Designing optimal urban transport strategies: The role of individual policy instruments and the impact of financial constraints

This paper presents a methodology for the design of optimal transport strategies and the case study results of the methodology for the City of Edinburgh, using the two multi-modal transport/land-use models MARS and TPM. First, a range of policy instruments are optimised in turn and their relative impacts explored. Second, optimisations with and without financial constraints are performed and compared. Although both models produce similar optimal policies, the relative contribution of the instruments differs between models as does the impact on outcome indicators. It is also shown that by careful design it is possible to identify a strategy which costs no more than the do-minimum but which can generate substantial additional benefits. The optimisation methodology is found to be robust, and is able to be used with different transport models, and with and without financial constraints.     

Key research themes on urban space,scale, and sustainable urban mobility

abstract

Land-use policies are frequently proposed as a means of reducing the negative impacts of transport on the environment, such as emissions of CO₂ and pollutants, and noise nuisance. In this article we discuss whether land-use policies make sense as a strategy for reducing vehicle travel and lessening environmental impacts. We conclude that they do, but that the greatest benefits may come from the enhancement of accessibility. We argue that land-use policies should be evaluated across a much broader range of benefits than is generally done at present.     

Searching for policy priorities in the formulation of a freight transport strategy: a canonical correlation analysis of freight industry attitudes

An efficient and effective freight transport strategy can be aided by early professional contributions from key stakeholders. One broad group who have historically been given limited opportunity to influence the drafting of a freight strategy, are commercial road users and shippers who manufacture and distribute goods. Utilising a data set collected in Australia in 1996 from a sample of organisations involved directly and indirectly in road freight transportation, views were sought on road infrastructure changes, new road infrastructure, non-road infrastructure needs and transport policies. An optimal scaling approach using non-linear canonical correlation is implemented to search for structural relationships between the underlying policy and infrastructure dimensions and the various industry categories. This framework provides a powerful mechanism for identifying differences among stakeholders in terms of their support for or opposition to specific policies. Results reveal the considerable differences in attitudes associated with the component parts of the freight industry.     

Managing motorization in sustainable transport planning: the Singapore experience

The primary objective of this paper is to make a connection between the Singapore story of land transport policy development and the pathway towards sustainable transport planning. Its innovation is to allow a parallel growth in motorization and public transit. The Singapore experience shows how a range of well-coordinated policies including efforts to control the number of cars in both ownership and usage, and at the same time increase the availability and rider-ship of public transit contribute to a sustainable transport system. The Singapore model provides a valuable reference for not only developing an alternative approach towards sustainable transport in countries where motorization is desired but also for understanding the various parameters important to the formulation of management policies. In particular, the paper contends the Singapore experience provides a model for Asian nations and cities.     

Shaping urban transport policies in China: Will copying foreign policies work?

After decades of rapid economic growth, Chinese cities now face serious urban transport challenges, such as congestion, air pollution, energy shortage, and global climate change. Efficient and equitable urban transport policies are essential to China’s sustainable development, in which urbanization plays a critical role. Can Chinese cities solve these challenges by copying or modeling the policies of other nations? This paper argues that understanding the unique contexts of Chinese cities is necessary for predicting whether policies implemented elsewhere will perform well in China. The study explores four examples of hotly contested urban transport policies. The previous experience of each policy is compared with its likely efficiency and distributional consequences in China. Specific attention is paid to how the policy context – the spatial and institutional characteristics of the Chinese cities – can affect the adoption of foreign urban transport policies in China. Suggestions regarding the four policies are proposed to policy makers, followed by conclusions and discussions.     

Africa’s single aviation market: The progress so far

To promote the development of air transport at the continental level, several policies were introduced, leading to the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD) in late 1999, which had the liberalisation of the intra-African aviation spaces as its main objective. Even though notable progress has been achieved towards more market-oriented aviation policies, at the pan-African level some markets are still restrictive and inconsistent with the YD, particularly with respect to the granting of 5th freedom rights. This paper aims to examine recent developments in the aviation sector in Africa, with a focus on the implementation of the YD. The obstacles to liberalisation are discussed and several measures for facilitating Africa’s move towards multilateral open skies are investigated. These include, among others, a greater collaboration and co-operation among African airlines, as well as between African airlines and foreign ones; redefinition of the role and responsibilities of different institutions which are instrumental in implementing the YD and some further issues such as ownership guidelines.     

Environmental and financial sustainability of air transport: Are they incompatible?

