Public Transport Investment Research Articles

Relationship between Immigrant Settlement Patterns and Transit Use in the Greater Toronto Area

Much of the research on immigrants has centered on their economic assimilation or integration. Few scholarly articles have examined the impact that immigrants have on the transportation system, especially those immigrants who have bypassed central city locations and settled in suburban areas where transit infrastructure is more limited. This paper addresses this issue by focusing on two interrelated issues: (1) the effect immigration has on metropolitan public transportation infrastructure in terms of high usage rates, and (2) the effect the governing structure in metropolitan areas has on immigrant settlement and integration in terms of the need for government investments in public transportation in the suburbs. The greater Toronto area is used as a case study to examine these issues. The implications for transit and immigration policies across different urban scales and levels of government are also discussed. The study concludes that transit needs to be recognized as a key ingredient for the success of the immigrant settlement process, which requires the involvement of all levels of government in the provision of modern and effective public transit services.

The Transformation of Transport Policy in Great Britain? ‘New Realism’ and New Labour's Decade of Displacement Activity

In 1999 Goodwin announced ‘the transformation of transport policy in Great Britain’. His central point was that consensus was emerging among policy makers and academics, based on earlier work, including “Transport: the new realism”, which rejected previous orthodoxy that the supply of road space could and should be continually expanded to match demand. Instead, a combination of investment in public transport, walking and cycling opportunities, and—crucially—demand management, should form the basis of transport policy to address rising vehicle use and associated increases in congestion and pollution/carbon emissions. This thinking formed the basis of the 1997 Labour government's ‘sustainable transport’ policy, but after thirteen years in power ministers had neither transformed policy nor tackled longstanding transport trends. Our main aim in this paper is to revisit the concept of New Realism and reexamine its potential utility as an agent of change in British transport policy. Notwithstanding the outcome of Labour's approach to transport policy, we find that the central tenets of the New Realism remain robust and that the main barriers to change are related to broader political and governance issues which suppress radical policy innovation.

Land use/transport models and economic assessment

This paper discusses the economic assessment of policies using land use/transport models. It argues that conventional forms of assessment focussing only on transport changes can underestimate the economic benefits of a policy. The paper argues that the benefits need to be measured by the changes of prices at the end of a trip and not just by the changes in travel costs. Models that do not estimate the changes of prices at the end of a trip cannot properly assess the impact of a policy. The model used in this paper is based on the MEPLAN software and estimates the location of households and employment and the interaction between them. It also estimates the cost of living for households and the production costs for employment. With these costs, it is possible to calculate the wider economic benefits beyond transport. The paper illustrates the assessment of policies for the Cambridge sub-region involving investment in public transport, orbital highway and congestion charging policies. The results forecast by the model are assessed in terms of the conventional cost-benefit using traveller’s surplus as benefits and compared with a wider assessment measure of compensation variation. It demonstrates that the last measure encompasses the wider benefits associated with transport policies which are not taken into account in conventional cost-benefit analysis.

Motorcycle sin the Western Pacific region

Road traffic injuries are a threat to development in the Western Pacific region where about a quarter of the world's road traffic deaths occur. Vulnerable road users constitute the majority...

How safe are the world’s roads?

How safe are the world’s roads?

The Oslo and Bergen toll rings and road-building investment – Effect on traffic development and congestion

When the toll rings around Bergen and Oslo were established in 1986 and 1990, respectively, they were part of major schemes to speed up road investments. In Oslo, 20% of the revenue was allocated for investments in public transport, while in Bergen, third the size of Oslo, investments were exclusively for road transport. This article focuses on how city size and public transport policy may influence effects of infrastructure investments on car traffic development and congestion. Oslo, having one million inhabitants, experienced moderate growth in car traffic, and public transport traffic volumes experienced a stronger growth than the national average. Still, congestion levels were only slightly changed. The smaller city Bergen, however, experienced a strong increase in car traffic and a strong decrease in public transport traffic. Despite the strong growth in car traffic, increased road capacity still seems to have resolved congestion problems, at least during the period under study. The result seems to indicate that in smaller cities increased road capacity might relieve congestion even if road traffic increases. Urban sprawl seems to be a major factor behind increased car traffic in both cities.

