Developing new urban public transport systems: An irrational decision-making process

The decision-making process for planning new urban public transport systems in the UK is examined by studying 11 new and planned systems. The objectives of building the systems relate to transport and development issues. A number of key factors are taken into account during the decision-making process: forecast demand, image, deregulation of buses, technological innovation, private sector involvement and the funding mechanism. The requirement for proven technology and the forecast demand for the systems reduces the choice to one of light rail or bus. The effects of bus deregulation, funding and image, essentially reduce that choice to light rail or nothing. Cost should be kept low, which suggests a bus based system, but current legislation favours more expensive light rail systems. The conclusion is that although transport planners make rational decisions within the current political framework, the framework, and therefore some of the decisions, are not rational.     

The demand for public transport: The effects of fares,quality of service,income and car ownership

This paper reports on key findings from a collaborative study whose objective was to produce an up-to-date guidance manual on the factors affecting the demand for public transport for use by public transport operators and planning authorities, and for academics and other researchers. Whilst a wide range of factors was examined in the study, the paper concentrates on the findings regarding the influence of fares, quality of service and income and car ownership. The results are a distillation and synthesis of identified published and unpublished information on the factors affecting public transport demand. The context is principally that of urban surface transport in Great Britain, but extensive use was made in the study of international sources and examples.     

Policy transfer and learning in the field of transport: A review of concepts and evidence

This paper presents a state-of-art review of why and how policies and policy lessons in the transport planning arena are transferred between cities. It begins by drawing on literature from the fields of political science, public administration, organisational learning and management to outline a conceptual framework for policy transfer and learning. This framework is then used to structure a review of policy transfer literature in the fields of transport and planning policy. Although there is only a limited amount of literature on policy transfer in this field, the findings suggest that transport has much in common with other areas of public policy in terms of the main aspects and influences on policy transfer. As well as being part of a process for introducing new ideas into countries or cities, policy transfer in the transport sector (as in other areas of public policy) can also be a highly politicised process that seeks to justify preferred solutions. Little is known about the relative importance of different parts of the transfer process or the extent to which learning about policies in other areas can influence the effectiveness of policy design in the transport arena and/or policy outcomes. The paper concludes with some research and methodological recommendations that may help to answer these questions. It is suggested that policy transfer concepts can be important to both practitioners and researchers in the transport arena, particularly given the pressures to seek solutions to accelerate progress to a more sustainable future.     

A case study of flexible solutions to transport demand in a deregulated environment

Since public transport deregulation in the UK the provision of solutions to transport demand in areas of dispersed demand has been met by local authorities’ attempts to “fill gaps” in the commercial public transport network, whilst the voluntary sector has addressed the needs of more specialised travel. Over the last five years more innovative solutions have been enabled by the development of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), which allow more flexible transport services in terms of time and space. In addition, new ways of thinking about the provision of what might be considered public transport has led to more flexible transport modes becoming available, permitting the general public on education contract services, the use of taxis for shared public transport and the provision of vehicles enabling access to work. However, these innovations tend to operate independently leading to overlap, gaps and misunderstandings about the purpose, delivery and receipt of services. To address these issues, future public transport services will need wider area network planning, greater co-operation between service providers (e.g. in the form of partnerships) and improved understanding of passenger requirements. The case study of Northumberland presented in this paper embodies many of the problems faced by residents in rural areas of the UK to-day and illustrates diverse solutions that have been made to address these challenges.     

Examining transport needs in the global south using a screening framework

Despite the increasing emphasis on the social aspects of transport externalities in the global agenda of public policies (UN, 2016), transport appraisals (ex-ante) are still strongly driven by economic and environmental analysis only (Geurs et al. 2009; Jones and Lucas 2012). In this context, the goals targeting poverty reduction and social well-being promotion become fundamentally undermined when the social impacts are overlooked in the decision-making process of transport development (Vasconcellos 2003; World Bank 2006; Jones and Lucas 2012; Jones et al. 2013).Hence, in a context where the transport-related needs have been either disregarded, not fully captured, or addressed by subjective approaches, the proposition of an objective and well-grounded screening framework of transport needs can play a pivotal role in making transport planning more socially inclusive. The framework that is proposed applies the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and spatial autocorrelation techniques to provide tools and evidence-based guidelines that can guide transport interventions in Northeast Brazil to become more effective in reducing poverty. While the socially driven framework that is outlined here focuses on the transport needs of Northeast Brazil, it can also be replicated in other developing countries facing similar socio-economic and transport challenges. The results show that different regions of Northeast Brazil suffer differently from externalities and that sub-regional analysis is needed.     

