The integration of active travel and public transport in Norwegian policy packages: A study on ‘access, egress and transfer’ and their positioning in two multilevel contractual agreements

Abstract

Multi-modality has become a key mantra of transport planning and yet, how people access, egress and transfer (hereafter AET) remains under-investigated. We argue that integrating active travel and public transport is an absolute essential. Multilevelpolicy packages for land-use and transport-system development in the larger Norwegian urban regions, called Urban growth agreements (hereafter UGA), provides the bouncing pad for this study. We highlight the extent to which AET can be strengthened through the UGAs. Methodologically, we apply document studies and qualitative interviews with key actors and our analysis is framed to address the following three rationales identified for policy packages: to facilitate implementation, to create synergies and to improve cooperation. While the UGAs provide opportunities to finance new, large-scale public-transport projects, being partly toll-road financed results in cuts reducing AET-qualities. Even though the UGAs provide several synergies between walking, bicycling and public transport, we identified missed opportunities related to shared mobility. Finally, AET may benefit from horizontal and vertical integration of policy actors, specially concerning multilevel cooperation on designing public transport hubs. To conclude, though there are elements in the UGAs benefiting AET, the overall lack of integration between public transport and active travel needs immediate attention to achieve multi-modality.