Transport Policy-making Research Articles

Inside the black box: EU policy officers' perspectives on transport and climate change mitigation

Transport is a significant and growing contributor to climate change. To stay within ‘safe’ global warming guardrails requires substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. This represents a global political consensus, but there is evidence that current legislation in the transport sector is not significant enough to achieve medium- and longer-term reduction goals. In focusing on the European Union, this paper investigates the perspectives of twelve policy officers in three Directorates-General (MOVE, CLIMA, ENV) of the European Commission with regard to their understanding of mitigation goals and timelines, responsibilities for policy development and implementation, and perceived efficiencies of these policies to achieve climate objectives in the transport sector. Results indicate diverging and common views on climate policy goals and political responsibilities, as well as barriers to policy-making, including lack of political leadership on climate change mitigation, resistance from member states, the favoring of economic growth over cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, pressure from industry and lobby groups, preferential treatment of aero- and automobility over more sustainable transport modes, policy implementation delays, insufficient forecasting and monitoring tools, and an overreliance on technologies to contribute to emission reductions. In offering a view inside the ‘black box’ of transport policy-making, the paper reveals fundamental institutional (structural) and individual (agency-based) barriers that will have to be overcome if significant emission cuts in the transport sector are to be achieved.

A multimodal approach to assessing accessibility of a high-speed railway station

In China, accessibility has been profoundly improved by the large-scale construction and operation of high-speed rail (HSR), with far-reaching implications for population flows and socioeconomic development. As a novel attempt to compare the shortest travel times, accessible regions, service populations, and population potential of one- to four-hour isochrones under four scenarios in Tanggu Railway Station (i.e., base scenario, hypothetical scenario 1, hypothetical scenario 2, and actual scenario), this paper analyses three factors' influences on and contributions to accessibility change: the advent of HSR, conventional railway route adjustment, and road network improvement. The results indicate that station accessibility significantly improved from 2007 to 2012. HSR has not only brought a time-space contraction effect to the region from the station to the north-western area but also strengthened interactions among different regions. Due to the reduction of some conventional railway routes, the shortest travel times from the station to the north-eastern areas have slightly increased. Although this factor has some negative effects, it has not affected the ascending trend of enhanced accessibility. Road network improvement is identified as a key factor with balanced impacts on all four-hour isochrones. The results of this study generate supportive information for the planning and construction of HSR stations and networks and provide references for comprehensive transport policymaking.

The political economy of public transport pricing and supply decisions

This paper studies the political economy of public transport pricing and quality decisions in a hypothetical two-region federation. In each region there are two types of people: people not owning a car using only public transport, and car owners that demand both public transport and car trips. Each group may be a majority in the region and may also travel in the other region. Under regional decision-making, the political process may result in very low public transport fares, even if car owners are a large majority of the population. Cost recovery always improves with the share of outside users. Second, imposing a zero deficit constraint on regional public transport operators implements the second-best welfare optimum. Third, decentralized decision making leads to higher fares and better cost recovery. Our findings are consistent with very large public transport subsidies in Europe, and with the tendency towards decentralization of public transport policy-making.

Immense changes in traffic – Considerable stability in discourses. Road speed in Danish parliamentary documents 1900–2010

Research on road safety acknowledges speed as having a major impact on both the number and severity of road crashes, and this seems to have been translated into policies. However, a closer look reveals that the societal debate and political context also seem to play a major role in the way road safety policies are shaped. Yet, the knowledge on the political discourse regarding speeding and speed management is scarce. In this paper, we analyze the ways speed has been managed and legislated in transport policymaking by studying Danish parliamentary documents from 1903 through 2010. Analyzing the material qualitatively in two phases, first, we looked for notable policy shifts in the material, and consequently identified five historical periods. Second, we analyzed these periods in more detail, and identified and analyzed four repetitive discourses about speed across them, which were as follows: speed, individual rights and responsibilities; speed and safety; speed, policy measures, and law enforcement; and speed and other societal goals. While the transport system has undergone a massive change during the last 100 years, we found a considerable stability in the discourses regarding speed policies. The themes and patterns we distinguished in the documents occurred repeatedly. Certain discourses are strongly connected to the way speed is discussed and governed, and these are likely to emerge when speed policies are taken up in the parliamentary context. We conclude that in addition to the current prominent discourses, past discourses may have a strong influence on the way safety measures and policies are being understood and accepted.

