A decade ago John Dales coined ‘Decide and Provide’ in an LTT article. Hot on the heels of that we found ourselves at the New Zealand Ministry of Transport coming up with the same term to describe a new approach to transport planning (contrasted with Predict and Provide) emerging from strategic work I’d led (https://lnkd.in/eGzvnikr).

With Cody Davidson, then from the Ministry, we published a paper on this new paradigm of Decide and Provide (https://lnkd.in/edFrTxa). I then led an initiative for the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT) called ‘CIHT FUTURES’ which socialised Decide and Provide around the UK with practitioners (https://lnkd.in/gGS94BT).

Since then there has been a succession of efforts to help advance the paradigm and change planning practice. Resources have nearly all been made freely accessible in the public domain including a toolkit called FUTURES (https://lnkd.in/gCcyYYWF), TRICS Decide and Provide Guidance (https://lnkd.in/edr6wRfC) with Lynn Basford and Nick Rabbets, and recent endorsement of Decide and Provide from the International Transport Forum (https://lnkd.in/gF3Uy_Yf).

The list of resources goes on. Next month we expect from the project ‘Triple Access Planning for Uncertain Futures’ (https://lnkd.in/ghN7Xxhb) to publicly launch the serious game ‘TAP-SWOT in a BOX’ which helps practitioners engage with the nature and merits of Decide and Provide and the application of what we have called ‘Triple Access Planning’.

Meanwhile as the work above was taking place, others coined a phrase called ‘Vision and Validate’. From the emergence of the phrase there has been confusion (and for my part quite deeply felt aggravation). This can be summed up by what a practitioner in touch with me last week said seeking advice on Decide and Provide:

“I must confess that this has left us confused, not least because we have been unable to locate much in the way of specific implementation guidance relating to V&V or how it should differ from D&P”.

All I can say is that I agree on all points.

If you want the provenance and history of published insight into the rationale, approach, guidance and adoption of Decide and Provide then there is plenty out there to get your teeth into with a learning by doing community generating ever more (for instance Oxfordshire County Council’s recent formal adoption of Decide and Provide and it’s own related guidance Will Pedley – “UK county pivots to ‘decide and provide’ transport planning” (https://lnkd.in/eRKKupbA)).

If you are confused by a competing phrase, don’t be confused by what the paradigm has to offer – fitness for purpose in times of change.