Securing public values in public transport projects: Four Dutch cases on innovation

Public transport projects, like its operations, most often have a substantial dependence on public funding. The rationale behind the public contribution is that governments on different levels want to secure certain public values by supporting public transport, e.g., mobility, accessibility, sustainability, social inclusion. These are all public values that public transport, projects and operations are expected to support. Evaluations show that the outcomes of the projects are often different than expected. The goal of the research described here was to understand what happens to the public values during the process of project realisation. Four Dutch projects were researched: ZuidTangent (a bus rapid transit project near Schiphol); ParkShuttle (a people mover near Rotterdam); Phileas (guided bus rapid transit near Eindhoven); and RandstadRail (a light rail conversion near The Hague). All the projects were initiated with innovation as one of the key elements/values. Moving away from the traditional ante-post analysis, we saw patterns in the way in which public values shift during the project. First, the projects under study show how too much focus on innovation can harm the project. Second, we see crowding out of values; high ambitions of key values during the early phases of the project lead to neglect of values which were not key to the project. Third, although more innovation was a key reason to introduce competition in the governance of Dutch public transport, it became apparent that introducing competition has complicated execution of these innovative projects significantly.     

Urban transport lending by the World Bank: The last decade

Over the preceding decade, the World Bank committed about US$7.5bn in loans for urban transport projects in its client countries, involving total project costs of nearly US$13bn. Projects are designed by the client city/national governments and the World Bank in an interactive, give-and-take process. As is common in development finance, urban transport projects entail an investment program and a set of policy and institutional initiatives. A majority of Bank-funded operations in this period focused on public transport modes. A clear and overarching strategic thrust is evident, favoring private delivery of services with a strong public role through city-specific regulatory agencies. Depending on the context, projects involved efforts to introduce private operators and competition into an all-public set-up, or tighten up weakly regulated, “informal” public transport markets. A notable feature of many projects in the latter context is the use of investments in bus rapid transit infrastructure to reach multiple goals: improve transport services, maintain affordability for low-income passengers, attract new passengers, reduce negative environmental impacts, and leverage complementary reforms of policies and institutions. The Bank’s program in China, unique in its local context of a dynamic urban society moving away from a near-universal reliance on bicycles, initially did not focus on public transport but on urban roads and traffic management. Towards the end of the last decade, the motorization process and the outlook of decision makers entering a more mature stage, projects in China started to converge towards what the rest of the Bank’s program was doing – searching for a more sustainable path to urban transport development.     

Workshop 3A: Governance,contracting, ownership and competition issues in public transport: Looking up not down

Workshop 3A focussed on matters of institutional design that seem likely to improve public transport outcomes. It started by defining high level outcome goals, as measures of ultimate public transport success, and then identified the major societal issues that public transport systems can help to resolve. These issues were separately defined for Southern African and western settings. The importance of taking an integrated approach to transport, particularly land use/transport integration, was seen as fundamental to goal achievement. Workshop papers provided many and varied examples of this importance, ranging from PPPs for major public transport projects to system design issues and contracting out of services. The Workshop included detailed discussion on paratransit development in Southern Africa, where relationship management is proving to be critical, in-line with much previous Thredbo discussion about the important role of trusting partnerships. Parallels and contrasts were drawn with paratransit in western settings. Competition in passenger rail was also a focus, with some questioning of the benefits of franchising. Discussion concluded by proposing recommendations for policy and research and suggesting agenda items for future Thredbo Conferences.     

Does the political and economic context influence the success of a transport project? An analysis of transport public-private partnerships

The construction and provision of infrastructure services such as transport nowadays is often based on a partnership between three main actors: public sector, private sector and multilateral lenders, under a framework of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). This type of partnership has been employed in a wide range of projects in the transport sector and in various contexts in developing and developed countries. Given this observation, the objective of this paper is to examine how countries’ economic and political characteristics contribute to the success of PPPs in transport investments. Special focus in the analysis is given to how the perception of corruption and democratic accountability may influence the success of a PPP project in different transport sectors. We examine a database with 856 transport PPP projects using a generalized linear model in the form of a logit model in order to evaluate the transport database covering data from 72 countries, classified in six regions. The study highlights the importance of national experience. Not only does national macroeconomic experience appear to have a relevant role, but so also does its past experience (either positive or negative) of transport PPP projects. An interesting finding from the analysis is the importance of the rest of the world’s perception of a country’s level of corruption and democratic accountability for the final outcome of a PPP project.     

