Changing public transport governance in Dutch metropoles: To tender or not to tender

With winds of change from the European Commission reaching the Netherlands, the national government altered the Law on Passenger Transport in 2000 to best reflect European demands. This new law meant competitive tendering became obligatory. At first, the metropolitan transport authorities in the three largest cities (Amsterdam, The Hague, and Rotterdam) were granted an extended deadline for tendering. However, due to shifting winds from Brussels, in 2007 the Dutch national government dropped the obligation to tender for the three cities. Suddenly the authorities had to decide for themselves whether or not to tender. This article describes the different routes and outcomes of the three metropolitan authorities. Where the metropolitan authority in Rotterdam aimed at conservation of their existing model, the authorities of Amsterdam and The Hague embraced change. In The Hague conformation to the letter of the law seemed an important driver, whereas confrontation between different interests in the region was the starting point for change in Amsterdam.     

Flexible transport services: A new market opportunity for public transport

The term Demand-Responsive Transport (DRT) has been increasingly applied in the last 10 years to a niche market that replaces or feeds (usually via small low floor buses or taxis) conventional transport where demand is low and often spread over a large area. More recently, the concept of DRT as a niche market has been broadened to include a wider range of flexible, demand-responsive transport services and is increasingly referred to as Flexible Transport Services (FTSs). The contention of this paper is that well-implemented FTS has the potential to revitalise bus-based public transport services which are traditionally based on fixed networks with variable geographical coverage and levels of service.     

Overview of public transport policy developments in South Africa

Public transport in South Africa is one of the most burning issues in the transport sector. The government is faced with huge public pressure to improve public transport systems in the face of rising fuel costs, the pending implementation of expensive urban toll road systems in the Gauteng province, and elsewhere in urban environments, public transport safety issues, public transport fleet renewal, especially the commuter rail services, as well as limited resources to fund public transport. As a developing country, the South African Government has pressing funding issues such as funds needed to improve housing for the poor to improve schooling and public health services. Government is also faced with a vocal minibus taxi industry that transports an estimated 65% of all commuters in the country that is also insisting on subsidies for its services.     

Solving procurement problems in public transport: Examining multi-principal roles in relation to effective control mechanisms

Despite the EU’s increasing role in regulating public transport procurement, few studies have considered this aspect when analysing procurement problems of public transport. This paper examines how the institutional relationships between different actors, including international governmental bodies, in public transport effects the possibility of exerting control over a county public transport authority (PTA) in a multi-principal setting. The analysis is carried out using empirical material from an infringement process including a Swedish PTA and the EU. The conclusions have clear policy implications for the procedural order when exerting control over the PTA in cases of procurement problems. It is for example shown, that the implementation process would be much more efficient if the regulations allowed the EU to impose sanctions directly towards the local authorities without having to involve the national government when the procurement laws are violated.     

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.     

Engaging the paratransit sector in Cape Town on public transport reform: Progress,process and risks

The South African government in 2006 initiated an urban public transport reform programme reliant on the introduction of new bus rapid transit (BRT) systems. Affected paratransit operators can opt to be incorporated in these systems by forming new operating companies, but must withdraw their existing services from proposed routes. Cape Town's first phase of BRT operations came online in 2011, and operator engagement has focussed on this phase. The attitudes within this city's paratransit sector in relation to future phases, and to the broader reform policy, remain largely untested. In view of this sector's past resistance to government-led proposals, and the current phase avoiding areas with the highest concentrations of operators, the current engagement process's outcomes may not be adequate indicators of future prospects.     

A new regulation for the European public transport

Authority intervention in the public transport sector has a long history and has led to a growing corps of legal texts in European countries. These texts are often divergent, if not incompatible. This was no problem until the rather recent internationalization of the sector. With this internationalization, the European Commission decided to address this issue. This chapter describes what has led to the appearance of this new Regulation and the main steps on the 10-year long road that led to the adoption of the new Regulation. The chapter also formulates some comments on the results reached.     

Overview of public transport policy developments in South Africa

In South Africa, a restructuring of the public transport system is currently under way. In the bus industry the tender for contract system is being implemented, the commuter rail sector is being recapitalised and the minibus taxi industry recapitalization programme is in its early stages. Progress with policy implementation across the modes of transport, modal split trends and issues that hamper the full development of the public transport industry are discussed in this paper. Medium to long term policy and strategy initiatives that will further inform the development of the industry are also highlighted in this chapter.     