Cost-benefit Analysis (CBA), or Multi-criteria Decision-making (MCDM) or Both: Politicians’ Perspective in Transport Policy Appraisal

The scientific literature frequently discusses questions if cost-benefit analysis (CBA) or multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is the appropriate appraisal tool in transport policy-making, or a combination of both. Hardly any literature exists on the opinions of real transport policy decision-makers about appraisal tools such as CBA or MCDM (or both) which are actually supposed to help them. The aim of this paper is to discuss from a politicians’ perspective how a useful transport policy appraisal tool might look like. Twenty-one Dutch transport politicians were interviewed on their views on CBA. The results show that they use CBA but in a non-decisive manner and they find the aggregate outcome (the composite result) of CBAs pretentious. They seem especially interested in appraisal tools which show clearly to them the political important trade-offs of a transport policy. This paper proposes a possible approach for such a trade-off information sheet using both CBA and MCDM.

Model for Estimation Urban Transportation Supply-Demand Ratio

The paper establishes an estimation model of urban transportation supply-demand ratio (TSDR) to quantitatively describe the conditions of an urban transport system and to support a theoretical basis for transport policy-making. This TSDR estimation model is supported by the system dynamic principle and the VENSIM (an application that simulates the real system). It was accomplished by long-term observation of eight cities’ transport conditions and by analyzing the estimated results of TSDR from fifteen sets of refined data. The estimated results indicate that an urban TSDR can be classified into four grades representing four transport conditions: “scarce supply,” “short supply,” “supply-demand balance,” and “excess supply.” These results imply that transport policies or measures can be quantified to facilitate the process of ordering and screening them.

Ambulation Aid Use and User Performance for Transit Vehicle Interior Design

Public transportation plays an important role in shaping urban quality of life. However, urban transportation design and policy-making lacks a strong human factors knowledge base for accommodating a functionally diverse ridership including the aging and mobility impaired. This study examines seating configurations in contemporary low-floor buses and user performance for mobility impaired passengers. Task times in sitting and rising were obtained in a laboratory study using a static full-scale low-floor bus mock-up from – cane users (n=10), walker users (n=22), persons with visual impairment (n=17), and without any impairments (n=17). Significant differences in sitting and rising times across longitudinal vs. transverse seats by user group are demonstrated along with regression estimates to facilitate design evaluations. Implications of these findings, recommendations for improved low-floor bus designs and the relevance of ergonomics methods for safety, usability, and efficiency are presented.

Transportation Apartheid

Transportation policy in the United States has historically been the locus of social change, playing a signifcant role in social policy – like the 20th century Civil Rights movement – and economic policy. This research suggests that current transportation policymaking practices favor certain groups, primarily automobile users and suburban commuters, at the expense of other groups, mostly poor and urban minority populations who rely on public transportation modes. Transportation policy in the United States is socially unjust because it does not reward the costs and benefits of public policy equally; current policies have negative implications for the efficacy of democracy. Public administrators are poised to play a significant role in ameliorating such injustices, and this research suggests a few ways all public agencies and their employees can contribute to a more just transportation policymaking environment.

Incorporating Measures of Subjective Well Being into the Measurement of Transport Equity

The socio-cultural and economic distributional impacts of transportation projects are key elements of both individual project decisions and transportation policymaking. One of these dimensions, transportation equity, roughly defined as the relative distribution of benefits and burdens of transportation investments, goods and services, is a growing area of both policy and academic concern. Most 'equity' measures are 'objective' in that they use quantitative metrics of actual burden as seen and defined by outside observers. This article examines a subjective measure of burden (the Subjective Wellbeing Index) which captures how satisfied people are with their lives on a number of domains. While this concept has been used in studies of economic development and general disadvantage, it has never been used before in the context of transport disadvantage. This article will thus accomplish a first by looking at transport costs using a subjective well-being framework using a case study of Australia and the Household Income and Labour Dynamics Survey of Australia (HILDA).

