A gateway for freight into Scotland

Freight Strategy

Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), along with the Ayrshire local authorities, identified Ayrshire as being strategically located to act as a gateway for freight into Scotland as the road and rail networks in Ayrshire are significantly used as a through fare for freight traffic.

However, within Ayrshire, there is a lack of overnight parking facilities for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) and the need to explore opportunities to develop these facilities was highlighted by SPT. General freight movements, including delivery to retailers, businesses and homes were also highlighted as a key consideration for the project. Our job? To undertake a literature review and analysis to understand the current issues with freight in Ayrshire.

The result? We developed a Freight Route Network (FRN) hierarchy that will guide freight traffic onto the most appropriate routes depending upon the nature of the vehicle, origin and destination, length of the journey, sensitivity to journey time, and mitigation for local communities. By maintaining the Freight Route Hierarchy within a geographic information system (GIS) environment, it is easy to produce bespoke maps and adjustable versions of the mapping which can be held and displayed online.