Large Transport Infrastructure Research Articles

Strategic Initiatives for Large Transport Infrastructure Planning: Reinforcing Sustainability in Urban Transportation through Better Stakeholder Engagement

An efficacious stakeholder engagement process is instrumental in achieving success in large transport infrastructure projects. This is due to the integral role of public stakeholders’ participation in the decision-making process. The purpose of this study is to explore the key components that are essential for an effective public stakeholder engagement process in large transport infrastructure projects. The paper entails an in-depth analysis of stakeholder management processes, large transport infrastructure complexities, and stakeholder engagement as a holistic framework. A mixed-methods approach is adopted, together with a comparative case study design utilizing various data from large transport infrastructure projects. The findings demonstrate that the engagement framework and objectives are the key components of large transport infrastructure planning. Moreover, such components are dependent upon the characteristics of public stakeholders and the project scope. These findings can assist transport planners in devising effective techniques for stakeholder engagement during the initiation of such projects.

Flows as Makers and Breakers of Port-Territory Metabolic Relations: The Case of the Loire Estuary

Ports worldwide are shifting from their original locations, and the reasons behind these patterns of port development are multifaceted. Reasons for locational changes may include local factors such as natural conditions, or global trends like containerisation. This article argues that flows play a significant role in making and breaking metabolic relations between spaces. The authors use a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to characterise the evolution of port and territory interactions. A historical sequencing illustrates the successive phases of connection and disconnection between port and non-port spaces over the years. Drawing from the urban metabolism framework, the analysis of a port’s traffic structure demonstrates how flows influence a port’s extraterritoriality. For this research, the case of the Loire estuary was chosen: the Grand Maritime Port of Nantes Saint-Nazaire is a polycentric port that originated in Nantes and extended coastward in Saint-Nazaire. The case study reveals that a port reaching an urban area does not necessarily mean it will engage or support metropolitan development. Moreover, it concludes that flows are active drivers of territorial development in port regions. The research more broadly discusses the extraterritoriality of large logistics and transport infrastructure, like that of ports.

Cost-effective selective hydrogen sensor based on the combination of catalytic spillover effect and impedance measurement

Selective measurement of hydrogen in the natural gas grid as large transport and storage infrastructure is a crucial requirement for establishing a hydrogen economy. Cost-effective sensors must face mainly two critical conditions: (i) absence of oxygen contents capable for ensuring the sensor function and (ii) presence of a large surplus of another reducing gas, methane. The developed Pt/TiO2 sensor is based on the combination of the catalytic spillover effect and an impedance measurement. It allows hydrogen detection in a wide concentration range and it is specific for hydrogen while other gases such as methane or carbon dioxide behave like inert gases. The sensor curve with decreasing relative sensitivity for higher hydrogen concentrations and the temperature dependence of the sensor effect are in agreement with the spillover-based sensor principle, where hydrogen is activated on Pt and then spills over onto the TiO2 where it acts as electron donor.

The contributions of socio-environmental information maps in an environmental mobilisation: the case of a fight against a highway project in France

ABSTRACT Large linear transport infrastructure projects, such as highways connecting large metropolitan areas, are continuously under development in France. Although the economic and social benefits of such projects are often disputed, their impacts on the environment and local populations are multiple. These potential impacts almost systematically result in conflicts between decision-makers and planners on one side, and local actors with various profiles (e.g. farmers, residents, environmental associations) mobilised against the projects on the other. In the context of a citizen mobilisation against the A45 highway project in eastern France, this study aimed to analyse the social contributions of maps in terms of information reception. The study is based on the creation of maps representing combined spatial impacts (on mobility, housing, land, landscapes, agriculture, and ecosystems). These maps, created by researchers, were presented in the form of posters aimed at opening discussions with non-experts. The maps created an original medium for discussing and debating the impacts of a highway project through the participatory encounter. Under the lens of spatial and environmental justice, this study questions the discrepancies between who makes decisions on a project and who suffers its impacts, and also raises questions about the position of scientific research in citizen mobilisation.

