Transport Policy Formulation Research Articles

Intra-household Interactions in tour-based mode choice: The role of social, temporal, spatial and resource constraints

Under social, temporal, spatial and resource constraints, household members interact and search for ways to fulfil household and individual needs, one of which is travelling together. Understanding the motivation for joint household travel and its effect on an individual’s mode choices is critical to the formulation of transport policies and planning practices for sustainable transport choices. This paper examines individuals’ mode choices with joint household travel being explicitly incorporated within a nested logit model using the Sydney Household Travel Survey data and a typology of tours that captures various patterns of household interactions. The results indicate that joint travel is influenced by household resources, social and mobility constraints, activity types, and the land use patterns at both origin and destination. Also, mode choices differ significantly across joint tour patterns with public transport being less likely to be used for joint travel. Scenario analysis shows that individual tours contribute the most while complex joint tours contribute least to modal shifts from car to public transport which results from changes to transport policies and the level of services. Contrary to suggestions in the literature, a joint household (as compared to individual) travel analysis does not necessarily identify a lower modal shift for policy outcomes.

Research on the Critical Attributes of Travel Mode Choice Utility Function

Since the urban traffic congestion becomes severe increasingly,the fundamentalsolution is reasonableallocation ofresources, and togive priority tothe development ofpublic transport carrying large capacity. Many scholars are researching how to attract travelers to give up the car and transfer to public transit. The problem is that what extents do the service attributes such as time costs and other change can lead travelers to the mode conversion. The utility function which depicts the probability of attribute parameters and selection probability must have a critical state causing the conversion. Account for this, the concept of critical expected utility is proposed, and gradient theory is introduced, combined with spatial analytical geometry method. Besides, by deriving method for solving the critical value based on the Probit model, depicts the dependency of the critical balance of each parameter. Finally, several strategies are proposed for a special line for Asian Games, and an evaluating indicator is designed for comparison and analysis, which has great impact on transport policy formulation and adjustment.

Overview of salient economic features of the modes of freight transport for use in the formulation of national transport policy in South Africa

Defining the economic role of the various modes of freight transport should be one of the basic ingredients of both an economically rational transport policy and the effective functioning of the existing free freight transport market in South Africa. In the interest of the national economy and in the commercial interest of freight carriers, national policy on freight transport should take cognisance of (1) why governments involve themselves in transport, (2) the policy instruments of governments that affect the performance of the freight transport sector, and (3) the salient economic features of the freight transport market that should be considered in the formulation of transport policy. The goal of the research was to compile an overview of these three aspects. The research approach and methodology combine (1) a literature survey; (2) an analysis of the cost structures of freight transport modes; and (3) interviews conducted with specialists in the freight transport industry.

Travellers’ profiles definition using statistical multivariate analysis of attitudinal variables

This paper aims at presenting a set of travellers’ typologies using attributes characterizing people’s attitude, through an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and a subsequent cluster analysis (CA), based on the obtained latent constructs. The final goal is to contribute to deepen the knowledge on market segmentation in order to define more people-oriented transport policies, focusing on a medium size Italian city, Alessandria. Six factors have been defined on which the k-means cluster analysis has been applied finding four travellers’ profiles.Results confirm certain hypothesis from behavioural psychological theories. Attitude–behaviour relationships loosen when habits, consolidated in time, do intervene; moreover in small-medium urban context, as opposed to large and dense cities, insufficient transport supply does not favour the use of alternative modes to the motor vehicle, if not to the cost of a great loss in efficiency. In fact, the study shows how significant constraints such as necessity, time saving, and low transport supply (mainly designed around students going to school) are in determining a behavioural change, so that the “right general attitudes” are not sufficient to obtain a real modal shift. This leads to expect opportunistic behaviours, even within a overall positive attitude towards the environment. Actually, that overall positive attitude is not enough to prompt consistent behaviour unless a marked self-control and strong motivation are present. These two features seem to be missing in the interviewed sample of population, unlike what emerges from other studies undertaken in Northern Europe. The geographic location most likely plays a significant role in such a difference. Indeed, cultural background and the prevailing habits of the population may well explain the “slackening” of the bond between moral norms and behaviour, and the subsequent search for surrogates (e.g. the high willingness to pay for environmental protection) to justify the unwillingness to forgo the private vehicle on behalf of more sustainable modes.Finally, our study seems to prove that education could play a key role in transport policy formulation but, moreover, in social policy, as individuals more akin to modal shift are those showing higher levels of instruction.