How much can public private partnership really do for urban transport in developing countries?

A few cities in some of the larger developing countries in Latin America and Asia have made increasing use of multi-year concessions or franchises, competitively awarded to private companies, for construction and operation of urban transport infrastructure and for provision of public transport services. In view of the strong prospective growth of developing-country cities with large transport needs, and the rise in the emerging economies of potential new sources of private capital, it is important to see how effective PPP has so far been in this area. The experience is analyzed principally by thorough comparative review of what has actually happened for some of the main users to date: Bogotá, Santiago, São Paulo, Seoul, and several cities in both China and India. Despite delays and mistakes that have been made in development of most of the projects, the overall results, already delivered and in prospect, are very positive and urban public transport is benefiting substantially, with significant side effects on poorer people's access to work and to services, air pollution levels and road accident rates. The widest and most important advantage of the PPP arrangements, as compared with more conventional short-term contracting, is found to be the innovations, technical and managerial, developed, and, in particular, the mutual capacity building of the countries' private and public sectors and their more effective interaction. The experience in the six countries covered suggests that other developing-country cities may be best assisted to develop sound urban transport PPPs more rapidly through provision of help on chosen items among 7 elements that have proved particularly crucial but sometimes weak in the projects reviewed: Civic consultation systems, Land-use/Transport strategic planning, Land/property market management, Monitoring systems, Progressive policies, Economic regulation, and Public institutional framework for PPPs.     

Workshop 3B: Governance,ownership and competition issues in deregulated (free market) public transport: Lessons that can be learnt from developed and developing economies

The past emphasis in this conference series has been on the best ways to deregulate regulated public transport markets. This workshop reverses this process by examining the best ways to regulate deregulated public transport markets. A hierarchy of regulatory needs is identified and three hybrid models examined, based loosely on experience from Great Britain, New Zealand and Sweden. It is argued that deregulated public transport markets are a global phenomenon but regulatory measures should reflect local requirements. The resultant process of glocalisation might result in regulatory measures that focus on the rules of law and their enforcement in emerging public transport markets (such as urban transport in Sub Saharan Africa and for the soon to be competitive inter urban market in Germany) but that focus on guidance for network integration and incentivisation for welfare maximisation in more mature public transport markets (as in Great Britain, New Zealand and Sweden).     

Workshop 5: Network and system planning

A renewed interest in public transport analysis and development has triggered a debate among policy makers, practitioners and stakeholders regarding technologies, design, pricing, subsidies and contract forms for optimal policy, including social well-being and the financing of public transport reform. Here we present contents and conclusions of workshop 5 of the Thredbo 12 Conference held in Durban, South Africa, where we analysed a series of recent theoretical developments on the links among demand, technology and the design of public transport systems, which we coupled with the examination of several case studies in order to feed the discussion regarding the relations among the strategic, tactical and operational elements that should be considered when designing a public transport policy.     

Social exclusion: What can public transport offer?

A new workshop on ‘Social exclusion: What can public transport offer?’ was introduced in the Thredbo 10 program. The workshop examined the concept of social exclusion in a transport context, looking briefly at the history and comprehensiveness of the term for social policy in transport. Other concepts, such as well-being and social capital, were determined to be also needed. While important research was reported to the workshop, it was clear that social exclusion was at an early stage of empirical development. Gaps were highlighted, particularly in evaluation and cost-benefit analysis. Examples of service systems designed to address social exclusion were presented at the workshop, revealing the need to better understand governance arrangements. The workshop developed recommendations for future research and policy, particularly emphasising the need to integrate social outcomes with economic and environmental transport policy at the strategic, tactical and operational levels. Finally, ideas for further exploration of social exclusion in Thredbo 11, were outlined.     

