A fully integrated road, rail and air hub called Grand Central should be established in Scotland to help boost economic growth, a leading think tank recommends.

Reform Scotland says the hub around Edinburgh Airport should be the centrepiece of a £25bn revolution in transport policy.

High-speed rail links to Grand Central would make journey times from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling 20 minutes or less while travel time from Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness would also be radically reduced.

Allied to high-speed rail links proposed south of the Border, this 'big plan' would also greatly improve access to key markets in other parts of the UK. Reform Scotland puts the cost of high speed rail links between Grand Central and the country’s major cities at around £25bn.

The hub, coupled with major improvements to Scotland's trunk roads system, would give the country one of the best transport networks in the world at a cost roughly equivalent to staging two London Olympics.

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"What we are proposing is an integrated transport system for the next generation," said Reform Scotland chairman Ben Thomson. "Of course the costs are high and look particularly daunting at this point in the economic cycle. However, the overall plan can be broken down into separate projects with the creation of the hub and the high speed link between the hub with Edinburgh and Glasgow being only some £3bn.

"By the time we start construction, the economy should hopefully be more buoyant, so now is a good time to be looking at such a plan."

The proposals are detailed in the independent think tank's latest report, Power to Connect, which sets out a vision of a co-ordinated, modern and highly efficient

travel network which Scotland has lacked through a persistent piecemeal approach to transport.

The report also calls for further investigation into how a Scotland-wide road pricing scheme might be implemented. In its eighth major report since its launch in March last year, Reform Scotland says that transport policy-makers need to 'aim high' - particularly as the country strives to move out of recession.

In its research, the think tank found that, although the huge investment in Scotland's transport system over recent years had led to improvements, the main problems centred on the quality of roads and traffic congestion in a country where the motorway system ends north-bound at Perth. Reducing congestion and improving journey times between cities was the top priority.

(GK/JM)