Regulating the regulator: The impact of professional procuring bodies on local public transport policy and its effectiveness

During the past 15 years competitive tenders have become a common procedure when procuring local bus services in Europe. In particular, tenders with gross cost contracts and the so-called Scandinavian model have gained popularity, resulting in a vast amount of research on optimal contractual relationships between government and operators. This paper pays attention to a rather neglected part of the Scandinavian model: the construction of professional procuring bodies and their relationship to the local public administration, focusing on its implications for policy steering and service performance.The paper outlines briefly two different perspectives of analyses of organisational models: one perspective is anchored in principal-agent theory and institutional economics; and the other perspective in political science. Empirically, the article is based on an evaluation of the relation between two Norwegian counties and the administrative company responsible for planning and procuring public transport services. This evaluation indicates, firstly, important common challenges for the county administration due to lack of regional administrative competencies in relation to the administrative company, which also hampers the county’s role as coordinator of policy areas of importance for public transport. Secondly, due to increased transaction costs, the establishment of administrative companies does not seem compatible with contracts relying on net cost solutions with huge scope for operator initiatives.     

Engaging paratransit on public transport reform initiatives in South Africa: A critique of policy and an investigation of appropriate engagement approaches

A number of South African cities are planning integrated public transport networks that rely on the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), in line with similar trends to expand or upgrade public transport services in emerging and industrialised urban transport markets around the globe. In addition, BRT in South Africa is being used as a mechanism to drive reform in the dominant yet highly fragmented paratransit sector, inspired by similar processes particularly in Latin American cities such as Bogotá, Mexico City, and Santiago de Chile. Thousands of paratransit operators would have to formalise their businesses, or merge into new or existing operator entities in order to participate in the new systems. There is, however, an absence of accessible business plans and regulatory regime proposals around which paratransit can be engaged to convince it to alter its current modus operandi. A large number of national, regional and local paratransit groupings have furthermore indicated their resistance to the planned networks on the grounds of insufficient consultation, an unclear future role in the system and employee redundancies. Should this deadlock not be resolved, it seems unlikely that the planned networks will be realised in the proposed timeframes, if indeed at all. This paper investigates the South African passenger transport policy framework that has contributed to the current deadlock, and explores appropriate approaches to engaging paratransit operators on a system of contracting, competition and ownership that recognises the sector’s aspirations and fragmented nature, yet contributes towards improved passenger transport services. It is the authors’ view that paratransit reform is a highly context-specific process, even at the sub-city level, and that this could prevent transferring paratransit regulatory and integration approaches across countries, and even cities in the same country, without adaptation to local conditions.     

The impact of the application of new technology on public transport service provision and the passenger experience: A focus on implementation in Australia

The emergence of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) has been recognised with many initiatives during the last 20 years. In Europe, the “ITS Action Plan” identifies a number of applications as key elements contributing to the efficient co-ordination of the overall transport chain. The context and experience surrounding the recent widespread development of technological tools and ICT platforms to support the emergence of ITS are notable for the way in which they permeate the transport and logistics chain. But a key question remains: to what extent is the public transport sector able to exploit the wider benefits of ITS?     

Commercial public bus transport services in Germany: How a market in motion struggles with its regulatory framework

After decades of stagnation, the competitive market for commercial public bus transport services in Germany is beginning to move. Nevertheless, compared to the total market volume, the number of cases where competition is observable remains small. An empirical analysis of competition in the commercial services market as compared to competition in the non-commercial services market confirms that entry barriers do exist. These barriers clearly impede competitive developments in this embryonic market, which relies on the market initiatives of operators to develop. The paper identifies a key entry barrier in the institutional framework: for potential market entrants, the overall uncertainty regarding competitive procedures for commercial services is significantly higher than usual in tendering procedures. This high uncertainty poses the main disadvantage for newcomers as compared to incumbents.     

Workshop report - Public transport markets in development

Developing countries and countries in transition represent between 85% and 90% of the world’s population and face unique public transport challenges that are not necessarily present in developed countries. Issues such as the affordability and accessibility of public transport, funding support and capacity to implement are some of the challenges these countries face. Barriers to strategy implementation in these countries could be a failure to understand the broader business and social environment, poor leadership, a lack of inter-disciplinary and inter-implementer collaboration, and weak monitoring and feedback loops. Weak institutional frameworks are evidenced in inappropriate structures often resulting in institutional inertia and conflict. Over-promising of potential impacts and benefits together with a failure to develop sustainable funding mechanisms often lead to a lack of implementation. The workshop argued that different competition and ownership solutions are needed for a range of factors. This poses a challenge to the THREDBO community as it could mean that the traditional concepts are either not relevant or not usable in the majority of the world’s developing countries, or that the traditional approaches are relevant in many respects but need to be substantially extended and adapted to be applicable and usable in the rest of the world.     