Promoting social inclusion in a deregulated environment: Extending accessibility using collective taxi-based services

Bus based public transport has enjoyed revitalisation in many urban areas but outside large towns and cities its provision and quality remains erratic. Many rural settlements have infrequent services giving rise to social exclusion through transport disadvantage.The UK Government highlighted a need in Towards a Sustainable Transport System (2007) for radical new thinking on rural accessibility to help meet goals of quality of life and accessibility for all and to help meet the challenge in finding carbon friendly ways of meeting rural transport needs. This paper reports work undertaken for the Commission for Integrated Transport, an advisory body to UK Government, on how shared taxi-schemes could be developed within a deregulated environment to meet rural accessibility needs. This is based on an analysis of institutional barriers and comparison between successful mainland European schemes and UK schemes. The paper considers economic viability and the levels of subsidy currently used to provide accessibility in rural areas to show the potential for making current expenditure on rural transport in the UK ‘work harder’ to deliver a collective taxi-based service as part of the public transport mix so as to increase rural accessibility.     

重力式码头工程质量通病治理的新成果

在水运工程领域重力式码头工程质量通病的治理历来是重要的研究课题。结合营口港鲅鱼圈港区某重力式码头的工程案例,重点介绍在码头护舷定位板安装、预埋铁件防腐、传力杆安装和螺栓式吊点的结构优化等方面,通过改进和创新施工工艺取得的治理工程质量通病的新成果,可供同类码头工程施工借鉴。     

Transport infrastructure provision and operations: Why should governments choose private–public partnership?

Recent transport sector liberalisation, as well as global economic crisis, is favouring the implementation of transport infrastructure projects through Public–Private Partnerships (PPP). However, there is a debate as to whether PPP schemes are a better option than conventional procurement. To this end, an evaluation framework is proposed, to assess which of these two alternative schemes for transport projects financing is preferable for the public. The proposed framework is complimentary to the Value for Money (VfM) approach and is based on a Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA). The first step is the estimation of the Public Sector Comparator (PSC) for the case of conventional procurement, dealing with construction, maintenance and operation costs revenues, as well as any costs associated with risks undertaken by the public. As for the PPP case, it includes any payments by the public sector and related risks costs. The MCA is then applied only if the PPP is found preferable for the public sector. The latter considers additional impacts, including among others the social attributes of a particular scheme, job creation, environmental impacts and safety and security aspects. The proposed framework was applied to a pilot Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor infrastructure project in the city of Indore, India, in order to demonstrate its validity. The framework and its application could provide useful guidance when considering PPP for a transport project, since it demonstrates in a transparent way the society's attitude towards this project, something that is critical to its acceptance.     

Hybrid urban transport systems in developing countries: Portents and prospects

Some South African cities have initiated public transport transformation projects which, in most cases, ultimately envisage the in toto replacement of paratransit operations with formalised BRT systems. There are two likely outcomes: (1) complex negotiations with existing operators and budget constraints will result in the in toto transformation occurring over an extended period of time; or (2) in toto transformation will simply not occur. In either case, cities will depend, for decades, on a ‘hybrid’ public transport system that combines both formal and paratransit operators. This paper presents a case for policy recognition of hybrid systems, and explores how such systems might best be managed. The following categories of hybrid public transport systems are explored through case studies: (1) transformative processes in which paratransit operators are to form or assimilate into companies to operate new services, but this incorporation has proved difficult to complete and the operational and regulatory frameworks remain unchanged; and (2) transformative processes that, from the outset, anticipated a hybrid system and designed the outcome accordingly. A third category of hybrid transport systems, defined as transformative processes that have been amended following a realisation that in toto transformation is unattainable, is also introduced and discussed. The paper concludes by tentatively drawing lessons for appropriate public transport regulation, particularly with respect to Cape Town's transformation project. It is argued that a review of the current national regulatory framework is required to enable possible project modifications that acknowledge system hybridity. It is suggested that regulatory frameworks that accommodate the likely hybrid nature of public transport system outcomes have greater prospects of success than frameworks that do not. Furthermore, it is argued that contextually appropriate and successful public transport transformation projects do not necessarily require the in toto substitution of incumbent paratransit operators, and that they can be integrated with, and complement, formal services.     