An Exploration of Household Response to Personal Travel Carbon-Reduction Targets

ABSTRACT Transport is currently responsible for around one-quarter of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the United Kingdom, and this proportion is projected to increase. The transport sector will undoubtedly need to play a significant role in achieving carbon reductions if the government is to meet its ambitious long-term goal of a 60% reduction by 2050. This article examines current carbon use by households for personal land-based transport and considers how feasible it would be to change that use over the period up to 2050 in the United Kingdom. It provides a unique insight into how much and in what way households and individuals may be willing to adapt their transport behavior to achieve carbon reductions. A computer-based transport carbon calculator was developed to investigate the CO2 emissions of individual households from various modes based on travel diary information. This formed the focus of a series of interactive interviews in which participants were asked to consider how their future low carbon transport strategy could look. Views of households on various abatement measures were explored, including technological change in vehicle design or fuel source and behavioral change through, for instance, traffic restraint and investment in public transport. Overall, a 40% reduction in carbon emissions was seen to be feasible through a combination of behavioral change measures and a realistically achievable degree of technological improvement, falling well short of the UK government's goal of a 60% reduction. Through changes in behavior alone, the households involved could only achieve around a 20% cut in carbon emissions —seemingly a threshold beyond which further reductions will be difficult and may necessitate significant lifestyle change.

Disintegrated Transport Policy: The Multimodal Studies Process in England

As part of a broader effort to promote more sustainable or ‘integrated’ transport, the United Kingdom Labour government commissioned a series of multimodal studies designed to seek genuinely multimodal solutions to traffic congestion problems in England. Consultants undertaking the studies were instructed to presume against new roads unless all other options were clearly impractical. We build upon previous work to assess the extent to which the outcome of the multi-modal study process is consistent with the government's original intentions, as specified in relevant policy documentation. Our findings are that, although the process led to substantial achievements in some areas, its main outcome has been the approval of a host of new road schemes and—apart from some potentially significant public transport investment in the West Midlands—very little else. Viewed in the context of other developments since Labour came to power in 1997, such an outcome would appear to indicate the further disintegration of the party's much-vaunted ‘integrated’ transport policy.

Successful Coordinated Transportation Services in Rural Communities

Many share the vision of improved mobility for all residents of rural communities and look forward to productive and cost-effective transportation services with much public support. But today many rural communities still face meager transportation funding, multiple funding sources and service objectives, limited services, and inadequate public interest and transportation investments. As a result, coordination initiatives are receiving even greater attention at all levels of government. A TCRP project focused on how to implement coordinated transportation services in rural communities. New data included a survey of coordination practices of all 50 states and case studies of dozens of coordinated transportation operations. Ten states and 29 local sites were found to offer significant lessons about procedures and strategies. These efforts resulted in a list of coordination strategies that rural communities could pursue toward realizing significant transportation benefits. Although the process can be challenging, coordination offers resource management strategies to improve the performance of various individual transportation services and overall mobility in a community. Greater efficiency helps to stretch scarce and precious funding and personnel resources of the agencies. Coordination can significantly reduce per trip operating costs for rural transportation providers. People with special transportation needs often benefit from the greater amount of transportation and higher-quality services when transportation providers coordinate operations. Coordinated transportation services often have access to more funds and are thus able to achieve economies of scale. They have more sources of funds and other resources. They also can offer more visible transportation services for consumers in rural communities and less confusion about how to access services.

Successful Coordinated Transportation Services in Rural Communities

Many share the vision of improved mobility for all residents of rural communities and look forward to productive and cost-effective transportation services with much public support. But today many rural communities still face meager transportation funding, multiple funding sources and service objectives, limited services, and inadequate public interest and transportation investments. As a result, coordination initiatives are receiving even greater attention at all levels of government. A TCRP project focused on how to implement coordinated transportation services in rural communities. New data included a survey of coordination practices of all 50 states and case studies of dozens of coordinated transportation operations. Ten states and 29 local sites were found to offer significant lessons about procedures and strategies. These efforts resulted in a list of coordination strategies that rural communities could pursue toward realizing significant transportation benefits. Although the process can be challenging, coordination offers resource management strategies to improve the performance of various individual transportation services and overall mobility in a community. Greater efficiency helps to stretch scarce and precious funding and personnel resources of the agencies. Coordination can significantly reduce per trip operating costs for rural transportation providers. People with special transportation needs often benefit from the greater amount of transportation and higher-quality services when transportation providers coordinate operations. Coordinated transportation services often have access to more funds and are thus able to achieve economies of scale. They have more sources of funds and other resources. They also can offer more visible transportation services for consumers in rural communities and less confusion about how to access services.

Social inclusion implications of park-and-ride

Park and ride (P&R) schemes are often promoted as an efficient means of extending the effective catchment of public transport networks into car-dependent areas with low population densities, such as rural districts. However, using P&R typically requires the traveller to have access to a car. As car ownership is often used as an indicator of social inclusion, providing P&R for motorists is not an obvious means of reducing exclusion from travel opportunities. Nonetheless, the present article argues that policies to promote interchange from cars to bus or rail can act as a force for either greater or less social exclusion, depending on who can access the services and what the alternative options would be in the absence of P&R being provided. The conditions under which inclusion is most likely to be promoted are reviewed. Key findings are that P&R facilities should not be developed at the expense of investment in conventional public transport and that the services should not be exclusively aimed at motorists. A particular situation in which motorists on relatively low incomes might benefit from P&R provision is where they would otherwise face high access charges to urban areas, in the form of road tolls or parking fees.