Maps as a Decision-Support Tool in Rail Transport Policy Formulation in UK

Please click here to download the map associated with this article. This paper describes the use of maps to support decision-making in the formulation of national rail transport policy in the UK. The shift from input-based to output-based policies created a need within government to determine feasible combinations of interventions that would deliver the desired outputs. This enables government to be an informed investor and buyer of services from industry. Rail models are used to estimate, for given interventions or combinations of interventions, the future values of the outputs of interest to government. Model outputs are voluminous so it is often difficult to appreciate, across the network, the impacts of interventions on the outputs at any reasonable level of disaggregation without some form of visual display of their values. Network maps of these outputs were therefore created and used in an iterative process of: identifying problem areas from visual display of current values of the outputs; designing options to address the problems; testing in the model and developing new outputs; mapping new outputs; and comparing with original maps to understand changes and see how well problems had been addressed without creating new problem areas. Combining traditional rail modelling with mapping provided a strong visual analytical tool for advising policy formulation. The Department of Transport's experience with this has encouraged and established the routine use of maps as aids to decision-making in national rail policy formulation.

Development of a novel framework for the design of transport policies to achieve environmental targets

The formulation of policies requires the selection and configuration of effective and acceptable courses of action to reach explicit goals. A one-size-fits-all policy is unlikely to achieve the desired goals; as a result, the identification of a suite of alternative policies, together with clear indications of their trade-offs, is crucial to accommodate the diversity of stakeholders’ preferences. At present, the formulation of transport policies is done manually; this fact, together with the size of the space of possible policies, results in a large part of that space being left unexplored. A six-step framework to explore the space of alternative transport policies in order to achieve environmental targets is proposed. The process starts with a user-defined set of specific policy measures, using them as building blocks in the generation of alternative policy packages, clusters and future images according to the user's preferences and goals. The analysis framework is based on the visioning and backcasting approach used in the VIBAT report [Banister, D., & Hickman, R. (2006a). Visioning and backcasting for UK transport policy (VIBAT) project. Department for Transport's Horizons Research Programme 2004/06. The Bartlett school of planning and Halcrow Group Ltd. Retrieved 1/18/2008 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/∼ucft696/vibat2.html]. The framework is being implemented as a prototype decision support system around a case study: the formulation and analysis of policies required to achieve CO 2 emission targets for the transport sector in the UK. Important insights on how to develop the framework have also been elicited from engineering design. The goal is to accelerate the task of policy-making and improve the effectiveness of the resulting policies. The proposed method and computer implementation is fundamentally different from the tools commonly used in the transport sector and is intended to assist (not replace) transport policy makers, and complement (not substitute nor compete with) existing mathematical modelling tools. This research constitutes the first step towards the development of a general family of computer-based systems that support the design of policies to achieve environmental targets—not only for transport, but also for other sectors such as energy and water.

Institutional statism: an overview of the formulation of the taxi recapitalisation policy

This article provides an overview of the government’s formulation of the taxi recapitalisation policy which is aimed at regulating the minibus taxi industry. Coupled with a brief social and politico-historical context of the policy, the aim is to highlight the government’s statist conduct in the formulation of the recapitalisation policy. The minibus taxi industry started to fulfil a prominent role in the 1970s as a result of a loophole in the legislation of the former apartheid government. It is currently the most accessible mode of public transport and conveys 65 per cent of the country’s commuters daily. Consequently, the Industry is an imperative force to be considered by the government in its formulation of transport policies. However, the industry is characterised by numerous problems, including a high rate of minibus taxis involved in accidents, unroadworthy vehicles and violence. It is in this context that the government formulated both the original and revised versions of the recapitalisation policy. However, the formulation of the policy has been problematic. The government followed a statist approach during the formulation process when it directed the course of the process according to its interests and without adequate consultation with relevant role players.

Priorities, policies and (time)scales: the delivery of emissions reductions in the UK transport sector

The transport sector is consistently responsible for around 30 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions in developed countries and is one of few sectors where emissions continue to increase as a result of apparently insatiable demand for road and air travel. This paper examines how the formulation of transport policy fits into the exposition of UK climate policy, focusing on three principal areas of tension: policy priority (congestion and carbon reduction); strategies to reduce emissions (technological and behavioural solutions) and timescale (short‐ and long‐term vision). We suggest that in overcoming such tensions government ministers will need to devolve significant policy formulation and implementation powers to an appropriate scale of governance – in this case the city‐region – to fashion a ‘convergence space’ capable of promoting meaningful action with regard to transport's climate impact.