Interstate: highway politics and policy since 1939

new, expanded edition brings the story of the Interstates into the twenty-first century. It includes an account of the destruction of homes, businesses, and communities as the urban expressways of the highway network destroyed large portions of the nation s central cities. Mohl and analyze the subsequent urban freeway revolts, when citizen protest groups battled highway builders in San Francisco, Baltimore, Memphis, New Orleans, Washington, DC, and other cities. Their detailed research in the archival records of the Bureau of Roads, the Federal Highway Administration, and the U.S. Department of Transportation brings to light significant evidence of federal action to tame the spreading freeway revolts, curb the authority of state highway engineers, and promote the devolution of transportation decision making to the state and regional level. They analyze the passage of congressional legislation in the 1990s, especially the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), that initiated a major shift of Highway Trust Fund dollars to mass transit and light rail, as well as to hiking trails and bike lanes. Mohl and conclude with the surprising popularity of the recent freeway teardown movement, an effort to replace deteriorating, environmentally damaging, and sometimes dangerous elevated expressway segments through the inner cities. Sometimes led by former anti-highway activists of the 1960s and 1970s, teardown movements aim to restore the urban street grid, provide space for new streetcar lines, and promote urban revitalization efforts. revised edition continues to be marked by accessible writing and solid research by two well-known Raymond A. Mohl is distinguished professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author of South of the South: Jewish Activists and the Civil Rights Movement in Miami, 1945-1960 and co-editor of The Making of Urban America, 3rd edition. Mark H. is professor of history at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of Cities of Light and Heat: Domesticating Gas and Electricity in Urban America and coauthor of The Best Transportation System in the World: Railroads, Trucks, Airlines and in the Twentieth Century. Praise for the previous edition of Interstate The tale that Mark relates in great detail is an illuminating one of pressure politics, revealing aspects of the fragmentation of social and political life rarely examined by scholars. Richard Lowitt, American The best researched, most readable single document on the formation of U.S. auto-dominant policy. . Robert C. Stuart, Policy Studies Rose has done pioneering work in highway history. is a small book but an important one. We are becoming more acutely aware that in our world technology and politics are inextricably intertwined. Here is an excellent case study. John B. Rae, ISIS An extensively researched, brief, and important study that adds to our knowledge of interest group politics and the impact of the motor vehicle in the United States. Blaine A. Brownell, American Historical Review An excellent contribution to political and transportation history. an extremely useful account of the various hearings, conferences, and behind-the-scenes maneuverings that finally led to federal absorption of 90 percent of construction costs through the instrumentality of the Highway Trust Fund. an impressive beginning to historical scholarship on a vastly important topic. Kenneth T. Jackson, Journal of HistoryA remarkably thorough, objective survey and analysis of the role of various interest groups in fashioning highway policies in the 1940s and 1950s. a pioneer, definitive examination of highway development and transportation policy-making from the standpoints of various special interest groups. Michael Robinson, Public Works Historical Society This volume will fill an important area in many collections that probably have several volumes on transportation development after 1956. Persons interested in political processes, policy formation, and urban history will find this volume a useful and important contribution toward understanding the post-World War II period. Choice

Cycles of Protest: How Urban Cyclists Act Like Insurgents

That is a question for a Ph.D. in sociology. Like, what's up with the street wars? Why is this provoking so much passion and energy at the moment. I am not a Ph.D. in sociology. lam an elected official ... Some people think, Wow, this is opening up the city to me in a whole new way and I love what it does to the street, ' and a whole other set of people are saying 7 like my street the way it was and I don't know why we are changing it like this. ' And then that gets mixed up with demographics and politics and media and the blogosphere and then you have this sociologically quite fascinating mix. 2- Councilman Brad Lander, press conference on steps of CityHall, March 7, 2011.1.1 INTRODUCTIONThis paper examines the formation of a movement and countermovement in response to a bike lane installed along Prospect Park West (PPW) in Brooklyn. The paper will briefly explain the emergence of urban cyclists as a social movement, then explore how a countermovement in opposition to the bike lane in Brooklyn mobilized, forged a collective identity, and waged an effective campaign of resistance, focusing on the role of resources, framing, and leadership within the movement. What triggered this movement was the overreach by a radical fringe of cyclists, and their endorsement by an unpopular mayor and transportation commissioner. The bike lane itself was almost an afterthought - a proxy for latent resentment of how a vocal yet powerful minority group was able to reconfigure New York's streets without sufficient consultation. The paper holds important lessons for social movement and urban policy theory, as well as for improved public, urban, and transportation policymaking.1.2 Research Design and MethodologyThis paper employs a case study of a contentious bike lane installed along Prospect Park in Park Slope, Brooklyn in late 2010. I spent the spring of 2011 holding semi-structured interviews of local residents along the park both for and against the bike lane, including leaders of the anti-bike movement, pro-cyclist advocates, a city council member and his staff deeply involved in the issue, local businessmen, concerned neighbors, patrons of Prospect Park, and Park Slope residents, to understand a) their views of the bike-lane issue; and b) their views of cyclists as an urban subculture. But the bulk of my data comes from access to a trove of correspondence and documents - mostly complaints and letters to City Hall and the DOT - obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filed by Park Slope residents during the latter half of 2010. 1 also was given access to private email exchanges between the office of the DOT commissioner and the largest pro-cycling advocacy group, Transportation Alternatives, as well as data from surveys compiled by parties on both sides, news archives and blog posts related to the bike path.3In some ways, this case study is a perfect example of how social movements of disparate individuals and interests mobilize to forge a common identity, overcome their collective action problem, and organize in urban settings. All of the dynamics of contention (McAdam, Tarrow, Tilly, 2001) are present: a salient and emotional issue at stake, a clearly defined movement and countermovement, a well-entrenched elite, radical fringes and spoilers, third parties (city councilmembers, the media, etc.), mechanisms for mobilization, and clearly stated goals (removal of the bike lane versus the installation of more bike lanes and traffic calming measures). The issue would seem to be custom-made for social movement and contentious politics theorists.But this case study is not without problems. First, both movements are widely composed of upper-class elites. The anti-cycling coalition is also not a normal grassroots movement, per se, given its members' well-off means and access to New York powerbrokers (The state senator's wife, who resides along PPW, is among its benefactors). …

