Connecting People & Place – Sustainable Locations and the DfT Connectivity Tool

We needed the commonly agreed definition of what a sustainable location is, to empower policy makers and decision takers to do things differently and better.

What The DfT Connectivity Tool Actually Measures

Connectivity here is about outcomes: how well a place enables people to reach the destinations they need by sustainable modes, within realistic travel times. DfT scores every 100m-by-100m grid square across England and Wales on a relative index (0 to 100). 

The model considers: 

•  Destinations: work, education, health, shopping, entertainment, and visiting people 
•  Modes: walking, cycling, and public transport (including multi-stage PT journeys)  
•  Travel time: what is reachable within roughly an hour 
•  Destination “value” (for example, more jobs can add more weight) and diminishing returns (the tenth similar destination adds less than the first) 

This approach helps distinguish between “near a service” and “actually connected to opportunity and services”, which is often the missing link in development and transport debates. 

Practical Applications for Planners

The Connectivity Tool can strengthen the evidence behind decisions that are frequently challenged, slowed down, or duplicated across teams. It gives a consistent baseline for comparing places and for discussing trade-offs with planning, development, and policy colleagues. 

Typical applications include: 

•  Spatial options and site selection: comparing candidate sites using a consistent connectivity measure  
•  Local Transport Plans and corridor priorities: showing where poor access translates into poor access to key destinations  
•  Infrastructure and service planning: focusing investment where it can unlock sustainable access to jobs, schools, healthcare, and centres  
•  Development negotiations: supporting clearer discussions about what mitigation or service change is likely to make a difference 

We’re not just thinking about how easy it is for people to get to public transport. We’re thinking about how long it takes them to get from their stop to where they’re going.

Two Core Functions

Greg described two main ways the tool is intended to be used. 

1) Analytical view (current connectivity) 
Use it to explore overall scores, and drill into differences by mode and destination type. This is useful for benchmarking places and identifying the specific drivers of weaker connectivity. 

2) Propositional view (testing interventions) 
Users can plot proposed public transport routes, apply journey time assumptions, and see how connectivity changes. DfT’s direction of travel also includes expanding proposition-testing further, including wider intervention types over time. 

What Changes in Day-to-day Practice

If you are a transport planner, policy officer, or consultant, the value is often in faster, clearer early-stage work. A consistent national metric can reduce time spent reconciling different assumptions and help teams align around outcomes. 

Practical next steps: 

•  Benchmark priority sites, then use destination and mode breakdowns to pinpoint what is missing. 
•  Test service concepts early (routes, frequencies, journey times) before committing effort to full scheme development.  
•  Use connectivity evidence to support plan-making, investment prioritisation, and growth discussions from the outset. 

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