TRL has developed three auditing techniques to assess the quality of street environments:

• PERS (pedestrian environments)
• FERS (freight environments)
• CERS (cycling environments)

Separately or individually, auditing these environments allow policy makers and stakeholders to understand problems and realise realistic priorities in each of these challenging environments.

To facilitate the storage, manipulation and display of information collected on site, TRL has developed streetaudit, a software package which enables the maximum value of the audits to be realised.

Easy to use functions

The streetaudit software includes:               
• Easy to use screens
• Search functions for the fast identification of poorly scoring environmental features
• In-built GIS mapping capabilities
• Graphing functions
• Export functions to other GIS tools
• Automated production of quick win recommendations
• Storage of photographs collected on site
• High quality metafile image exports for the preparation of reports

FERS or freight module.

Co-developed by TRL and Transport for London, the Freight Environment Review System (FERS) is a tool for assessing and rating freight activity in street environments.

FERS can be used to quickly and cost-effectively assess the quality and suitability of streets in terms of: 
• Loading capacity   
• Signage
• Infrastructure provision
• Access routes
• Safety
• Provision for specialist industries such as cash-in-transit and brewery

Why use FERS

In many busy urban areas freight makes up a significant proportion of all traffic movements and street capacity. This is coupled with the difficulty and congestion caused by manoeuvring into loading spaces and often inappropriate loading caused by a lack of provision. By better understanding what, why, and how freight moves within an area, its impacts can be addressed.

How can FERS help?

FERS can be used to identify many different problems in the freight environment including:            
• Where demand and capacity for freight space are mismatched
• Non-compliant or misleading signage
• Damage to infrastructure
• Difficulty in accessing an area
• Difficulties in moving vehicles around an area
• Theft of goods (especially cash-in-transit)
• Risk to the driver and other street users
• Congestion caused by freight activity

How does FERS work?

FERS is based on a street audit of vehicle movement, the movement of goods outside of the vehicle, data collection, and a desk-based review. Results are reported with extensive use of mapping to easily identify issues. The client then has the choice of applying their own engineering judgement to solutions or requesting these are added to the report.

The TRL streetaudit approach consists of three integrated components:

• A comprehensive handbook for users, giving guidance on the on-site review
• Data collection review sheets for use on-site,
• Specially developed software to allow for rapid analysis and comparison of places.