Monitoring the Impact of Large Transport Infrastructure on Land Use and Environment Using Deep Learning and Satellite Imagery

Large-scale infrastructure, such as China–Europe Railway Express (CER-Express), which connects countries and regions across Asia and Europe, has a potentially profound effect on land use, as evidenced by changes in land cover along the railway. To ensure sustainable development of such infrastructure and appropriate land administration, effective ways to monitor and assess its impact need to be developed. Remote sensing based on publicly available satellite imagery represents an obvious choice. In the study presented here, we employ a state-of-the-art deep-learning-based approach to automatically detect different types of land cover based on multispectral Sentinel-2 imagery. We then use these data to conduct and present a study of the changes in land use in two geopolitically diverse regions of interest (in Serbia and China and with and without CER-Express infrastructure) for the period of the last three years. Our results show that the standard image-patch-based land cover classification approaches suffer a significant drop in performance in our target scenario in which each pixel needs to be assigned a cove class, but still, validate the applicability of the proposed approach as a remote sensing tool to support the sustainable development of large infrastructure. We discuss the technical limitations of the proposed approach in detail and potential ways in which it can be improved.

Review of Management Comprehensiveness on Occupational Health and Safety for PPP Transportation Projects

Sustainability of large transport infrastructure projects is directly linked with the working conditions and procedures in construction and maintenance. Furthermore, safety is one of the most crucial performance indicators for transport infrastructure operators, dealing with management priorities, policies and measures closely related to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). This issue is extremely important especially for public private partnerships (PPP), extensively adopted in transport sector in many regions, where detailed contacts and OHS provisions should be considered. By a systemic analysis, this research identifies the key management factors influence safety performance in the PPP/concession projects and the management comprehensives over those factors. The survey analysis framework for the evaluation of OHS management performance for large transport operators are breakdown, promoting the structure and the expected outcomes toward sustainable management of transport infrastructure. The application is the Greek motorways concessions projects that implemented in the last decade. The research outputs provide key messages to planners, managers, decision makers, and stakeholders over large transport infrastructure sustainable development, promoting OHS performance aspects should be taken into consideration in operation management contacts and highlighting the link between OHS, level of safety, and sustainability. The case study structure and outputs are valuable for comparisons with similar cases, provide the framework for using in other places and/or cases and stimulate the interest for further research.

Attracting investment in the Far Eastern Federal District's transport infrastructure as a factor in ensuring the economic security of the region

Subject. This article deals with the issues of the Far Eastern Federal District's transport infrastructure. Objectives. The article aims to determine the importance of transport infrastructure in terms of the State of regional economic security and estimate the investment climate and the prospects of large transport infrastructure projects implementation. Methods. For the study, I used the formal-logical and expert assessment methods. Results. The article determines the position of the transport infrastructure in the system of economic security of the region considering the Far Eastern Federal District as a case study. It describes the particularities and prospects of attracting investment in large transport infrastructure projects. Conclusions. The advanced development of the Far Eastern Federal District is impossible without the implementation of major investment projects. It is necessary to attract private investment through the formation of a favorable investment climate and introduction of modern mechanisms of public-private partnership.

Vascular plants occurrences in the Southern Urals industrial towns (Sterlitamak and Salavat).

BackgroundThe paper presents datasets of plant species of two industrial cities Sterlitamak and Salavat (Republic of Bashkortostan) is presented. These cities are part of the Southern Bashkortostan urban agglomeration and are amongst the three largest in the Republic. The population of Sterlitamak is about 276,000. There are large oil refineries and other large industrial transport infrastructure facilities. Datasets are prepared on the basis of long-time field research by Ya. Golovanov (2008 - 2016). Technical preparation of the datasets was carried out by M. Lebedeva and M. Drap. The herbarium samples are stored in the herbarium collections of the South Ural Botanical Garden Institute and the Ufa Institute of Biology (UFA). The data paper describes three datasets on species occurrences. It presents occurrences of species in different types of habitats (anthropogenically transformed and semi-natural). The datasets consists of 5,462 occurrence records totally. Most of the records (5,359) are georeferenced.New informationThe total number of records in three datasets is 5,462. They contain of vascular plant species occurrences in the two industrial cities of the Southern Urals (Sterlitamak and Salavat). There are both alien and natural species occurrences in different types of habitats (antropogenically transformed and semi-natural).