Assessing the interaction between transport policy targets and policy implementation—A Finnish case study

This article explores the potential of a target analysis method in acting as a link between policy objectives, targets, measures and their implementation in order to intensify the policy process. The context is the information-abundant policy environment where feasibility conditions keep constantly changing. The policy process frameworks for bounded rationality and experiential incrementalism are used as a basis for exploration and complemented with our target analysis, which is tested with a case of Finnish transport policy targets. We argue that by studying synergies and conflicts as well as other dependencies between the targets presented in policy statements and also by examining the possible support or opposition of main stakeholder groups for the policy measures to meet the targets, we can appraise the potential success of the transport policy implementation. Our case study, the Finnish transport policy, presented targets with quite a clear direction, with a lot of weak synergies and only a few serious conflicts. The implementation of the policy measures, presented to meet these targets will, however, be demanding because of several reasons related to the challenges to governance that are emerging from the complex and continually changing linkages between and among transport (policy) problems, targets and their consequences. The method we presented and tested proved to be useful in bringing transport policy targets closer to policy implementation by considering policy measures to meet the targets and their acceptance as a part of the target or objective analysis process. The findings suggest that linking these often detached parts of the policy process together the co-ordination will be improved and the process hence intensified. The target analysis presented could act as an originator for a more open, interactive and particularly systematic process in transport policy formulation, leading through social learning into a more successful implementation of policies.

Household transport expenditure in Sub-Saharan African cities: measurement and analysis

In Sub-Saharan Africa the cost of transport faced by city dwellers, particularly the poor, tends to add to their travel and economic difficulties. Knowledge of the burden of transport expenditure in the household budget seems essential for passenger transport policy formulation in order to improve their travel conditions and social equity. The literature review and the three case studies (Dar es Salaam, Niamey, Ouagadougou) show that estimates of travel expenditure are partially conditioned by survey data collection methodologies and by the choice of equivalence scales used to compare the standard of living of households. According to consumption and expenditure survey data, the relative amount spent on transport increases as household expenditure rises. Conversely, the share of transport decreases as income rises when analysing travel survey data. The sensitivity to the equivalence scale is tested for several transport expenditure indicators: the share of travel expenditure by household budget quintile, the concentration indices for public and private household transport expenditure and the average monthly expenditure per person on public and private transport. Results also highlight the fact that transport is a major component of household expenditure, that there are considerable inequalities between households and that regular use of motorized transport is unaffordable for poor populations. These findings have implications for both improving expenditure data collection methodologies in the transport area and formulating pro-poor urban policies.

Implementing the European Transport Information System

The development of the Trans-European Networks and the formulation of a common transport policy are essential elements in the economic and social development of the European Union. Such activities require significant information about current status (passenger and freight transport volumes, congestion, environmental impacts, etc.) and reliable forecasts. The relevant information exists in dispersed, heterogeneous, and autonomous databases throughout Europe, as well as in pertinent transport studies. The European Transport Information System under development is intended to support decisions on transport policies and the Trans-European Transport Networks by accommodating policy-related information in a repository that will be kept up-to-date through well-defined procedures under the control of experts and will be accessible through an Internet-based software tool. A hierarchical structure of criteria, suberiteria, indicators, and variables is used to link policy questions to relevant data sets, which are p...

Modal choice and modal change: the journey to work in Britain since 1890

The paper uses 1834 individual life histories to examine changes in journey to work transport modes in Britain since 1890, and 90 in-depth interviews to investigate modal choice amongst commuters since the 1930s. There have been three main periods of change in the transport mode used for commuting, but there has also been considerable inertia in individual modal choice. The reasons why people use particular forms of transport have been quite stable over time, with some long-established differences between men and women. It is suggested that such trends have implications for the formulation of present-day transport policy.

Modelling Freight Transport Costs: A Case Study of the UK-Greece Corridor

ABSTRACT The large–scale movement of freight by road in Europe has contributed to worsening traffic congestion and deteriorating transport conditions generally. A number of policy initiatives have sought to address this problem by encouraging the use of rail or sea transport, especially over longer distances. A freight transport cost model, applicable to any given route over which freight is moved by a variety of means, is proposed. The model enables the logistics tradeoffs, such as those between speed and costs, to be thoroughly examined in a range of circumstances. In particular, the model highlights the factors which affect the choice of transport mode or combination of modes for given movements. By testing the model against real conditions on the UK–Greece transport corridor, it is shown to be robust and to contribute positively to the wider debate on modal choice for freight transport at large. The model may also be used in the process of transport policy formulation.