Comparisons of urban transport sustainability: Lessons from West and North Africa

The diagnosis for urban transport sustainability depends on the context of different regions worldwide. We focus in this paper on West and North Africa which reveal similarities but also structural differences which are explored further. The importance of paratransit in its various forms is strongly observed in sub-Saharan Africa and to a lesser extent in North Africa. The attempts to regulate and organise this sector have been difficult; one interesting experience in Dakar occurred during a programme of fleet renewal. In parallel it is observed that there are positive but insufficient experiences of public transport authorities in some cities (Dakar, Abidjan) and similar projects postponed in other cities because of the institutional problems. One also observes the constant difficulties of designing sustainable schemes for bus companies. An answer to this crisis has been found in North Africa, through investment in new mass transport systems. However, mass transport projects in West Africa are very weak in comparison. The gap between public transport costs and income levels there remains a major obstacle to sustainable mobility exacerbated by the poverty of a significant part of the urban population in West Africa. Two other critical factors are also identified affecting sustainable mobility requirements, namely, the urban sprawl and increasing energy costs. Finally the conclusion recommends the use of research and expertise networks in order to help the design and the implementation of suited solutions.     

水面自主船舶技术发展路径

工业4.0背景下,船舶自主化航行是水路运输工具变革的重要趋势。本文首先详细介绍了世界范围内水面自主船舶(MASS)的主要研究项目发展路径及当前的研究现状。然后分析了MASS研发的关键技术,如通讯、航路设计及优化、智能避障等。针对MASS的快速发展,指出了当前面临的困难与挑战。最后针对法律及法规等配套体系的完善提出展望。     

Economic appraisal of universal design in transport: Experiences from Norway

Economic assessment of universally designed transport projects has not been studied in depth in the transport planning literature. Universal Design (UD) refers to the design of transport systems in a way that they are accessible to all users, irrespective of the users’ abilities. This definition of UD has not yet gained roots in the transport economic literature. The conventional thinking is that UD is for the few, i.e., the impaired, and given that they are few in numbers, UD projects will generally be unprofitable from a socioeconomic point of view because benefits will be low while investment costs will be too high. The objective of this paper is to prove the opposite: UD projects benefit all users of the facility, whether impaired or not, and the additional costs of implementing them are generally low; hence, their net present values are high and positive. We build on collaborative work between the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA) and the Institute of Transport Economics (TOI) aimed at creating guidelines for assessing the economic merits of UD projects. Therefore, in this paper, we: (1) define how UD is to be understood in the context of road and public transport; (2) describe the types of benefits and costs that accrue to users if UD projects are implemented; (3) address how the benefits and cost can be valued in monetary terms; and (4) using three different types of projects, demonstrate that UD projects are surprisingly profitable from a socioeconomic point of view. Finally, we address the implications of our findings and explain why governments need to be concerned with UD of transport systems.     

大连北良粮食码头工程设计要点

为改变我国粮食运输的落后局面,利用世行贷款建设的大连北良粮食码头工程是东北粮食运输走廊的龙头项目,该项目在2003年通过国家正式验收并投入运转后,立即引起国、内外港口业和粮食业界的广泛关注和一致好评。本工程建设规模大、技术先进,创造了我国乃至世界建港史和粮食流通史上的8个第一,包括全皮带提升系统、宽肩台式防波堤、采用60°斜交的筒仓群排列、粮食中转系统主要流程的全自动化等技术在国、内外均属首创。通过对本工程设计经验的总结,以期为我国大型粮食码头工程的设计和建设提供借鉴与参考。     