Many would consider that the current reliance on air transport is environmentally unsustainable, especially given its impacts on climate change and its use of non-renewable resources. In addition, financial sustainability is often seen as inconsistent with environmental sustainability. The conclusions here are otherwise. Air transport does contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, but the climate change problem is a general one, and while addressing it has a cost, this cost is minimised when air transport is required to bear the environmental costs that it imposes. The reliance on non-renewable resources does give rise to a sustainability problem. There is not likely to be a problem of lack of financial sustainability of the industry, though addressing environmental objective will lead to a reduction in performance in the short run. Both environmental and financial sustainability of air transport can be achieved, as long as efficient policies are adopted.     

Why sustainable transport policies will fail: EU climate policy in the light of transport taboos

There is widespread consensus that current climate policy for passenger transportation is insufficient to achieve significant emission reductions in line with global climate stabilization goals. This article consequently has a starting point in the notion of ‘path dependency’ (Schwanen et al., 2011) and an observed ‘implementation gap’ (Banister and Hickman, 2013), suggesting that significant mitigation policies for transport do not emerge in the European Union because of various interlinked ‘transport taboos’, i.e. barriers to the design, acceptance and implementation of such transport policies that remain unaddressed as they constitute political risk. The paper argues that without addressing transport taboos, such as highly unequal individual contributions to transport volumes and emissions, social inequality of planned market-based measures, the role of lobbyism, and the various social and psychological functions of mobility, it will remain difficult to achieve significant emission reductions in passenger transport. Yet, transport taboos remain largely ignored among EU policy makers because their discussion would violate ‘order’, i.e. harm specific interests within neoliberal governance structures and the societal foundations and structures of transport systems built on these.     

Assessing policy measures for the stimulation of intermodal transport: a GIS-based policy analysis

Intermodal transport is the combination and integration of several transport modes (such as rail, inland waterways with road transport). In order to make the transhipment easy and efficient standard loading units are used, such as containers or swap-bodies. As for the main haul, more environmental friendly modes are used (rail and inland waterways) and a modal shift towards these modes can help in reducing the congestion. Therefore several policies are directed to stimulate the intermodal transport market.In this paper, a location analysis model for Belgian intermodal terminals (LAMBIT) is developed and used to assess different policy measures in Belgium. The simulations show that the different policy measures oriented towards the rail/road and inland waterways/road combinations should be incorporated in a coherent, integrated vision, in order to not create a modal shift between the different intermodal transport options. The methodology can easily be extended towards a European scale.     

Key research themes on regulation,pricing, and sustainable urban mobility

ABSTRACT

This article considers both theoretical arguments and practical experience regarding a range of urban pricing and regulation policies, namely road pricing, public transport pricing and regulation, car parking policies, home and low-emissions zones, and regulation and subsidies to bring about cleaner vehicles. It concludes that effective urban transport policies require a consistently structured package of measures, and that the most urgent research needs surround the design of such measures to achieve their objectives while being financially sustainable and attracting public and political support.     

The value of time and transport policies in a parallel road network

One of the key questions in the evaluation of transport policies and investment decisions is the valuation of the time savings or losses arising from such decisions. This paper uses the stated preference method to determine the value of time in a given traffic context characterised by a road parallel network. The values obtained are higher than usual in Spanish project evaluation which, among other things, points out the need for specific studies of all transport projects whenever possible. Finally, two cases are described which illustrate the relevance of the value of time. The first evaluates time savings related to the pricing policies of a motorway competing with a trunk road. The second establishes the minimum amount of traffic that justifies the replacement of a single carriageway by a dual carriageway.     

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.     

Transport metabolism, social diversity and equity: The case of São Paulo, Brazil

The movement of people in space implies the consumption of resources such as time, space, money and energy, as well as the production of negative externalities such as accidents, pollution and congestion. Some of these effects have been analyzed on an aggregate level by comparing regions in the world, a set of selected cities and different geographical areas in a particular city. The analysis of data on a more disaggregate level that considers the differences in the cause and continuance of negative transport externalities among social classes and groups living in a particular city in the developing world is rare.This paper uses the São Paulo Metropolitan Region (SPMR) 1997 origin–destination (OD) survey to investigate such phenomenon by taking advantage of the fact that data are divided according to six levels of household income. Results refer to mobility patterns in workable days.The main conclusions are that although people at the lowest income level spend a high share of their income on transport, they have a very low overall mobility and contribute almost nothing to transport externalities. At the other extreme, the two highest income groups that use cars intensively invest much more time, space and money to travel around and so contribute to transport externalities 8.4–15.2 times more than the lowest income group. Such large differences challenge current transport policies in developing countries and call both for a reassessment of assumptions and principles as well as for opposition to the propagation of myths that have sustained such inequitable policies.     

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.     