Updating National Air Passenger Demand from Traffic Counts: The Case of a Secondary Airport in an Underdeveloped Region

Demand models allow to estimate the choices made by users on different alternatives. Demand models depend on the characteristic attributes of the users and transport networks, as well as on parameters. Their significance translates into the reliability of the model in reproducing users’ choices as demand values. Traffic counts are aggregated data that can be used to update demand values of O/D matrix and/or for re-calibrating parameters from sets of parameters obtained in different situations or at different times in the same scenario using a reverse assignment modal. This paper provides the use of passenger counts to update national air transport demand by calibrating a hierarchical logit model. The application focuses on estimating the demand values for a secondary airport of an underdeveloped European region with the calibration of the logsum parameter working between distribution and modal choice. The updated model can be used to test new conditions for the supply of a new service or to increase the frequency or to modify the ticket level by means of public service obligations. The results show that the introduction of public obligations in the secondary airport in an underdeveloped region is crucial for future sustainability. Considering the decline in the economic, social and environmental sustainability in the region, the airport is central to economic and social development at the same time as being important for environmental sustainability, as it limits the impacts on the territory related to the construction of large transport infrastructures.

Value Co-Creation between Public Service Organizations and the Private Sector: An Organizational Capabilities Perspective

Theoretically based on public service logic (PSL), this paper explores the barriers and capabilities surrounding public sector value co-creation with private sector organizations in the context of digital transformation. Specifically, value co-creation efforts at a large public transport and rail infrastructure provider are examined from multiple perspectives using an exploratory case study approach. Based on qualitative interview data, six barriers that hinder value co-creation in public service ecosystems and five corresponding organizational capabilities required to overcome them are identified. The study contributes to the field of public management research by shedding light on the concept of value co-creation in public-private sector digitalization collaborations.

Regulating urban densification: what factors should be used?

<strong>Highlights</strong> Urban densification is increasingly accepted as a necessity and is important for no-net land take. Densification occurs in many places, especially fast-growing cities with a combination of demographic change, economic pressure and large transport infrastructure projects. The costs and benefits of density require a nuanced understanding: potential direct, indirect and cumulative effects (environmental, economic and social), both on- and off-site. The optimisation of densities implies a need to identify the conditions that can create the most value for the city, specify the places most appropriate for future inhabitants and activities, and promote spatial justice. The papers published in this special issue converge in depicting urban densification as a complex, nonlinear process, which has to be addressed at various scales. Multifactorial metrics of density are superior to aggregated ones because they offer a better understanding of the urban forms and how they are experienced by inhabitants and users. Both hard and soft densification have to be duly monitored and regulated if cities are to avoid overcrowding of places and buildings, which can be detrimental to urban resilience. The relation between urban densification and housing affordability is a critical factor that policymakers must address.

Timelines of Transportation Infrastructure Delivery 2000 to 2018 in Toronto, Canada and London, UK

This paper explores the timelines of large transportation infrastructure delivery, from first proposal to construction and opening in London, UK and Toronto, Canada. The goal of the paper is to identify both how long it takes projects to go from idea to delivery, the relative time of different stages in the delivery process, and if projects with long timelines see physical or technological changes in their design. This work contributes to two ongoing discussions around the speed of infrastructure delivery, one that argues infrastructure moves too slowly and major efforts are needed to speed delivery and another that argues that good infrastructure thinking requires time to breathe and care should be taken in rushing through the delivery process. Detailed delivery timelines from initial proposal to construction or operation are developed for 26 transportation projects (16 in Toronto and 10 in London) between the years 2000 and 2018. For each project the timelines of inception, approval, planning, procurement, environmental assessment, construction and operational phases are identified and compared. Long informal gestation periods are identified for many projects, particularly for linear projects. In many instances the informal gestation period dwarfs the time projects spent in formal planning. This research highlights the need to expand the conception of timeliness of infrastructure delivery to include the lengthy periods of informal debate and planning that can span years and build up community expectations about the imminence of a project, even before it has received formal assessment or approval. Detailed delivery timelines from initial proposal to construction or operation are developed for 26 transportation projects (16 in Toronto and 10 in London) between the years 2000 and 2018. For each project the timelines of inception, approval, planning, procurement, environmental assessment, construction and operational phases are identified and compared. Long informal gestational periods are identified for many projects, particularly for linear projects. In many instances the informal gestation period dwarfs the time projects spent in formal planning. This research highlights the need to expand the conception of timeliness of infrastructure delivery to include the lengthy periods of informal debate and planning that can span years and build up community expectations about the imminence of a project, even before it has received formal assessment or approval.