Public transport trends in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic: An investigation of the influence of bio-security concerns on trip behaviour

This paper draws on findings from an Australia-wide survey with data collected in three waves throughout 2020 to explore the impact of COVID-19 on public transport trends in metropolitan areas of Australia. Following consideration of the public transport sector response to the pandemic and the emerging literature context, we explore three principal questions: (i) How has weekly travel composition changed across the waves? (ii) How has level of concern with using public transport changed over the course of the pandemic given new bio-security concerns? and (iii) How has attitudes to risk been associated with the changes in PT use? A key finding is that concerns over bio-security issues around public transport are enduring, that concern about hygiene is significantly negatively related to public transport use and that those with higher concern about the hygiene of public transport also held higher concern about COVID-19 at work. Even as COVID-19 restrictions are eased, both concern about crowds and hygiene have a significant and negative correlation with public transport use. Concluding remarks are offered on what might need to happen for public transport patronage to start returning.     

Conceptualising tourism transport: inequality and externality issues

This paper raises several conceptual questions concerning the actual and symbolic representations of inequality and differentiation expressed in leisure and tourism mobility which have significance for members of host communities visited, transport and land-use planning in host areas, tourists and the tourism industry. Within this framework, the paper explores two sets of conceptual issues which are positioned at the interface of transport and tourism. First, transport has the potential to act as a gatekeeper to culture contact, constraining or encouraging host–tourist interaction. Second, the role of tourist mobility at a local level can be critical for issues of inequality and externality effects. The substantial tourism impacts literature has only occasionally addressed social dimensions of leisure transport's external costs, and the transport geography literature has rarely acknowledged the differentiation of tourists and non-tourists competing for transport and transport space. It is concluded that transport and land-use planners need to recognise and respond to tourism's externalities and their implications for inequality and sustainability issues.     

Community Participation in Tourism Planning and Development in the Historic City of York,England

This paper examines two potentially contradictory trends in tourism planning in cities; the emphasis on partnership and public participation. Public–private sector partnerships are part of the post-Fordist planning orthodoxy in the UK and involve a coalition of local and non-local agents and particularly elite groups. These partnerships are often one step removed from urban government and raise issues about accountability and local democracy. The tourism literature on community tourism development and community involvement is underdeveloped in the context of urban tourism. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that local urban social movements can be influential in the development process and that planners and developers need to embrace these interests if sustainable tourism products are to be developed. The considerable growth in cultural and heritage tourism and recreational shopping has created tensions within tourist historic cities, which may be amenable to resolution through public participation. In York, heightened civic awareness of the role of tourism in the local economy and the intensification of competition for investment/consumption, demands a re-evaluation of its tourism strategy. These participatory policies are far removed from the more radical models of public participation but may be all that is achievable in a competitive climate dominated by entrepreneurial city management.     

Understanding and managing anti-social behaviour on public transport through value change: The considerate travel campaign

This article explores anti-social behaviour on public transport, regarded as a major problem by most transport authorities in Britain. It has been estimated that a passenger increase of more than 11.5% in Britain could be achieved if public concerns over anti-social behaviour could be allayed. The article starts by noting that combating anti-social behaviour has generally been seen as the remit of police and enforcement officers. However, research carried out for Transport for London indicates that for the majority of the travelling public, the forms of anti-social behaviour, which concerns them is more likely to be low-level behaviour, ranging from groups of young people behaving boisterously to people eating food or talking loudly on mobile phones.Using the ‘problem solving approach’ structure, the article then examines the process by which Transport for London has partially ‘uncoupled’ anti-social behaviour from criminal activities and then treated the two issues as related but distinct. As a result, a series of policing and enforcement initiatives have been introduced to prevent crime, but a different, unique approach has been taken towards controlling anti-social behaviour. Rather than being tackled as a form of low level criminality, anti-social behaviour is viewed as the outcome of clashing values about appropriate behaviour on public transport. Therefore, the answer to anti-social behaviour lies in minimising these values clashes, rather than concentrating on enforcement against perpetrators. The article describes the resulting large-scale media campaign—the Considerate Traveller Campaign, which was launched in 2008 with the aim of increasing tolerance and consideration for others.The article concludes with a summary of the early evaluation of the campaign, which suggests that it is having some positive effect in changing values and argues that in the longer run, it may be possible to amend the behaviour on public transport without relying so heavily on enforcement measures.     

