The DfT's connectivity metric provides a national baseline, but what if you want to reflect local priorities or quantify the impact of proposed schemes?

Podaris combines planning and analysis in one platform. Design interventions—from cycling infrastructure to bus networks—then immediately assess their connectivity impact using either the DfT methodology or measures tailored to your area's needs.

Trusted by leading consultancies and local authorities across the UK for over ten years, Podaris makes it simple to plan better-connected communities.

The Department for Transport's new Transport Connectivity Metric estimates how easily people in England and Wales can reach jobs, services, shopping, leisure, healthcare and social visits by walking, cycling, public transport, or driving. It builds origins at a 100m grid, maps thousands of destination types from sources like DfE, NHS, OS, ONS BRES and OSM, and calculates journey times over mode-specific networks. The calculation explores reachable destinations within 60 minutes, adjusting each destination's contribution by an empirically fitted willingness-to-travel (impedance) function from the National Travel Survey (2011–2020) and applying diminishing returns so the nth similar destination counts less. Scores aggregate by time, purpose, and mode and are scaled 0–100 (with a "sustainable" overall that excludes driving).

Early results (2021 boundaries, Q4 2024/Q1 2025 data) show highest connectivity around urban centres; driving acts as an "equaliser" that boosts rural connectivity relative to other modes. The release is experimental and cautions against standalone policy use, noting limits such as no disruption/cost modelling, uniform travel preferences, and no route-quality adjustments. The metric supersedes the older Journey Time Statistics (now discontinued) and is intended for annual updates. Public ODS tables are available at OA/LSOA/LA/region level; a high-resolution 100m tool is restricted to authorities.

Learn more about the DfT Transport Connectivity Metric →