Dimensions and determinants of expert and public attitudes to sustainable transport policies and technologies

This paper investigates (a) attitudes to sustainable transport and how these differ between experts and non-experts, and (b) factors that influence these attitudes and their relevant importance in explaining why such differences occur. Attitudes of experts (N=53) and British public (N=40) were compared using open-ended questionnaires, attitude scales, analytic hierarchy process and preference ranking. Both samples prioritised reduction in transport demand in qualitative measures. In quantitative measures, however, experts preferred techno-economic measures while the public prioritised behaviour change and public transport improvement. Some options for sustainable transport also varied with individuals’ values, suggesting that expertise alone does not fully account for variation in attitudes. Different perspectives and values imply a need for a broader definition of expertise in transport policy-making, and that the public may not accept transport policies/technologies designed by experts – underlining the importance of early public engagement.

Urbanisation in Africa: Exploring the Role of Science, Technology and Policy Research

Urbanisation is a product of technological progress. The paper traces technological progress in Africa and attempts to model its future. It starts with definitional and conceptual issues. The meaning and interactions of technology, engineering and science have attracted a lot of debate in the last century. The paper does not delve into the debate. Instead, it provides definitions solely to guide discourse. This definitional exposition shows the bi directional relationships [dualities] between the three facets of knowledge. The paper then discusses how technology, engineering and science interact with social welfare. Using university research as a macrocosm for technological progress, the paper traces technology in Sub-Saharan Africa back to pre-independence. This is based on empirical data gathered from ten countries in the region. In attempting to model the future of technological progress in SSA, the paper turns to the transport sector. Working off a model of transport policymaking in Africa, the paper spurs off three possible models of future technology policymaking in the region. Of the three, the joint research model (where local science agents and donor agencies engage in joint research) represents the likely immediate future of technology policymaking in SSA. However, the region should aim at weaning off donors and emerging into the science-driven society model, typified by continual dialogue between local science agents and politicians.

The regionalization of rail transport in France. An analysis of the interplay between actors (from the late 1990s through the 2000s)

In France, owing to the railway regionalization process, regional “governments” are finding themselves increasingly involved in transport policy-making. Based on a multidisciplinary comparative study conducted in six French regions, this paper aims to analyze the ways in which regional rail policies are constructed by examining, in particular, the way they are generated as a result of interactions between different institutional actors. These interactions are linked to tensions in three main areas: the financing of transport investments, the financing and nature of rail services and regional governance. We examine these tensions by referring to three configurations of actors: the first includes the Regions and the State, the second, the Regions and the rail actors, and the third, the Regions and other local authorities. Finally, we discuss our findings, emphasizing what they teach us about the regionalization process in France.

Using Social Research to Measure, Understand and Predict Behavioral Responses to Road Pricing in the UK

ABSTRACT The Department for Transport (UK) has developed a program of social research to inform road pricing policy making, using both traditional and innovative research methods. The program addresses issues of public acceptability, the distributional impacts of road pricing policies, and behavioral responses to a complex pricing system. This paper discusses the methodological approaches used therein and sets out some emerging findings. The purpose is to review the use of this social research program and assess its potential for informing transport policy-making, an area where it has traditionally been under-utilized.