Opportunities for innovation in public transport: Effects of regulatory reforms on innovative capabilities

It is believed that regulatory reforms of public transport could bring about a better quality of service. The expectations are that the regulatory reforms would lead to more innovation in the industry. This article focuses on the role of innovation in the public transport market, and how it is developed. The paper examines different effects of regulatory regimes with respect to innovative capabilities of the public transport services, both in the public and private sectors. Innovative capabilities include the implication of both technological and organisational innovations. Innovation is classified into three areas, namely: technical innovation, competence development and service innovation. In accordance with this classification, this study analyses the relationship between regulation and innovation along with the connection between public authority and private operator. This paper elaborates the theoretical framework derived from the innovation perspective and compares the innovative capabilities that occurred in both the Netherlands and Great Britain.     

Urban rail operators in Turkey: Organisational reform in transit service provision and the impact on planning,operation and system performance

Many cities around the world have seen efforts to restructure the provision of public transport. While transit authorities as public agencies continue to deliver transit services in some cities, many others have privatised these services, have opened up the market to private operators or have outsourced them to newly founded subsidiaries. The situation is no different in Turkey, where new legislation was enacted in the 1980s enabling local authorities to establish corporate companies under their own agency, and to shift to them the entire responsibility for running certain public transport operations. The motivation is often to increase efficiency, productivity and profitability in these operations, although there is a risk that planning and operation may become fragmented under such organisational reforms, making it difficult to maintain coordination in planning and to ensure the provision of an integrated service. This paper analyses this organisational change in public transport in Turkey, focusing on the planning, operation and performance of urban rail systems in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir.     

The interplay of formal and informal institutions between local and regional authorities when creating well-functioning public transport systems

This paper analyzes how public transport planning is managed in institutional contexts where governance is spread across local and regional scales. The paper sheds light on two facets of the relationship between local and regional government: first, the decision-making process regarding where to provide public transport services and at what level, and second, integration of public transport with land use planning. An analytical matrix is used to cross-reference the roles of formal institutions (governance established in law) and informal institutions (governance not established in law) against local and regional responsibilities for public transport and land use. Analysis of the interplay between these three axes (formal/informal, local/regional, public transport/land use) reveals how informal institutions help regional and local authorities to negotiate the constraints of formal, statutory institutions and help to “oil the wheels” of delivering measures and policies that make public transport work as a well-functioning system. However, informal institutions clearly have their limits, in the paper exemplified by the remaining challenges to integrate regional public transport and local land use planning. An identified challenge is that, by their very nature, informal institutions are difficult to influence or modify, therefore relying on them to fill gaps in formal institutional responsibilities may be a risky strategy when unpopular decisions are made.     

Slowly coming out of COVID-19 restrictions in Australia: Implications for working from home and commuting trips by car and public transport

With the onset of COVID-19 restrictions and the slow relaxing of many restrictions, it is imperative that we understand what this means for the performance of the transport network. In going from almost no commuting, except for essential workers, to a slow increase in travel activity with working from home (WFH) continuing to be both popular and preferred, this paper draws on two surveys, one in late March at the height of restrictions and one in late May as restrictions are starting to be partially relaxed, to develop models for WFH and weekly one-way commuting travel by car and public transport. We compare the findings as one way to inform us of the extent to which a sample of Australian residents have responded through changes in WFH and commuting. While it is early days to claim any sense of a new stable pattern of commuting activity, this paper sets the context for ongoing monitoring of adjustments in travel activity and WFH, which can inform changes required in the revision of strategic metropolitan transport models as well as more general perspectives on future transport and land use policy and planning.     

Planning for an unpredictable future: Transport in Great Britain in 2030

This paper describes a research study, which explores alternative future scenarios for Great Britain in the year 2030 and the implications these have for travel demand and transport provision. Five alternative future scenarios are represented in the GB national transport model and forecasts are obtained for trip making, traffic levels, congestion and emissions in 2030. For all scenarios it is expected that there will be significant traffic growth. Traffic growth is restricted most in scenarios including distance-based road charging on motorways and trunk roads. However, congestion and carbon dioxide emissions are most effectively limited in scenarios with congestion-based road charging, major improvements to urban public transport and investment in new fuel technologies and in improving engine efficiency.     