Social inclusion implications of park-and-ride

Park and ride (P&R) schemes are often promoted as an efficient means of extending the effective catchment of public transport networks into car-dependent areas with low population densities, such as rural districts. However, using P&R typically requires the traveller to have access to a car. As car ownership is often used as an indicator of social inclusion, providing P&R for motorists is not an obvious means of reducing exclusion from travel opportunities. Nonetheless, the present article argues that policies to promote interchange from cars to bus or rail can act as a force for either greater or less social exclusion, depending on who can access the services and what the alternative options would be in the absence of P&R being provided. The conditions under which inclusion is most likely to be promoted are reviewed. Key findings are that P&R facilities should not be developed at the expense of investment in conventional public transport and that the services should not be exclusively aimed at motorists. A particular situation in which motorists on relatively low incomes might benefit from P&R provision is where they would otherwise face high access charges to urban areas, in the form of road tolls or parking fees.

Applying the new appraisal approach to transport policy at the local level in the UK

In 1998 the UK government introduced a new, integrated transport policy signalling a move away from the principles of ‘predict and provide’ towards those of ‘new realism’. As part of this policy shift, transport strategies are now to be assessed under the New Approach to Appraisal (NATA) which is designed to promote sustainability and provide a sterner test for new road proposals. Despite this, it is already evident that the construction of new roads has remained a cornerstone of the government’s new transport strategy––albeit alongside considerable investment in public transport––which has been described as pragmatic multimodalism. This paper examines how the new appraisal approach has been applied at the local level in the formulation of the first Local Transport Strategy (LTS) for Aberdeen in north east Scotland and questions the effectiveness of NATA (and its Scottish equivalent, the New Appraisal Methodology, or NAM), as currently formulated, at promoting the delivery of genuinely integrated and sustainable local transport strategies. The analysis of Aberdeen’s LTS is used to inform a discussion about the possible implications for future local transport policies across the UK.

AN INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON MOTORISATION IN URBAN CHINA: Problems and Prospects

During a period of economic reform, the People's Republic of China has emerged as an important market for multinational automobile manufacturers and a source of concern for “sustainable transport” advocates worried about the long-term sustainability of systems based on private automobiles and fossil fuels. Much of the growth in China's motor vehicle fleet and the negative consequences of that growth has been concentrated in China's large, economically dynamic coastal cities. Based on a large standardised 1995 database on urban transport, this paper compares characteristics of three of China's largest cities with cities around the world. This international comparative perspective suggests that in 1995, Chinese cities still had exceptionally high use of non-motorised and public transport modes. However, some characteristics of these cities indicated a high potential for extensive and rapid growth in private motor vehicles which could generate significant problems in the future. In particular, the relatively high population density and lack of reserved public transport routes suggested that the potential for highly concentrated negative impacts were in place, while the means of moving large numbers of people with lesser polluting modes of transport than the private motor vehicle were not in place. Finally, data on investment in public transport and freeways indicated that in the early 1990s the conditions were being created for rapid and continued motorisation. While in 1995 China's cities in some ways approximated a “sustainable transport” ideal, this is likely to have already changed substantially.

Wider roads, more cars

AbstractThe transport policy currently followed in many European cities seems to be a combination of investments in public transport in order to increase, or at least maintain, its market share, and road building in order to keep up with expected traffic growth. Apparently, there is a prevalent belief among policy makers that increased road capacity in urban areas does not in itself cause any growth in car traffic worth mentioning. Such a belief neglects the simple economic theory of supply and demand, as well as more specific theories about the dynamics of traffic under congested conditions. An empirical study of commuting patterns in two transport corridors in Oslo, Norway, shows that a considerable proportion of commuters are sensitive to changes in the speed of the respective modes of transportation. The mode chosen depends to a large extent on the ratio of door‐to‐door travel times by car and transit. Freer flowing traffic in the road network will induce a higher proportion of commuters to travel by car. Conversely, faster public transport will reduce the proportion of car commuters, but the effects of such improvements will be offset if road capacity is simultaneously increased. In addition to the relative speeds of car and transit, the parking conditions at the workplace are of great importance to the choice of transport mode.

Should we install road pricing?

