Verkehrsverbund: The evolution and spread of fully integrated regional public transport in Germany,Austria, and Switzerland

Throughout the world, urban areas have been rapidly expanding, exacerbating the problem of many public transport (PT) operators providing service over different governmental jurisdictions. Over the past five decades, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have successfully implemented regional PT associations (called Verkehrsverbund or VV), which integrate services, fares, and ticketing while coordinating public transport planning, marketing, and customer information throughout metropolitan areas, and in some cases, entire states. A key difference between VVs and other forms of regional PT coordination is the collaboration and mutual consultation of government jurisdictions and PT providers in all decision-making. This article examines the origins of VVs, their spread to 13 German, Austrian, and Swiss metropolitan areas from 1967 to 1990, and their subsequent spread to 58 additional metropolitan areas from 1991 to 2017, now serving 85% of Germany's and 100% of Austria's population. The VV model has spread quickly because it is adaptable to the different degrees and types of integration needed in different situations. Most of the article focuses on six case studies of the largest VVs: Hamburg (opened in 1967), Munich (1971), Rhine-Ruhr (1980), Vienna (1984), Zurich (1990), and Berlin-Brandenburg (1999). Since 1990, all six of those VVs have increased the quality and quantity of service, attracted more passengers, and reduced the percentage of costs covered by subsidies. By improving PT throughout metropolitan areas, VVs provide an attractive alternative to the private car, helping to explain why the car mode share of trips has fallen since 1990 in all of the case studies.     

Verkehrsverbund: the success of regional public transport in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

The Verkehrsverbund system of public transport organization offers a practical solution to the problem of providing integrated regional public transport service for the increasingly suburbanized metropolitan areas of Europe and North America. By carefully coordinating fares and services for all routes, all types of public transport, and all parts of the metropolitan region, Verkehrsverbund systems in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have greatly improved the quality of the public transport alternative to the automobile. Five Verbund systems were chosen for detailed analysis: Hamburg, Munich, the Rhein-Ruhr region, Vienna and Zurich. This article documents the success of each Verbund in attracting more public transport riders and, in most cases, increasing or at least stabilizing public transport's share of modal split. It also analyzes the reasons for the success of the Verkehrsverbund, including service expansion, improvement in service quality, more attractive fares, and extensive marketing campaigns. The five case study systems offer lessons for other public transport systems facing similar challenges of dealing with increasing auto ownership and suburbanization. The article concludes with an analysis of the most challenging problem of all: public transport finance. As shown dramatically by the five case studies, the service improvements and fare structures needed for truly effective regional public transport require substantial government subsidy. Fiscal austerity at every government level is leading to subsidy cutbacks in most countries of Europe and North America. The five case study systems examined in this article provide lessons on how to deal most effectively with limited subsidy funds in order to minimize service deterioration, fare increases and ridership losses.     

Socio-technical transition governance and public opinion: The case of passenger transport in Finland

As a governance perspective, transition management views the engagement of a wide variety of stakeholders in policy development as a necessary element in furthering sustainability through enhanced social learning. Yet as a literature it has paid relatively little attention to public consultation on socio-technical change. Here we set transition management in the context of longstanding debates in science and technology studies, technology assessment and deliberative democracy. Empirically, we use national survey data on Finnish public opinion of state support for future transport options. Showing how transport practices and attitudes to transport innovation policy vary with both demography and geography, we argue that these differences have implications for policy legitimacy. We suggest that, both given and despite the practical difficulties of deliberative democracy, use of participative opinion surveying to better understand social groups with needs and interests that differ from national averages, may help to enhance policy legitimacy and hence the success of transition management.