The nexus between port governance and performance

The diversity of port governance models in the world, sometimes even within the same country, has aroused the interest of researchers. This study is based on contingency theory to support the port governance model. The purpose is to understand the port governance model and the relation with port performance. There are three objectives: to analyze the port governance mechanisms; to analyze the port performance factors; and to understand the influence of the governance model mechanisms on port performance. A factorial analysis was used to determine the main components, and the methodology of the structural equation model was used to analyze a survey sample of 105 valid responses from specialists and managers of port user’s companies that operate in the main Portuguese ports. This study demonstrates that port governance model influences directly the port performance. The main contribution of this paper to the literature is providing a set of factors that public managers may decide when changing the characteristics of the port governance models to ensure their performance. It was also observed the approximation of the port expert vision of port governance with models described in literature.     

Part II: Policy instruments for sustainable road transport

Without questioning the fact that to achieve efficiency emitters should pay for the true costs of their actions (a core principle of economic policies such as pollution taxes), we find sufficient evidence in the literature to demonstrate that many other policy instruments can be used in combination with taxes and permits to ensure that the transport needs of the present generation can be met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet any needs of their own.The policies and policy aspects considered in this paper broadly fall into three categories: physical policies, soft policies, and knowledge policies. All three aim to bring about changes in consumers’ and firms’ behaviour, but in different ways. The first category includes policies with a physical infrastructure element: public transport, land use, walking and cycling, road construction, and freight transport. We also consider the particular challenges for mobility in developing countries, and how these may be addressed. Soft policies, on the other hand, are non-tangible aiming to bring about behavioural change by informing actors about the consequences of their transport choices, and potentially persuading them to change their behaviour. These measures include car sharing and car pooling, teleworking and teleshopping, eco-driving, as well as general information and advertising campaigns. Finally, knowledge policies emphasise the important role of investment in research and development for a sustainable model of mobility for the future.The main findings can be summarised as follows.

Physical policies

An increase in the use of public transport, combined with a decrease in the use of private cars, can reduce traffic congestion and, more importantly, carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, as public transport generally causes lower CO₂ emissions per passenger kilometre than private cars. Public transport fares are subsidised in most places, which can be justified by economies of scale and by the fact that public transport can reduce total road transport externalities. London, Singapore, Portland and Curitiba are all examples of good practice at government level, having achieved reliable, frequent and integrated public transport.Policies to increase public transport use must be part of an integrated policy. Integrated policy refers to integration across different modes of transport, different government objectives (such as the economy, health and the environment), considering the needs of different social groups, and coordinating action between the relevant government institutions. There is evidence that a lack of coordination can jeopardise the achievement of policy objectives.A sustainable model for transport policy also requires integration with land-use policies. These may be somewhat limited within the bounds of existing cities, but as cities grow and new cities are built, urban planners must put more emphasis on land use for sustainable transport in order to reduce congestion and CO₂ emissions. Sustainable land-use policy can direct urban development towards a form that allows public transport as well as walking and cycling to be at the core of urban mobility.Walking and cycling, which improve general health and produce no tailpipe emissions, constitute an excellent alternative to motorised transport on short-distance trips within towns and cities. The policies which can incentivise walking and cycling include crime reduction to make streets safer, well-maintained and clean pavements, attractive street furniture, safe crossings with shorter waiting times, dedicated cycle paths, showers in offices, and lower speed limits, to name but a few.Road construction and expansion used to be seen as one of the most promising ways to reduce traffic congestion. However, in the mid-1990s, the issue was reassessed and it was found that building and expanding roads, increased, rather than decreased, congestion, and ultimately induced higher levels of travel demand. The reason for this is that the extra capacity reduces the general cost of travelling and the less expensive the travel, the more it will be demanded. Regarding freight modal shift, road transport is much more polluting than rail per tonne-km of goods transported and therefore a shift towards greater use of rail in freight transport is desirable. Inadequate infrastructure is the main obstacle preventing this modal shift taking place.Developing countries face great mobility challenges: rural areas are often extremely poorly connected to transport infrastructure, such that, in contrast to the situation in developed countries, the benefits of road construction can strongly outweigh the total costs (including environmental ones). The main challenge, however, is to develop a solution to the problems arising from the combination of urbanisation and motorisation. Integration of transport and land-use policy will be key to rising to this challenge.