Subcentres as Destinations: Job Decentralization, Polycentricity, and the Sustainability of Commuting Patterns in Canadian Metropolitan Areas, 1996–2016

Adopting more sustainable modes of transportation and shorter daily commutes remains a fundamental challenge in the struggle for the sustainable transition of cities. While past studies on the sustainability of commuting behaviours partly focused on the place of residence and how the characteristics of commuters or residential neighbourhoods impact sustainable travel, other studies looked at the place of employment to analyze these dynamics. In this study, we investigate the extent to which the recent phase of the rise of peripheral employment has promoted more sustainable travel behaviour, based on the hypothesis that polycentricity has recently favoured a better job–housing balance and co-location. We develop a general typology of employment centres, using Census microdata at fine spatial scale over the 1996–2016 period to observe commuting modes and distances by subcentre types for six major Canadian cities. Our results show that despite recent developments in planning practices—transit-oriented development, transport infrastructure, and changing travel behaviour, the emergence of peripheral subcentres promoted less sustainable commuting patterns in most Canadian metropolitan areas over the period. However, we find sustainable commuting emerging in subcentres where large public transport infrastructure investments have been made, such as in the case of Vancouver’s Millennium and Canada lines. Our study also shows that central business districts (CBDs) and downtown subcentres are becoming relatively more sustainable over the period, which confirms the positive effect of the back-to-the-city movement and changing behaviour toward active transportation in these locations.

Systemic Planning (SP): A Generic Framework for Complex Decision Making

The generic framework for planning and decision support presented in this paper and referred to as systemic planning (SP) is the result of research work carried out by the Decision Modelling Group at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). More specifically, SP theory and methodology development has interchanged with practical application and testing of SP in a number of cases. SP is based on combining and operationalising five different systems thinking approaches: functional, interpretive, emancipatory, post-modern and complexity-oriented that are seen to span current systems thinking. These approaches are behind five formulated modes of enquiry (MOEs) that make up some of the iteratively interwoven steps in a formulated SP process, which is assisted by a study-specific subset of methods. These are selected from a toolbox of seven soft (qualitative) and seven hard (quantitative) operations research (OR) methods. The paper is disposed as follows: After an introduction that outlines the five systems thinking approaches and their MOEs, the paper presents SP in an overview as concerns process and tools and SP as a group proces. Then follows an application example where the potential of SP is demonstrated on the planning of a large transport infrastructure case concerning the Rail Baltica transport project, which is part of the EU’s North Sea - Baltic TEN-T corridor. The case shows how issues around growth and sustainability need to be explicitly considered in the planning of large new transport infrastructure. Finally, following a discussion of the main features of SP, some findings and a perspective are stated.

Transport corridors and their wider economic benefits: A quantitative review of the literature

AbstractTransport corridors can generate both wider economic benefits (WEBs) and costs through their effects on diverse development outcomes. To advance understanding of how corridors could generate WEBs, this paper undertakes a quantitative review and meta‐analysis of the literature that estimates the impacts of large transport infrastructure projects. The analysis finds that characteristics of individual studies and the design of the transport infrastructure influence estimated benefits. It also shows that, on average, while corridor interventions tend to benefit economic welfare and equity, they often detrimentally impact the environment. To mitigate trade‐offs, policymakers can consider using complementary interventions.

Attribute of the Effects Diversification to Eco-System from Large Investments in Supply Chain

In most of the cases the decision to invest in a new large transport infrastructure project t is not simple, mainly, because the complications in planning process, the amount of capital need to invest before the business establishment and the high number of stakeholders involved in decision process. The decision process is more complicated in restricted economic conditions and financing assumptions, where the project business plan performance is strongly related to regional development prospects and business sectors enlargement. This paper provides an attribute methodology approach to support decisions in large transport infrastructure projects based on the effects diversification to ecosystem affected by the new projects. The proposed methodology provides an evaluation framework based on a combination of an ex-ante assessment analysis taking into consideration the large transport infrastructure projects economic impact and its contribution to enlargement of the sectors of the ecosystem.

Governance regimes for large transport infrastructure investment projects: Comparative analysis of Norway and Sweden

The two Nordic countries Norway and Sweden have launched governance regimes for the early phases of transport infrastructure investments after experiencing frequent cost overruns and low cost-benefit ratios. This study seeks to find out if these governance regimes have reduced the escalation of costs from early estimates to finalized projects and influenced the choice of projects away from those with lower benefit to cost ratios. We have compared governance regimes for major transport infrastructure investments in the two countries and examined the development and content of quality assurance activities, the involvement of internal and external parties, their duties and responsibilities, their stage gate models, and how decisions are made. The findings are that both countries have introduced formalizations of their governance regimes that mandate project reviews during the planning process and quality assurance, both of which have increased early cost estimates. One difference was that in Norway, the Ministry of Finance manages the quality assurance scheme and imposes external quality assurance requirements, while Sweden has no corresponding ministerial oversight. Therefore, on the one hand, the process is more strictly formalized in Norway, but on the other hand, cost-benefit ratios appear to have more weight in Sweden. Furthermore, although both countries have done several ex post evaluations, neither country has introduced a formalized ex post evaluation process allowing for systematic examination of the causes of cost overruns and low benefit to cost ratios. Even so, politicians may manoeuvre projects with lower benefit to cost ratios around the governance systems in both countries. Finally, some projects in both countries still have experienced significant cost escalations despite these processes.

