Records of the Ministry of Transport and successors, Directorate-General of Economic...

Records of the Directorate-General of Economic Planning, established to oversee the Ministry of Transport's economic programme, are relevant to all aspects of national and regional economic policy, and reflect research carried out and advice given on the economic and planning aspects of policy decisions. They include:

Registered files of the directorate general in MT 149, with files of the Mathematical Advisory Unit in MT 166.

Registered files of the Urban and Regional Professional 'C' Division are in MT 189.

Registered files of the Highway Economics Unit of the General Planning Highways Division are in MT 148.

• Department of the Environment, Directorate-General of Economic Planning, 1970-1976
• Ministry of Transport, Directorate-General of Economic Planning, 1966-1970

Topics

Road Transport

Transport management

Ministry of Transport and successors, Directorate-General of Economic Planning, 1966-1976

In 1966 a new Directorate-General of Economic Planning was established to meet an identified need to extend the scope of the Ministry of Transport's economic programme, which necessitated a major expansion of specialist staff. The broad objectives of the Directorate-General were to carry out, and sponsor, economic research and to advise on the economic and planning aspects of policy decisions.

By January 1967 the following divisions had been established: Economic Division, General: responsible, in liaison with the Directorate of Statistics, for all research and policy aspects of the Transport Costs Model and the Shipper Survey; other duties comprised the control of economic research, both internal and external; economic advice on the long-term relationship between Ministry and national economic policies, and on public and private road transport, regional and national physical planning problems, taxation, short-term problems relating to national economic policy, and policy on productivity and labour relations; Economic Division, Urban: responsible for the growing programme of economic research work into urban transport problems; the economic aspects of urban policy (including the conurbation land use/transportation studies and the Transport Coordinating Council for London); and of road safety, vehicle regulation and enforcement; Economic Division, Railways, Ports and Waterways: responsible for all economic aspects of the railway, ports and waterway industries, including containerisation and inland clearance depots, other than those already attributed to the other parts of the Directorate-General; Mathematical Advisory Unit: responsible for a service to all parts of the Directorate-General, and to the Department as a whole, in the use of computers and of a variety of mathematical and computer model-building techniques.

The economics divisions were subject to frequent subsequent reorganisations and by 1970 were grouped under a Directorate of Economics. In 1971, with the setting up of the new Department of the Environment, they became the Directorate of Economics C, part of the Directorate-General of Resource Allocation and Central Economic Services.