Public transport in towns - Inevitably on the decline?

Bus transport in Linköping, a town of 140?000 people, was strongly on the increase up to the beginning of the 1980s, when a negative trend-break occurred. A demand model is developed which explains both the ongoing decline and the preceding increase. Based on this model, it is examined whether a change of the current bus transport policy towards an optimal pricing and investment policy from a social point of view could evoke a new and positive trend-break. Taking current trends in the exogenous factors into account it would. However, this could depend on a possible revival of bicycling in towns.     

Four decades of changing transport policy in Santiago,Chile

During the last forty years, Santiago has experienced a series of drastic changes in public transport policies. These changes have ranged widely, from total deregulation to processes that concentrated the management of public transport within the hands of the public sector.     

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.     

Local public transport on the basis of social economic criteria

Applying the welfare economic approach it is demonstrated what the effects of certain supply changes in the local public transport will be and the potential of innovative demand management measures are examined. Straighter bus routes would reduce the average travel time from door to door. The travel time on the buses decreases and the frequency increases, which reduces waiting times at bus stops. Using smaller buses and more of them would also increase the net benefit, but increase the need for subsidisation. The peak within the peak in the morning is hard to handle by price policy alone. Introducing a small variation of the start of the school-day for high-school pupils would make investment- and operation cost savings possible, and the inconvenience costs for the pupils could be limited. It is only during peak hours in the main direction of peak travel and in the critical section of the line that optimal price becomes high relative to the present level. Zero fares in off-peak will be social profitable, but an increase in subsidy is needed. An introduction of these policy changes would give rise to a net social benefit of 30 million SEK per year in Linköping.     

The 2008 New Zealand public transport management act: Rationale, key provisions, and parallels with the United Kingdom

In January 2009, following a lengthy industry review and consultation process, the New Zealand Public Transport Management Act (PTMA) came into force. The Act allows Regional Transport Authorities, as the primary procurers of public transport services, to place either a control or a contracting requirement upon services that are registered as commercial requiring no subsidy. The imposition of either the control or the contracting requirement is designed to facilitate greater system integration, improve service continuity and enhance services to the customer, andallow the Authority to invest in key strategic projects, such as integrated fares and ticketing, so as to grow patronage.The PTMA’s other objective is to ensure improved value for public subsidies. Recent years have seen significant subsidy inflation for seemingly little commensurate benefits. The Act will allow the Regional Transport Authority to achieve greater value for money through improved farebox, a shift to longer, larger contracts to increase competition in the market, a more appropriate allocation of risk, and the removal of the ability of operators to ‘game’ the current system by using strategically placed commercial services as barriers to competition.Similar concerns have also stimulated new legislation in the UK and this paper illustrates the parallels in the environment and proposed response.     

Utilization of passenger transport subsidy in Kolkata: A case study of Calcutta State Transport Corporation

The present study tries to see whether the subsidy given to CSTC, which is the oldest and the largest state transport corporation operating in and around Kolkata, is really being used to cover the losses they make over the years or to merely cover-up an inefficient performance. The state owned buses are required to serve, not only non-profitable routes in off-peak hours, but also to give social security or employment to a large section of society. The burden of carrying a huge staff structure and serving at an administered and less than competitive price for welfare reasons, makes CSTC liable to an operating loss. Therefore, it makes a case for subsidy. However, the regular commuters experience regarding the condition of and the services provided by these raises a question about the justification of subsidy. In the study it is seen that the subsidy given is not based on any of the components on which it should, economically.     

Quality incentives and quality outcomes in procured public transport - Case study Stockholm

Gross contracts appear to be the most common contract form for procured public transport in Sweden and elsewhere. This contract form, it has been argued, gives weak incentives for operators to deliver the desired quality level. Therefore many procuring public transport authorities amend contracts with quality incentives.This paper examines how such quality incentives influence quality outcomes with focus on cancelled departures and delays. The main findings are that the introduction of quality incentives are correlated with both increases and decreases of measured quality outcomes.We hypothesise that the results are driven by underlying cost changes for achieving desired quality objectives that exceed the possible revenues from the incentives. In interviews with the Stockholm public transport authority (SL) and some operators, two central observations surface. The first is that there are causes for quality failures that are not solely the responsibility of operators and that these are therefore not fully reached by the incentives, and the second is that the operators believe that they have exhausted what they can do under the current contracts.