The study, which will particularly focus on active travel and public transport connections, continues the ongoing work of Aberdeen City Council and partners to consider means of locking-in benefits of the bypass on the principal transport corridors linking Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen.

The study area, which includes both Riverview Drive and Victoria Street through Dyce, will place particular focus on how to improve conditions for pedestrians, wheelchair users, cyclists, horse riders, and public transport users of the route for both southbound movements towards the city centre and northbound movements into Aberdeenshire.

Key tasks include understanding how people currently use the A947, identification of problems, issues, constraints and opportunities along the A947 corridor and Victoria Street while noting how COVID-19 has affected the way people travel, development of study objectives to reflect the identified problems, issues, constraints and opportunities within the study area, and development of options focussing on walking, wheeling and cycling, bus infrastructure, technology, placemaking, and junction reviews amongst others.

The public consultation is in the form of an online Placecheck exercise which allows key locations reflective of the key transport-related problems and opportunities on the A947 corridor to be identified. There is already a similar exercise ongoing for another corridor, the A93 from Aberdeen to Banchory.

Councillor Sandra Macdonald, Aberdeen City Council transport spokesperson, said: “I’d encourage people who use the route and particularly residents in the local area to take part in the study.

“It is to be welcomed that we have the start of the process to identify options for improving transport connections on the A947, alongside those for the A93, as part of the continuing work to lock-in the benefits of the AWPR in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.”

Aberdeen City Council has commissioned a Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG)-based study to identify options for the corridor. AECOM has been commissioned to undertake this study.

In line with the objective-led approach afforded by STAG, an early task will be to establish the key transport-related problems, issues, constraints, and opportunities on the A947 corridor.

This period of public and stakeholder engagement will include the Placecheck exercise, targeted local community engagement, site-based Study Tours to allow direct corridor-based engagement with key stakeholders to discuss and observe issues on the corridor itself, workshop sessions with schools to engage young people on the corridor in local transport issues, and a wide-ranging engagement exercise with special interest groups including those representing walkers, cyclists and people with health conditions or impairments.

As the study moves through the appraisal process, a further round of consultation will be undertaken next year which will provide further opportunity to feed back on the options emerging in the study, ensuring members of the public and stakeholders are involved in the study at each critical stage.

The Placecheck exercise is available here and is open for responses until Friday 17 December.