Transport for the North (TfN) is England’s first Sub-national Transport Body.

We work with our members and partners to improve transport across the North of England. Better transport helps people access jobs, education and services. It also supports economic growth and creates opportunities for communities and businesses.

We provide evidence, analysis and advice to help shape transport investment and policy. Our work ensures decisions are informed by local knowledge and robust analysis.

Find out more on the Transport for the North website.

We develop data, modelling and analytical tools to support transport planning, appraisal and decision-making.

We believe public sector tools should be transparent, accessible and deliver value for money. We publish many of our tools, methods and processes on GitHub so that partners and other public bodies can use, review and improve them.

Our repositories fall into two categories:

• Internal TfN tools
• Common Analytical Framework (CAF) tools

The Common Analytical Framework (CAF) is a partnership between transport organisations across the UK.

CAF provides a shared set of tools and processes for transport modelling, appraisal and analysis. It helps organisations work in a more consistent, transparent and efficient way.

CAF tools are usually developed jointly with other transport bodies and are typically branded as "caf.X". They are designed to be flexible. Organisations can use individual components or combine them into larger analytical workflows.

To find out more about the tools and data we have available, please visit our resource hub.

• What is CAF?
• Who is CAF for?
• When should I use CAF?
• CAF Tools
• CAF Models
• How CAF fits within the analytical process
• Getting Started
  • Installation
• CAF Development
  • CAF Design Principles
  • Governance and Development
  • Future Enhancements and Contributions
• Useful Links
• Contact Us

CAF is a suite of analytical tools and models that supports transport modelling, appraisal and strategic planning.

CAF provides a consistent approach to:

• Processing transport data
• Preparing modelling inputs
• Running analytical workflows
• Producing forecasts
• Supporting business cases and policy development

CAF helps improve confidence, consistency and efficiency across projects.

CAF is designed for:

• Transport modellers
• Transport planners
• Data analysts and engineers
• Consultants working on transport projects
• Organisations interested in using TfN tools

You should consider using CAF when you need to:

• Process transport data
• Analyse land-use data
• Prepare modelling inputs
• Build highway, public transport or freight matrices
• Transform and analyse matrices
• Assess carbon impacts
• Support transport appraisal
• Work in a consistent way with other organisations

CAF tools can be used on their own or as part of a wider analytical process.

CAF tools are usually focused in scope, doing one specific thing, and have relatively small inputs/outputs.

List of some of the key tools available under CAF.

CAF models are models in their own right, able to generate modelled data such as demand matrices (NorMITs-Demand) or carbon emissions (CAF.carbon). Inputs remain largely the same across runs, but arguments/segmentation etc. may change for specific use-cases.

List of some of the key models available under CAF.

CAF tools align to different stages of the transport planning and modelling lifecycle.

CAF tools are tagged with the relevant modes and stage of assessment within their individual repository README.

Each CAF tool is maintained within its own repository, and most of CAF is Python-based.

To explore a tool navigate to the repository and review the README for a brief overview of the tools features and usage, most also have an online user guide with more details and examples.

CAF tool's often provide user interfaces to allow for use of the tools without any specific programming knowledge, these are most-likely command-line interfaces (CLI) but some tools also have graphical user interfaces (both desktop and web-based).

The usage of the tools varies, so the individual user guide should be consulted, but most of the Python tools are published on the Python Package Index (PyPI) and on Conda-forge. Therefore, installation of most Python tools can be done with one of the following commands:

conda install -c conda-forge {package_name}

pip install {package_name}

The largest portion of CAF which isn't Python based is the Visualisation Framework (vis-core), which is TfN's web framework. Vis-core is a JavaScript framework which is used for TfN's web dashboards but is also publicly available.

Where possible, CAF tools follow consistent architectural principles:

• Core logic separated from user interface
• Structured inputs
• Standardised result objects (e.g., JSON)
• Clear logging and error messages

• CLI-based execution
• Consistent command structures
• Designed to support web-based interfaces in future development

CAF is maintained by Transport for the North.

Please use the Issues or Pull Requests section within the relevant repository to:

• Raise an issue
• Suggest enhancements
• Contribute improvements

CAF continues to evolve, including:

• Improved discoverability and accessibility
• Enhanced documentation consistency
• Additional tools aligned with TfN's aspirations and goals
• Greater integration with other TfN resources, such as visualisation dashboards

We encourage use of, and contributions to, the repositories within this organisation, licenses are provided within our repositories and we have organisation contribution guidelines.

• Contribution Guidelines
• Transport for the North's website

For further information, explore the repositories above, or contact Transport for the North - TfNOffer@transportforthenorth.com

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