The quality of service desired by public transport users

This article describes the methodology used to study the quality of service desired by users of a public transport system. The desired quality is different from the perceived quality because it does not represent the daily experiences of the users, but rather what they desire, hope for or expect from their public transport system. This is why it is important to study the desired quality, knowledge of which gives local authorities the background information for personalised marketing policies based on the user’s requirements rather than their daily perceptions. The methodology goes through several stages, such as the use of focus groups to choose the most important variables for the users, the design and use of unlabelled stated preferences surveys and the calibration of discrete choice models. All of these help determine the weight of the most relevant variables. The analysis is carried out with different categories of users and potential users (those people not currently using public transport).Waiting time, cleanliness and comfort are shown to be the public transport variables that users most valued, but the degree to which they are valued varies according to the category of user. Variables such as driver kindness, bus occupancy and journey time are generally given less weight. The first two vary little by user category, but some variability appears for journey time.For potential users the more important variables when defining expected quality from public transport are waiting time, journey time and above all, level of occupancy. They consider the other variables to be of little importance when defining an efficient public transport service.In order to improve service quality and attract more passengers to public transport in general, the application of this methodology provides the authorities and operating companies with useful information to plan personalised marketing policies specifically directed at different categories of users and potential users of public transport.     

The use of response surfaces in specifying transport strategies

Integrated transport strategies can involve a wide range of measures, each varying in the intensity with which it is applied. Objective functions can be specified to reflect public policy objectives, and their value will change as changes are made in the measures included and their intensity, generating a response surface. This process has been used in earlier research to identify the optimum combination of measures for a given objective function. In this paper the data generated is used to explore the shape of the response surface around the optimum as individual policy measures are varied in intensity. Results are presented for three cities, using different models. They indicate particular sensitivity to changes in pricing and service frequency, and greater sensitivity for economic objective functions than those which include environmental attributes. Performance is particularly sensitive when public transport is deregulated. Changes in objective function also lead to marked changes in the optimum values for pricing measures. Road pricing performance is very sensitive to the definition of the charging method. Response surfaces have been shown to be particularly useful in indicating sensitivity to a given policy instrument; in determining the loss of benefit if a sub-optimal level is required; and in assessing robustness of strategies against changes in objectives.     

The factors in residents' mobility in rural towns of China: Car ownership,road infrastructure and public transport services

The improvement of rural people's mobility in developing countries has informed many policies. Still, debates remain on which policies are efficient, for instance, building more roads, providing public transport or promoting car ownership. The empirical evidence for these debates at the national level remains scarce. As a result, this paper aims to provide fresh evidence for discussions by examining residents' mobility in China using nationwide survey data with 12,524 respondents from 119 rural towns. The results of the analysis show car ownership is the most significant factor influencing rural people's mobility than other factors. Higher car ownership relates to a higher travel frequency to counties or cities. Other kinds of transport vehicles (i.e. electric cars, motorcycles and electric bikes) also have positive but relatively weaker impacts on rural mobility. For public transport, it is more accessible to access bus stops, which encourages travel to higher-order centres rather than increasing the frequency of county bus services. The accessibility of high-quality road systems tends to have a negative influence and has combined effects with levels of local services. People from towns with insufficient local services and poor access to highways travel the most frequently to higher-order centres. This study highlights the critical role of road investments and car ownership enhancement policies in improving mobility. Moreover, this study also underscores the supplemental role of public transport services given the current low car ownership rates in rural towns of China and the global consensus on sustainable green transport development. It highlights the importance of engaging eco-friendly and locally adaptive transport alternatives, such as electric cars and electric bikes. It also calls for a rational distribution of bus stops and more flexible, convenient, and physically accessible public transport and carshare modes in rural China.     

LRT and street tram policies and implementation in turkish cities

Urban transport sustainability policies aim to encourage a greater use of public transport and an improvement in service provision. However, governments are usually strapped for capital investment funds, and there are planning and financing problems that either delay LRT and street tramway improvements and/or hinder their utilisation. During the past decade, rail developments have dominated Turkish urban and national transport policies: many new lines have been opened and others are under construction. Turkey now has eight cities with LRT or tramway lines (in addition to the three major cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir). Based on analyses of unpublished data from transport master plans, and from interviews conducted with planning experts who worked on such master plans, and from political leaders, this paper assesses how effectively these smaller cities have planned and financed their LRT and trams, and how efficiently they are operated. How well Turkey performs with its urban LRT and tramway developments within the context of an international “railway renaissance” is also critically assessed. In Turkey, the PPP modality of financing (mostly in the form of BOT) is favoured for highway investment whereas many of the railway projects still require international loans. A greater role for the private sector in Turkey is recommended to reinforce this embryonic railway renaissance and to ensure greater operational and financial sustainability.