The UK Transport Act 2000 gave local traffic authorities powers to introduce road pricing with an assurance that for at least ten years they will be allowed to keep the proceeds for investment in public transport or other local transport projects. It is possible that only a few local authorities will take up the offer but many more will wish to carry out studies of the possibilities before coming to a conclusion. For many authorities the decision will be affected by what alternative sources of finance are available. Decisions could be reviewed; perhaps most authorities will come to the conclusion ‘not now but maybe in future’. They may wish to study the possibilities now so that if and when the time is right, they will be able to recognise it. This paper sets out the main issues affecting a decision and the criteria for developing policies towards road pricing. The paper also draws a distinction between compulsory or negative road pricing as a means of restricting road traffic and optional or positive road pricing as a means of improving the use of road space and in particular, securing bus priority in the right locations.

Getting to Work and Other Places the Poor Have to Go

Lack of reliable transportation is a major barrier to linking current welfare recipients with job opportunities. Both private vehicles and public transportation play key roles in accessing jobs. Local investments in public transportation vary significantly from area to area, resulting in disparities of what level of investment is required to ensure that adequate transportation is available for those who need it. Even in communities well-served by public transportation, current services may be inadequate for providing transportation for former welfare recipients joining the work force, especially when work transportation is linked to the need to access child care, training, education, and other services. Based on extensive work carried out by anthropologists at the USF Center for Urban Transportation Research, this presentation covers two main issues: (1) an overview of the Florida WAGES program and of efforts pertaining to welfare to work and access to jobs in other states; (2) the extent to which WAGES and public transportation programs are integrated and coordinated at the local and state level in Florida. The research was funded from the Center's base operating funds provided by the Florida Board of Regents.

The rise and fall of the heroic transport plan for Stockholm

In this article the author considers reasons for the abandonment of the Swedish Government's ambitious plan for the Stockholm road system, known as the Dennis agreement. The heart of the Dennis agreement was the ring road around Stockholm. The western part of the ring road is already in place but, to complete the ring, three big projects are needed - the North Link, the East Link and the South Link. Each of these investments amounts to about SEK 5 billion. Of the 14 remaining kilometres needed to complete the ring road, not less than 12 km would be freeways in tunnels. Outside the ring road a semicircle of roads would pass Stockholm. The key project in this semicircle was the controversial SEK 5 billion West Link over lake Maelaren with 9.3 km of freeways in tunnel. The road investments would be financed with earmarked road tolls. Just outside the ring a fee of SEK 22 would be charged for all traffic going into Stockholm. Trucks would pay three times the fee for passenger cars. The fee was planned to be the same day and night. The West Link of the semicircle would have a lower fee. Among the public transport investments are two big projects. A rail investment would be made in order to increase the rail capacity from the Central station of Stockholm and south through the Old Town. The other is a streetcar system that would go around Stockholm in a horseshoe pattern outside the inner ring road but inside the outer semicircle. The author concludes that the project may have incurred a wastage of SEK 700 million on engineering studies for roads which will not now be built, and that this failure was caused by inadequate social cost-benefit analysis.

Why doesn’t investment in public transport reduce urban traffic congestion?

There is urban traffic congestion in most parts of the world, including Latin America. Among the measures aimed at solving this problem, many cities have built suburban railways or metros. However, these have had little or no effect, as is shown by studies which indicate that investments in the public transport system are incapable of solving this problem on their cars. This article takes the view that when a new metro line or similar system is opened, many travellers who previously used the buses transfer to it, as do a few who previously used their cars.

The potential scope for the application of pollution permits to reducing car ownership in the UK: Some preliminary thoughts

The application of the National Traffic Growth Forecasts published in 1989 to concurrently published vehicle ownership figures produces a projected total of a possible 35 million vehicles on the UK's roads by the year 2025. This projection, compounded by strong evidence of increasing vehicle usage, implies increased levels of congestion and, in all probability, increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this prognosis the Government has fallen a long way short of committing itself to strong traffic management policies, such as the introduction of road pricing and significant increases in fuel duties. Whilst acknowledging the potential role of such measures, this paper seeks to consider whether the concept of tradable pollution permits, which, increasingly, are being used in the USA to limit emissions from fixed points, can have any application to reducing levels of car ownership, and hence congestion and pollution. It suggests that car licence tax discs, obtained through the payment of Vehicle Excise Duty, should be limited in number and auctioned on the free market, with the total number in circulation being reduced on a continual basis. The monies raised from these auctions would be recycled for investment in public transport in order to reduce the inevitable hardship that would result from people being denied access to car ownership. It is concluded that, whilst such an initiative would be politically unpopular, it would necessarily succeed in halting the upward spiral of car ownership, congestion and pollution, and would, given the appropriate political response, act as a strong imperative for governments to refocus their policies on public transport.