New development: Going off the rails? Rail franchising after the cancellation of the West Coast franchise competition

In August 2012, the UK's Department for Transport (DfT) announced the award of the new West Coast rail franchise to FirstGroup. The incumbent operator, Virgin Rail Group, then launched legal proceedings to challenge the decision. The DfT initially defended the award, but cancelled the franchise competition in October 2012 because it discovered serious errors in the procurement process. This article examines the key issues highlighted by this cancellation, and discusses their implications for the future of rail franchising.     

城市轨道交通出行幸福价值评估研究-以长沙地铁为例

基于计划行为理论,构建城市轨道交通出行选择框架,依据长沙地铁出行SP调查数据,运用因子分析法,考量城市轨道交通出行幸福价值指数和出行幸福价值.结果发现:客观价值、主观价值、主观感觉、出行者特征和出行特征等功能因子决定地铁出行幸福价值;部分常用出行选择决定因素没有得到认同;出行幸福价值中部分客观价值与主观价值的认知存在不一致.鉴此,应在线路成网、改善交通接驳和最后一公里的方便性、增加发车频次、优化公共交通等级计费、传播城市轨道交通优势等方面提高出行幸福价值.     

‘It's the tip of the iceberg’: the hidden tensions between theory,policy and practice in the management of Freedom of Information in English local government bodies—evidence from a regional study

This article examines a major UK value-for-money study by Sir Roy McNulty in the context of the neoliberal public policy environment. This environment favoured rail's privatization, and subsequent reform attempts, which maintained the privatization model, have done little to address rail's fundamental problems. McNulty's proposals are examined in terms of their likely effects on the infrastructure authority and the train companies. The article concludes that, although McNulty correctly identified fragmentation as a key cause of rail's cost escalation, and noted the less fragmented nature of other European railways, its neoliberal focus meant that it missed the opportunity to reverse the process.     

轨道交通对中国城市化的意义

目前中国正处在快速城市化的进程中,需要增加城市的数量和人口、经济规模,并大力发展城市群和城市带,同时需要减小地区间的发展差距.因此构筑一个从城市轨道交通、城际轨道交通到跨区域的高速铁路这一不同层次的结构完善的覆盖全国的轨道交通体系,将有利于促进城市化,为全国广大人民群众提供快捷、舒适、准时、安全的交通保障,并为在全国范围内建设和谐社会做出重大贡献.     

论"旅游目的地"与"旅游过境地"

旅游地的空间竞争与合作是当前学术界颇为关注的一个热点问题.处在同一旅游线路①上的不同旅游地之间产业和产品的空间竞争与合作是区域旅游竞争与合作的典型代表,较少有学者进行研究.本文在回顾以往研究成果的基础上,分析了旅游目的地与旅游过境地在竞争与合作中旅游产业定位和空间布局等重大问题对两地在旅游开发、投资等方面的影响.     

A methodology for prioritising HSR corridors: from U.S. theory to Spanish practice

The assessment of methodologies to prioritise the construction of new high-speed rail (HSR) corridors has recently become a key issue for transport planners in countries like the U.S., where HSR does not exist. In a climate of financial instability since the onset of the global crisis of 2007–2008, support for new projects is being eroded by serious concerns over the extremely steep costs of high-speed rail, and there is a need for the scientific clarification of the procedure for prioritizing construction.In 2009 a new ranking methodology was developed and applied to 30,000 city pairs in the U.S. to determine their suitability for high-speed rail investment. The existing literature on ranking tools for prioritising HSR corridors is practically non-existent, and, as none of these U.S. lines has been built or put into in operation, this methodology has not been validated. The main aim of this paper is to contribute to these ranking models and highlight their importance in the HSR planning process. The preliminary ranking tool described in this work has been validated using data from the current HSR Spanish network. The results confirm the consistency of the model as a first approach to ranking pairs, mainly for the top O–D relations; however the model has some drawbacks chiefly due to the type of variables used, and their assigned weightings. Finally, some specific improvements are proposed for this ranking approach in order to provide policymakers with a useful tool when planning the construction of new HSR networks.     