Airports in their urban settings: towards a conceptual model of interfaces in the Australian context

In Australia, airports have emerged as important sub-regional activity centres and now pose challenges for both airport operation and planning in the surrounding urban and regional environment. The changing nature of airports in their metropolitan context and the emergence of new pressures and problems require the introduction of a fresh conceptual framework to assist the better understanding of these complex roles and spatial interactions. The approach draws upon the meta-concept of interfaces of an ‘airport metropolis’ as an organising device consisting of four main domains: economic development, land use, infrastructure, and governance. The paper uses the framework to further discuss airport and regional interactions and highlights the use of sustainability criteria to operationalise the model. The approach aims to move research and practice beyond the traditionally compartmentalised analysis of airport issues and policy-making by highlighting interdependencies between airports and regions.     

The sustainable mobility paradigm

This paper has two main parts. The first questions two of the underlying principles of conventional transport planning on travel as a derived demand and on travel cost minimisation. It suggests that the existing paradigm ought to be more flexible, particularly if the sustainable mobility agenda is to become a reality. The second part argues that policy measures are available to improve urban sustainability in transport terms but that the main challenges relate to the necessary conditions for change. These conditions are dependent upon high-quality implementation of innovative schemes, and the need to gain public confidence and acceptability to support these measures through active involvement and action. Seven key elements of sustainable mobility are outlined, so that public acceptability can be more effectively promoted.     

Regional transportation planning in the US: An examination of changes in technical aspects of the planning process in response to changing goals

This paper presents a framework for examining the ways in which technical aspects of the regional transportation planning process are changing in response to a broadening of goals and strategies, driven in part by an increased emphasis on public involvement. As an illustration of this framework, the long-range plans of four Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in the US are analyzed with respect to goals, performance measures, and use of forecasts. These examples suggest that changes in the technical aspects of the process are lagging changes in planning goals. As a result, plans may implicitly emphasize congestion relief even if they put forth a much broader range of goals. This paper provides a basis for further analysis of the current evolution of transportation planning in the US.     

Understanding the travel behaviors and activity patterns of the vulnerable population using smart card data: An activity space-based approach

Understanding the travel behaviors and activity patterns of vulnerable people is important for addressing social equity in urban and transportation planning. With the increasing availability of large-scale individual tracking data, new opportunities have emerged for studying people's travel behaviors and activity patterns. However, the data has not been fully exploited to examine the travel characteristics of vulnerable people and their implications for understanding transport-related disadvantage. This study proposes a methodological framework based on the concept of activity space that enables a comprehensive examination of vulnerable people's spatiotemporal travel characteristics and an investigation of the geographies of transport disadvantage. Using the proposed framework, a case study that investigates the bus activities of the vulnerable population using four-month smart card data is carried out in the city of Wuhu, China. The case study suggests that vulnerable people possess distinct travel behaviors that differ considerably from the mainstream population and that the implications of transport disadvantage, as revealed by the participation in bus activities, vary across different demographic groups and across different spatial contexts. Some of the empirical insights obtained from this study also differ from conclusions drawn from previous studies and will enrich our understandings of vulnerable people's activities. Overall, the paper makes two major contributions. Methodologically, the proposed framework can overcome some of the deficiencies of activity space-based approaches for understanding transport disadvantage and contribute broadly to the studies of travel behaviors and activities patterns using individual-level tracking data. Empirically, the study identifies varying spatial and temporal implications of transport disadvantage associated with different vulnerable groups, which could further shed light on public transit planning and service design.     

Application of the Delphi Technique to Rural Tourism Project Evaluation

This paper details the merit, challenges and shortcomings of the Delphi Technique as a means of obtaining data for a project aimed at formulating an evaluation framework for application in the development and management of rural tourism projects. Participation in the Delphi Survey was sought from expert panellists in both South Africa and Britain from four different stakeholder sectors of expertise – academics, the public sector, consultants and the operational sector. No single research method could have elicited the comprehensive information sought by this study. Whilst the Delphi Technique was considered the most effective means of soliciting group input and opinion forming by a panel of experts utilising a manageable method, it was unable to facilitate the in-depth discussion and enriched text required to gain a fuller understanding of significant and contentious issues.     

Planning for sustainable accessibility: The implementation challenge

The ‘Network City’ planning strategy espouses sustainable accessibility. The aim is to re-orient the existing urban structure by focussing development at places with high accessibility in order to support an effective public and private transport system. The implementation phase calls for changes to planning practices: the need for public transport planning and development change to be mutually supportive; the need for road network planning and road design to place land use-transport integration as the core objective rather than traffic efficiency and for the need to stage development according to planned population and employment targets. This must take place within a new participatory approach. All this requires planners to gain new skills. To achieve this the system of planning must remain strong.