Soft policies

Car sharing and car clubs can also potentially reduce CO₂ emissions, although the aggregate reduction in congestion and emissions has not been measured with an adequate degree of precision in the literature. Teleworking and teleshopping can potentially reduce congestion and also CO₂ emissions. However, the evidence for this reduction is rather mixed, as it is unclear whether these measures lead to overall reductions in road transport.Eco-driving campaigns aim to inform and educate drivers in order to induce them to drive in a fuel-efficient and thus environmentally friendly way. There seems to be some consensus in the literature that eco-driving could lead to reductions in CO₂ emissions of around 10 per cent.Information and education policies have often been advocated as instruments which may affect behavioural change. We find in this paper that these types of measures are necessary, but not sufficient for behavioural change. Advertising and marketing may go a long way in changing peoples’ behaviour. In California, for example, Kahn (2007) finds the “Prius” effect: the Toyota Prius is preferred by consumers relative to other similarly green vehicles, probably due to extensive marketing and celebrity endorsements. Family life changes are also found to trigger changes in behaviour ( [Goodwin, 1989] and [106]). People whose lives are being changed by some important development (birth of a child, retirement, etc) tend to respond more to changes in the relative attractiveness of different transport modes. Advertising campaigns promoting a modal shift towards public transport, for instance, may thus be more successful if targeted at people in the process of important life transitions.

Knowledge policies

Research and Development is crucial for developing sustainable and low-carbon transport for the future, and it is essential that governments provide incentives to undertake R&D, so that new low-carbon technologies in the transport sector can be demonstrated and applied at a large scale.Finally, we consider the issue of policy combination and integration. There is evidence that the combination and integration of policies can lead to positive side-effects and synergies. Policy integration is crucial in order to rise to the challenges we face in moving towards a sustainable mobility model. We conclude that classical economic policies may be successfully combined with a number of policy measures discussed in this paper in order to achieve sustainability in transport.     

The efficiency of public transport operations – An evaluation using stochastic frontier analysis

The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficiency of public transport operations undertaken in Swedish counties by the Public Transport Authorities (PTA), taking into account the substantial differences in operating conditions between counties. The analysis will be performed using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) with annual data from 1986 to 2009 for 26 Swedish counties. The analysis shows how the efficiency of the individual counties has changed over time. The results are used to provide a ranking (in terms of efficiency) of the Swedish public transport authorities that can provide a basis for benchmarking. It is concluded that the efficiency of the public transport providers in all counties fell during the observed time period. Defining cost efficiency as the ratio of minimum cost to observed cost, the overall (average) cost efficiency for the industry fell from 85.7% in the eighties to 60.4% for the period from 2000 to 2009. Possible explanations for the development include increased emphasis on route density as well as higher environmental and safety requirements.     

Recent developments in Flexible Transport Services

This paper focuses on recent experiences in the evolution of Flexible Transport Services (FTS). It describes how previous manifestations of FTS provided dedicated solutions for special groups, often in parallel to the conventional public transport network, but highlights that in numerous countries across Europe there is now a discernable trend towards open access FTS providing services for the whole community and often feeding the conventional public transport network to provide wider access and opportunities. This is as a result of policies intended to mainstream services for people with disabilities and moves to tackle social exclusion amongst other groups while at the same time reducing the very high costs per trip associated with STS.To meet these policies, and the higher expectations and different travel behaviours of citizens to-day, it is suggested that FTS will need to radically reposition itself in terms of scale, so that there is mass coverage and ability to function as a full transport mode. This will require breakthroughs in concepts; business models; organisational and operational models; and in supporting technologies. A proposed solution to this is the Flexible Agency for Collective Mobility Services (FAMS) which provides an organisational structure and business model for FTS that incorporates the required supporting technologies.