials and energy used from construction and through the larger increase in vehicle kilometres travelled during operation. Similarly, the new route would provide benefits in terms of adaptation of the trunk road network to the effects of climate change.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
The Refined Package would reduce accidents, improve health outcomes through active travel improvements within towns, and improve access to health services by active modes and public transport. There would be some adverse impacts on visual amenity through the construction of selected interventions including the Elgin and Keith bypasses. Full Dualling would provide greater accident reductions and improved reliability to access health services by road but would have a much greater negative impact on visual amenity and a more limited effect on improving health outcomes.
Economy
The Refined Package would provide a lower value of economic benefits but at a significantly lower estimated cost than Full Dualling, and the benefits are largely derived from the sustainable transport modes, including rail journey time savings and health benefits from the active travel intervention.
Full Dualling is estimated to cost significantly more than the Refined Package and although it would provide a higher value of total benefits, these predominantly arise from road journey time savings as well as accident benefits and a reduction in driver frustration.
Equality and Accessibility
The Refined Package would increase the active travel network coverage and make it easier to access key services by public transport, which would be of particular benefit for disadvantaged and vulnerable users. The rail and DRT interventions would contribute to expanding public transport accessibility into more rural areas along the corridor. Full Dualling would largely benefit those who have access to a private car and although bypassing communities could enable placemaking to encourage more active travel, it is unlikely to have a direct impact on improving the accessibility to key services by public transport, with improvements in rural areas likely to be minimal.
Statutory Impact Assessments (SIAs)
Equality Impact Assessment
The Refined Package would provide safer and more affordable access to key services through improvements to active travel and public transport modes, benefiting those in transport poverty and more vulnerable users. The Elgin and Keith bypasses would provide air quality benefits by reducing through traffic but would also have negative impacts on noise, vibration, air quality and division during construction and in operation. Full Dualling would also improve safety of road users and air quality in bypassed settlements by reducing through traffic, but the accessibility benefits of the option would mostly impact those with access to a car. It would have negative impacts on noise, vibration, air quality and severance during construction and in operation.
Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment
The Refined Package would improve public transport connectivity to education for children and young people, with the public transport improvements also benefitting leisure travel as children and young people are more likely to depend on buses. The Elgin and Keith bypasses would reduce traffic-related health impacts where through trips are removed and there is an uptake in active travel, though there could also be adverse health outcomes for children living in local communities close to the realigned routes. Full Dualling would improve access to education for children and young people however this is likely to be minor and would mainly affect those with access to a car. It would reduce traffic-related health impacts in bypassed communities with reduced traffic volumes, but the provision of a dual carriageway could also result in adverse health outcomes for children living in local communities close to the realigned route.
Fairer Scotland Duty Assessment
The Refined Package would improve public transport access to essential services such as education and employment that would particularly benefit socio- economically disadvantaged groups across the corridor. The improved public transport connectivity would help to reduce social isolation and the active travel interventions in conjunction with bypasses could remove barriers to the uptake of active travel and reduce health inequalities in disadvantaged communities through improved air quality. Full Dualling would improve access to employment and education for those from socio-economically disadvantaged groups through reductions in journey times and improved reliability, but this would mainly benefit those with access to a car. There would be limited direct benefits for public transport and active travel through reduced levels of congestion.
Overall, the Refined Package performs better than Full Dualling in terms of the appraisal criteria, particularly with respect to the impact on the environment, sustainability, equality and inclusivity. A summary of the Transport Appraisal outcomes can be found in the Table below.
Scoring in the table represents the ‘With Policy’ Scenario only. For full details on information on the ‘With Policy’ and ‘Without Policy’ scenarios and scoring, please refer to the Strategic Business Case - Transport Appraisal Report (Draft).
Summary of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Outcomes
This section summarises the appraisal of the Refined Package and Full Dualling against the SEA objectives.
The Refined Package is likely to have a cumulative minor negative effect. Moderate negative effects are predicted for natural resources and biodiversity, whereas minor negative effects are predicted for air quality, water quality, cultural heritage, and landscape and visual amenity. Due to the predicted greenhouse gas increases associated with constructing and operating transport infrastructure, a minor negative cumulative effect is predicted for the greenhouse gases SEA objective. As there is considerable uncertainty associated with the future impacts of climate change and any construction design is yet to be developed, an uncertain score was assigned for the climate adaptation SEA objective.
Full Dualling of the A96 would be considered to have a cumulative major negative effect. There will be opportunities to improve safety, placemaking, and accessibility, hence some minor positive effects are predicted for these SEA objectives.
However, there are still likely to be major negative effects on many environmental receptors. This is mainly due to the construction footprint but also adverse effects of greenhouse gas emissions and local air quality from traffic emissions during the operational phase. As there is considerable uncertainty associated with the future impacts of climate change and any construction design is yet to be developed, an uncertain score was assigned for the climate adaptation SEA objective.
For the Refined Package, the likely minor and moderate negative effects are expected to arise from some of the physical works, mainly due to the construction of two bypasses, public transport, freight capacity and road safety improvements and their potential impact on the natural environment.
In general, the Refined Package has fewer negative effects and lower magnitude negative effects than Full Dualling in terms of potentially significant cumulative effects. Both the Refined Package and Full Dualling have positive effects predicted for the Population and Human Health topics, for example due to targeted road safety improvements.
For Full Dualling, the considerable amount of land-take, raw materials requirements and greenhouse gas emissions associated with constructing a fully dualled road has led to this being assessed as having major or moderate negative effects for most of the SEA Objectives.
In contrast, the Refined Package was assessed to be likely to lead to minor negative effects for most SEA Objectives, albeit with moderate negative effects predicted for natural resources and biodiversity due to the raw material demand and land-take associated with constructing the Refined Package bypasses.
There are also several minor positive environmental effects predicted for the Refined Package, including for the Population and Human Health SEA objectives focused on quality of life and sustainable access, high quality places and the Material Assets SEA objective relating to sustainable transport networks. Moderate positive effects were also predicted for the SEA objective relating to safety due to the proposed road safety improvements.