The wider economic benefits of transport corridors: a policy framework and illustrative application to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

This paper discusses a new policy framework to appraise proposals of large transport infrastructure investments—transport corridors—and applies it to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The framework emphasizes the need to focus the appraisal of transport corridor investments on outcomes that go beyond savings in travel time and reductions in vehicle operating costs, and even beyond intermediate outcomes such as trade and agglomeration. The focus should be on the ultimate benefits that households along a corridor, and, more generally, society, can attain—such as increased consumption, better jobs, and greater equity. It also emphasizes the need to identify and manage trade-offs. For example, household income could increase at the expense of environmental degradation. Or alongside winners, a corridor, may also create many losers. The appraisal framework is applied to Pakistan’s portion of the CPEC, using reduced-form econometrics and allowing the impacts of transport corridors to depend on initial market conditions and institutions. The simulations suggest important heterogeneous impacts of CPEC among districts in Pakistan stemming from the variations in restrictions on land use and in secondary education across connected districts.

A crack in the Swedish welfare façade? A review of assessing social impacts in transport infrastructure planning

A comparison of social impact categorisation in strategic planning across European Union Member States shows that Sweden neither categorises nor breaks down categories of social impact in areas such as transport infrastructure development. This is surprising because Sweden is known as a country concerned about social issues and having a high standard of welfare. This article accordingly studies how social issues are handled during transport infrastructure planning. An analysis of different source materials will answer four research questions: 1) To what extent are social impacts integrated into environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports? 2) Are social impacts sufficiently integrated and/or does this treatment simply amount to ‘good practice’? 3) Can any trend be detected over time in terms of addressing social issues in impact assessments? 4) What key measures could increase the influence of social impact issues on transport infrastructure planning practice? The study involved a content analysis of six EIA handbooks and EIA statements (EISs) for 18 large transport infrastructure projects. The concepts searched for in these documents largely apply to issues of vulnerability, health, social problems, perceived safety, and alienation. Our data were interpreted through the theoretical lens of institutional interplay. We found that though social aspects are not new considerations in EIA research, they are included in only a small proportion of the 18 Swedish EISs, mostly in connection with health and accessibility. We believe that this does not suffice. We also found that the more recent documents allotted less space to social issues. It is unlikely that most individuals in the organisations that order EISs, or the consultancies that write them, are unaware of the broader interpretation of ‘human beings’ which includes social aspects. Based on increasing interest in social issues in planning and due to the lack of national goals and guidelines in this area, some municipalities and consultants have begun to create their own methods of measuring and assessing social impacts. This has resulted in multiple local-level practitioners who want to develop social issues within impact assessment, and possibly also to introduce a social impact assessment framework, but with no management or coordination among them. The conclusion is that in the absence of a government initiative to clarify how social impacts can be addressed in transport infrastructure planning, there is a need for an external network for organisations involved in transport infrastructure EISs.

Policy on Sustainable Transport in England: The Case of High Speed 2

The achievement of sustainable transport is often a clearly stated objective of government policy, but in England there is no National Sustainable Transport Strategy (NSTS). This paper outlines the nature of sustainable transport arguing for a strategic approach that takes account of the means to reduce travel through substitution and shorter trips, as well as making best use of all modes and reducing reliance on carbon-based energy sources. It reviews the recent austerity phase of UK transport policy (2010-2015) where revenue support has been cut, but capital expenditure has increased, and it comments on the difficulties of making decisions on large scale transport infrastructure projects in the absence of a NSTS. The recent policy statements and initiatives on transport and sustainability are covered, looking backwards and forwards. It then takes the case of High Speed 2 (HS2) and identifies five main narratives in the debates over the arguments in support of this huge investment. It seems that sustainable transport has not been a central part of that debate, and there is a need to reframe the discussion on HS2, as part of a NSTS.