The aim of this step is to identify the issues and opportunities associated with achieving the vision and objectives, based on the evidence and understanding gained in the previous steps.

As part of this step, your project team may opt to identify street environments. In large study areas, and during the early stages of projects, identifying streets can help you to narrow the focus of your investigation.

Inputs:

• Vision, objectives, and evaluation criteria from Step 1
• Maps and other outputs from Steps 2 and 3
• Optional: Identifying Street Environments

Outputs:

• Map of Movement and Place issues and opportunities
• Agreed set of issues and opportunities to shape the options (the ‘problem definition’)
• Scenarios
• Optional: Maps of street environments (place intensity + movement function).

4.1 Overlay movement and place

Process

Preparing for a workshop or meeting:

1. Compare current performance with baseline and desired future performance of the built environment:
   • Use the performance indicators (selected in Step 1.4) to measure the place’s performance against all existing data (current performance).
   • Use data on planning intent (e.g. Local Environmental Plan) density maps, common planning assumptions data on population and job growth), typically in 5- to 10-year increments to the planning horizon of the project, to understand how performance will change without any intervention (baseline performance).
   • Where targets or benchmarks have been identified to describe the desired vision for the place, measure performance against these (desired future performance).
   • Identify the lowest performing elements in the current performance indicators, and identify gaps between the current performance, baseline (planned intent), and desired future performance.
     
2. Produce a draft issues and opportunities map that shows the areas of confluence and conflict between movement networks and places:
   • As a design exercise, combine and overlay the outputs of Steps 2 and 3.
   • Identify the issues and opportunities presented by the vision and objectives. Where relevant, identify temporal aspect of issues and opportunities (time of day, events).
   • Produce a draft ‘Movement and Place issues and opportunities map’ to summarise and communicate these issues and opportunities in a workshop or meeting.

4.2 Identify street environments (optional)

Why do we identify roads and streets?

Street identification, as part of the Movement and Place process, involves analysing the movement function and place intensity of roads and streets to determine the appropriate street environment and street type. 

While road classification establishes ownership and responsibility for managing and maintaining roads and streets, it doesn’t describe their roles, characteristics and functions. This is the why the NSW Movement and Place Framework establishes a system for describing: 

• Road and street environments
• Road and street types

Street identification should focus on desired outcomes rather than by accepting a default perception based on either the road or street’s current performance or it’s road classification. When applied to existing conditions, street identification can be used to understand the gap between an existing state and a desired state. Street identification guides the design and operation of specific streets by identifying typologies, and relating the street to the principles and design elements that apply to those typologies.

See Identifying street environments for information on when and how to identify streets.

4.3 Review issues and opportunities, and indicators

Process

During a workshop or meeting:

1. Present the draft issues and opportunities to the project stakeholders.
2. Lead a discussion, aiming to better understand, expand, and refine these issues and opportunities, including:
   • any additional placemaking opportunities arising from the analysis
   • movement’s role in supporting the vision and objectives
   • appropriate treatments to mitigate or remove safety risks within the study area.

In large study areas, this exercise may be broken down into a general issues and opportunities discussion, and several focus key roads and streets.

3. Present a gap analysis including:
   • the current, baseline (planned intent), and desired future performance of the study area, as measured by the selected performance indicators, and any further indicators, if appropriate
   • the thresholds that have been adopted to achieve the vision and objectives, the source of the relevant target or benchmark, and the implications of achieving the threshold.
     
4. Re-evaluate and confirm the indicators and any thresholds. Identify the interventions that are required to achieve the thresholds identified (in transport terms: ‘backcasting’).
5. Agree on the set of issues and opportunities the intervention will seek to address (the ‘problem definition’). These may include wider interventions outside the study area, to be explored through engagement with other project teams or agencies.

4.4 Identify scenarios

Based on the information above, and on relevant broader issues, identify scenarios for further investigation to inform the options, based on trends, drivers, and opportunities presented by the plan or project.

Typically scenarios are circumstances external to the plan or project (such as a change in technology or economic conditions) that have the potential to impact the plan or project. The scenarios will inform the development of options and can be used to test the robustness of options against a set of possible futures.

Scenarios for larger projects might include:

• changes in mobility preferences (e.g. mode share)
• changes in housing preferences (e.g. smaller houses closer to amenities)
• changes in climate, urban heat, and environmental risks
• demographic changes (e.g. regional or international migration).

4.5 Clarify the problem definition

After the workshop:

1. Update the performance indicators and repeat the analysis conducted in Step 4.1A to take into account any issues, opportunities, or particular areas of underperformance identified and agreed upon in the workshops.
2. Update the draft Movement and Place issues and opportunities map into a final map.
3. Set out the scenarios that will be used to test the options.
4. If a business case is being prepared for the study area or project in question:
   • Define the problem by assembling the vision and objectives from Step 1, together with the revised performance indicators, gaps, issues, and opportunities. Articulate the interventions for exploration under each option.
   • Map the relationships between the problem, the intervention, and the benefits, and assign (and confirm) owners for those benefits. Define clear indicators for the benefits (to avoid ‘project drift’) and ensure the benefits are aligned with their owner’s needs. Include the benefits, owners, and indicators in a ‘benefits realisation plan’ that supports the business case.