Introduction to IMP
In one sentence
The IMP simulates how climate hazards disrupt a region's transport system, then tests whether a proposed adaptation measure would actually reduce that disruption.
The question it answers
Transport planners know that floods close roads and that heatwaves buckle rails. What is much harder to answer is the follow-up question: how much does it matter, to whom, and is this intervention worth building?
The Integrated Modelling Platform (IMP) exists to answer that. It combines models and datasets to simulate climate-related disruptions to transport infrastructure and users, and explores adaptation options to increase resilience and reduce risk.
It provides a dynamic understanding of how climate hazards, such as floods and heatwaves, might disrupt transport systems, helping to measure impacts and inform adaptation strategies.
What it integrates
Five bodies of modelling are brought together into a single workflow, so that a weather event can be traced all the way through to its consequences for real journeys:
| Component | Covered in |
|---|---|
| High resolution climate projections (UKCP18) | Climate scenarios |
| Hazard modelling, for example flooding | Hazard models |
| Agent-based transport simulations | Transport model |
| Land-use and urban development models | Transport demand |
| Impact assessment approaches | Performance metrics |
Together these support risk quantification and adaptation planning, enabling interventions and investments to be prioritised.
Not only weather
The IMP also covers the effects of infrastructure deterioration. The same framework, run without climate data, can simulate assets going out of service through ageing or overuse.
What it estimates
Point it at a UK region and a weather event, and it estimates:
- Where and when the transport network is affected, down to 20-minute intervals
- What that does to travel: delayed trips, abandoned trips, rerouted freight
- What it costs, in economic, social and environmental terms
- Whether an intervention helps, by re-running everything with the measure in place and comparing against a do-nothing baseline
What makes it different
It models individual travellers, not traffic totals. Agent-based simulation means the platform can answer distributional questions: which communities lose access, not just how many vehicle-hours are lost.
It is built entirely from open models and open data. UKCP18 climate projections, open-source hazard and transport models, nationally available datasets. Built this way, the IMP is transferable across UK regions, and in principle can be stood up for any of them.
It complements existing tools rather than replacing them. Most components can be swapped for an equivalent an organisation already trusts, such as an in-house hydrological model in place of the IMP's.
The real constraint is skills, not licences
Because nothing is locked behind a licence, the limiting factor on replicating this methodology is having people who can build and operate the model simulations.
How it is being proven
The platform is being tested through a programme of case studies in Cambridgeshire, North East England and Greater Manchester. Each was chosen to stress-test adaptation and resilience measures under different climate and hazard scenarios.
What this chapter covers
| Page | What you will find |
|---|---|
| General overview | The conceptual framework, and the two halves it is built from |
| Weather event | Turning a climate scenario into a mapped, timed hazard |
| Transport scenario | Representing who travels, on what network, and how they respond |
| Weather × transport | Where the two halves meet, and how impact is measured |
| Adaptation measures | Testing interventions, and reusing the framework elsewhere |
| IMP components | A guide to all nine components and the chapters that cover them |
New here?
Read General overview next. The framework diagram on that page is the mental model everything else in this handbook hangs off.