Greater Manchester has been awarded Centre of Excellence status for its Local Transport Plan and in particular for its work on Home Zones. In the spirit of the award we have been actively sharing our good practice with others in a variety of ways.

Best Practice

Bolton has developed Local Partnership Agreements with preferred contractors which remove the adversarial approach. This ensures that contractors are involved in design. Similar practice has been followed in Oldham with regard to retaining wall reconstruction. In the case of Network Rail bridges, Bolton has provided a design facility to NR's preferred contractor, which enables quicker and most cost-effective procurement. A Project Service Agreement is being produced which can be sold on to Greater Manchester and the North West.

Bury closed part of Market Place on European Car Free Day to provide the town's first open air café and street entertainment.

GMPTE have used the Community Station concept to engage local communities in looking after Levenshulme and Blackrod Stations, and have drawn on USA experience with Yellow School Buses in setting up the Greater Manchester operations.

Good Practice Dissemination

Trafford lead the Greater Manchester Road Accident Prevention Group, where best practice examples are highlighted and discussed. During the year, the Group discussed traffic calming in new residential developments, Home Zones, and cost recovery from safety cameras. Trafford also provided other authorities with information on the assessment of walking routes in relation to school allocation appeals.

Bolton held a seminar for Greater Manchester young engineers and planners to gain an understanding of the latest developments in the LTP process.

Salford held a well-attended Travel Plan seminar at Salford University, focusing on the Salford Travel Partnership and good practice in Travel Plans.

GMPTE shared its relevant experience by senior representation on a number of national and international working groups as follows:

• The Passenger Transport Executives Group (PTEG) Light Rail Rapid Transport Planning Group, which represents all UK and Irish light rail promoters

• PTEG's Planning Committee (Chair)

• The National Real Time Information Group on common protocols (Chair)

• UITP's Policy Committee

• The National Bus Forum

• EMTA

In addition, GMPTE is sharing good practice on QBCs through the EC BEST project, and the Metrolink team hosted 24 visits from cities and establishments in the UK and around the world.

Manchester Airport has taken part in a benchmarking project – "Bob" – which is part of a suite of European studies concentrating on airport accessibility and monitoring. Other airports taking part are Heathrow, Malpensa and Vienna.

Following completion of the Northmoor Home Zone scheme a website was created as part of the commitment to disseminating best practice.

The website can be found at www.northmoor homezone.org.uk. A video showing the progress of the scheme is also in production.