‘The travail of travelling’: urban transport in South Africa, 1930–1996

This article reviews the evolution of urban passenger transport policy within the context of changing economic and political climates in South Africa over the past seven decades. During key periods in South Africa's development, namely the 1940s and 1950s, and in the 1980s, the delivery of essential services such as transport became an area of popular protests and political mobilization. The transition from politics of protest to the politics of negotiation ushered in a new era of inclusive and more transparent transport policy formulation in the 1990s. However, the national transport policy process has become another site of struggle, negotiation and contestation.

Regulatory Parking Policies at the Firm Level

This paper is focused on the intersection of two main policy ‘tracks’ followed in the Netherlands for the containment of road transport externalities: transport plans at the firm level, and regulatory parking policies. In this paper an applied modelling approach is taken, and the aim is to identify the relative importance of factors that are decisive for the viability of an individual firm's parking policies. The outcomes of an empirical survey conducted at the corporate level of the Free University in Amsterdam are used to discuss the social feasibility of regulatory parking policies conducted at the firm level (in terms of the employees' attitudes) and the effectiveness of such policies. Insight is provided into relevant backgrounds and obstacles serving to affect employees' commuting behaviour and that are likely to be encountered in the formulation of regulatory transport policies at the firm level. Moreover, the outcomes of this research may be relevant for the evaluation of regulatory parking policies at larger spatial scales (for example, neighbourhood parking schemes).

Transport policy: a critical role for strategic environmental assessment

Transport policy - where it exists formally and strategically at - is frequently unsustainable in the author's view because the environment has rarely featured as a primary objective in the pas Only a fundamental shift in transport policy formulation which incorporates the environment and sustainable development into the objectives transport policy will bring about a real change in impact transport has on the environment. The economic motor whic has driven transport policy for so long (even though a questionab basis in itself) is no longer appropriate in the context sustainable development. Yet it still predominates. The view governments is still to take account of the environment, not to make it a central objective. In this paper some specific transpo policy issues are discussed: the Trans European Network for Transport; motorway charging; airports; and new road construction Only a systematic assessment environmental impacts prior to th adoption a policy or policy change will enable a sensible choi options to be made. In many cases the rhetoric is already the but not the action. Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) - a part objectives-led policy formulation - is the logical answer but few politicians yet seem willing to support it.

Transport assessment studies - a review of the history of the London Assessment Studies and subsequent developments

This Paper reviews the history of the London Assessment Studies and contrasts the resulting policy packages with that proposed in complementary work for the London Planning Advisory Committee (LPAC) against the background of an ‘ideal’ approach to transport policy formulation. In particular, it comments on the efficacy of such area-based studies in the absence of a clear strategic framework. It argues that there is a need for a strategic approach to transport in London, to include the valuable roles of public transport fares, service levels and traffic restraint mechanisms in combating congestion. Finally, the Paper draws pointers for the future of transport assessment studies, including reference to the new range of integrated transport studies being promoted by urban authorities throughout the UK.

Integrated transport strategies: a new approach to urban transport policy formulation in the U.K.

In the last four years, some 20 urban areas in the UK have commissioned or considered conducting Integrated Transport Studies, which are designed to develop a transport strategy for the next 20–30 years. Such studies represent a new approach to transport policy formulation, since they respond to a vision of the future for the area, treat a wide range of transport and land use policy instruments, emphasize synergy between those instruments, and provide a framework for facilitating action rather than a rigid blueprint for the future. They also differ from past studies in the speed with which they have been conducted, and in the analytical techniques which have made this possible. This paper reviews the background to these studies, the evaluation approach adopted, the policy instruments considered and the analytical methods developed for the studies. It concludes with an assessment of the policy implications stressing in particular the need to reduce trip length, the crucial impact of pricing as an instrumen...

A framework for urban freight policy analysis

The paper provides an overview of the urban freight process, in the context of the supply and demand aspects of freight. A framework for analysis is developed, and within that framework, particular aspects of the urban freight process are described. Issues of concern from a public policy viewpoint are highlighted. Seven main instruments related to public policy are introduced and their application described - taxes and subsidies, regulations, investment, operational instruments, planning, public ownership and research. It is concluded that the importance of urban freight to the community and its relevance to urban transport justifies a higher level of attention in transport planning and policy formulation, and that there are a wide range of policy instruments available to enable this to be done. The objective of such planning and policy making needs to be specified in each specific context (a).