Improving interchanges in China: the experiential phenomenon

This paper examines the development of multimodal passenger rail hubs as part of the high-speed rail (HSR) network in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The instrumental, attitudinal and affective experience of the journey through the interchange is assessed from the user perspective. Surveys are used from three HSR stations: Beijing South, Chengdu East and Suzhou North (N = 150), representing three types of HSR stations, i.e. national capital, regional capital and sub-regional city. ‘Expected’ and ‘realised’ facilities are compared – with the difference representing the ‘disgruntlement’ factor (after Stradling et al., 2007).The unprecedented urbanisation process currently being witnessed in the PRC, together with the rapid development of the HSR network and associated multimodal interchanges, offers much opportunity to develop a leading-edge public transport system and urban development predicated on the use of public transport. Although the importance of intermodal interchange hubs is being increasingly recognised, the journey experience through the interchange often remains poor, with problems including Wi-Fi availability, waiting and seating, the availability of door-to-door ticketing, crowdedness, access to the hub, time of travel through and waiting in the hub. MANOVA analysis and factorial (three way) MANOVA analysis are used to explore the differences between intermodal hubs, with many instrumental and particularly attitudinal and affective factors being significantly influenced by location.     

High-speed rail and regional development: the case of intermediate stations

High-speed rail has developed both nationally and internationally in Europe as a successful alternative to both air and road over distances of 400–600 km. Inter-city traffic, especially between the major metropolitan areas in North-west Europe has benefitted greatly from the investment in this network. This paper explores two issues: the impact on the intermediate areas between these major metropolitan areas and the creation of potential cross-border inter-regional services. The evidence shows how both levels of service and potential economic impacts have been much less pronounced in these intermediate areas. Such areas have been affected both by a failure to see greatly improved direct access to major cities other than within their own countries and a lack of new cross-border inter-regional services. The paper argues that the creation of the high-speed rail TEN-T has not met the primary objectives of reducing regional disparities in accessibility or reducing the effect of national borders on regional integration. To achieve this requires not just infrastructure provision but an appropriate regulatory framework for service provision and accompanying measures at the local level.     

Who could benefit from a bus rapid transit system in cities from developing countries? A case study from Kampala,Uganda

The present rapid urban growth of cities from developing countries causes negative externalities such as lagging infrastructure development. In combination with rapidly rising motorized vehicle use this leads to severe traffic congestion affecting the mobility of the urban residents. Therefore many urban governments are planning to improve their transport and mobility situations with mass rapid transit systems of which a bus rapid transit (BRT) is a rather easy system to implement at reasonable costs. However, due to high urban inequalities the effects of urban traffic and potential improvements of the urban transport system for the diverse group of urban residents can differ significantly. In our case study Kampala (Uganda) four main groups were identified through cluster analysis of socio-economic and residential data gathered through interviews: extreme poor, poor, middle income and rich. Each group experiences a different mobility with the extreme poor being the most vulnerable group. The planned BRT system aims to decrease the average travel time but risks to exclude the lowest income class since not enough attention is paid to the affordability of the system to all residents. Therefore we argue for a policy that works from bottom up and pays attention to the internal diversity of the population.     

The effects of tourism on HSR: Spanish empirical evidence derived from a multi-criteria corridor selection methodology

The exorbitant cost of new High-Speed Rail (HSR) lines requires a selection methodology to define which HSR corridors within a network should be built first, and the most suitable evaluation tool appears to be the multi-criteria approach. In any corridor-ranking methodology, and especially in countries with high tourism attractiveness, tourism impacts on HSR should be considered as a variable.In addition to economic geography and destination choice models, the current literature on tourism demand is dominated by econometric models using a single-equation time-series based approach. However little research has been done so far on methodologies to rank HSR corridors taking into account the tourism variable. In 2014, a ranking methodology developed by Todorovich and Hagler was validated using the current Spanish HSR network. Twelve variables were used to create an index to assign scores to the city pairs, but tourism was not included as a variable. The findings showed the consistency of the model for ranking pairs mainly in the top O–D relations; however the tool failed to discriminate clearly between secondary groups of corridors.The aim of this paper is to assess empirically the positive effect of tourism on HSR and to enhance the abovementioned ranking tool with a tourism database. The new methodology is tested by application to 1176 city pairs in Spain, and the results clearly show that the implementation of a tourism variable helps discriminate between secondary groups of corridors and offers a more effective approach for determining the implications of tourism on HSR.