Evaluating Plan Alternatives for Transportation System Sustainability: Atlanta Metropolitan Region

ABSTRACT A growing number of agencies have begun to define “sustainability” for transportation systems and are attempting to incorporate the concept into the regional transportation planning process. Still, very few metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) capture the comprehensive impact of transportation system and land use changes on the economy, environment, and social quality of life, which are commonly considered the essential three dimensions of sustainable transportation systems. This paper demonstrates an application of the Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach for evaluating selected transportation and land use plans in the Atlanta region using multiple sustainability parameters. A composite sustainability index is introduced as a decision support tool for transportation policymaking, where the sustainability index considers multidimensional conflicting criteria in the transportation planning process. The proposed framework should help decision-makers with incorporating sustainability considerations into transportation planning as well as identifying the most sustainable (or least unsustainable) plan for predetermined objectives.

Tribute to Kitamura Sensei: a great teacher

Professor Ryuichi Kitamura passed away on February 19, 2009, in Japan. It has been more than 15 years since he returned to Kyoto University, where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in 1972 and his Master’s Degree in 1974, to serve as a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering in 1993. It has been almost 20 years since he went abroad for his Doctoral Degree. We cannot identify with precision the enormity of his contribution to the international and Japanese research communities, and to practical transportation policymaking all over the world. We were, of course, too young to really understand his greatness as a professor when we first encountered him, but we somehow knew he was a ‘‘great professor’’, and we were honored to have him as our teacher. At that time, he was 45 years of age, and we were just young researchers, in our early 20’s, in his laboratory. We had lived only in Japan and had no experience of living in any other countries. At that time, we might have looked at the world with only one perspective, whereas he seemed to have several ways of viewing the world. He sometimes criticized our ‘‘truisms’’, those ideas we simply believed in, without entertaining any doubts about them. He taught us to look at reality without prejudice and to doubt conventional theory. He did not tolerate justifications based on theories we did not understand. His criticisms of our assumptions sometimes seemed strange to us because of our limited ability to understand the world. But we discovered later that they were based on deep insights into how to improve the world, and included ideas about the appearance of urban streets, public transportation systems, the nature of the city itself, and the lives we lead there. The deep insights embedded in his criticisms or comments exerted a tremendous influence on our lives as well as our research. His most severe critique of us, as young researchers, was his ‘‘so-what test’’. After presenting our research to him (e.g., research about activity/travel behavior or time use) he would always ask us about the purpose of our efforts. Of course, we somehow managed to

Policy Implications of Excess Commuting: Examining the Impacts of Changes in US Metropolitan Spatial Structure

This article examines how changes in US metropolitan spatial structure lead to an increase in measurable excess commuting and a decrease in measurable transport—land use connections. Using Boston and Atlanta as two comparative regions, this research computes excess commuting with three-decade census data and then examines excess commuting in relation to the changes in metropolitan spatial structure. Empirical results suggest that the transport—land use connection appears weaker over the decades as the dispersion of jobs changes the dynamics of commuting and the selection of residential location follows patterns of average job location rather than that of the closest available job location. This decreasing transport—land use connection points to a spatial structure effect apart from individual preferences. It also suggests an alternative view of excess commuting for metropolitan transport policy-making.

From Local Experiments to National Policy: The Origins of China's Distinctive Policy Process

China's national policy formulation undergone economic transformation and shaped the making of policies in promotion of private business and stock market regulation. China's distinctive process of central-local interaction in policy generation is one of its core strengths in reforming its economy.

The Driving Factors of Passenger Transport

Over the past few decades passenger transport has grown rapidly resulting in a multitude of problems including severe traffic congestion and pollution. It is expected that passenger transport will continue to grow rapidly in the future, which will worsen the situation even further. The traditional approach to deal with the problems is to expand the infrastructure. However, transport policy is a broad and versatile field. Many different types of policy measures can be observed in literature and practice. Sound transport policy-making requires knowledge on the drivers of transport demand This article is aimed at (re)structuring the many different insights in a single conceptual model, which reviews the key drivers, and how each affects the various choices that travellers make (activity type, destination, mode, time-of-day and route) and the resulting impact on overall passenger transport demand. The model was derived on the basis of a review of literature, which was supplemented by a review of thirteen exemplary urban area cases. In addition, a quantitative data analysis was carried out to assess the transport demand elasticities for various drivers. Current study has been carried out in response to the search for effective transport policy, which is discussed in the concluding section. The outcomes are of particular relevance of policy analysts and policy makers developing passenger transport policy, but are also useful for scholars and students in the field of transport.