- Email: [email protected]
Research challenges in urban transport policy
Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164 www.elsevier.com/locate/tranpol
Research challenges in urban transport policy A.D. May*, A.F. Jopson, B. Matthews Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
1. Introduction Transport is one of the most significant sources of unsustainability in urban areas. In European cities alone, traffic congestion costs in excess of e100B each year, local pollution and the resultant health impacts impose costs of a similar magnitude, and there are around 20,000 fatalities on urban roads each year. Many countries are now advocating integrated approaches to these problems, in which the full range of transport policy interventions (infrastructure, management, regulation, information and pricing) are combined with land use, environmental and wider social policy instruments (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 1995). Most of the constituent elements of these strategies are already available, but there is a serious lack of detailed understanding of the impacts of many of these policy instruments and of their transferability to different contexts. Even more serious is the lack of understanding of how to design integrated strategies which most effectively combine infrastructure, management, regulation and pricing. Even where appropriately sustainable strategies are identified, there are serious barriers to their implementation. The recent ECMT report (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 2002) highlights poor policy integration and coordination, counterproductive institutional roles, unsupportive regulatory frameworks, weaknesses in pricing and poor data quality and quantity as reasons for the failure of most cities to pursue the policies advocated in its earlier report (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 1995). The papers in this special issue of Transport Policy are a selection of those presented at the inaugural conference of a new Special Interest Group (SIG) of the World Conference on Transport Research Society, SIG-10, which focuses on these critical issues in urban transport policy. Membership of the SIG is open to anyone with an interest in research, * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44-113-233-6610; fax: þ 44-113-2335334. E-mail address: [email protected] (A.D. May).
teaching or practice in urban transport, and details can be found in the WCTRS section of the journal. When the new SIG was launched at the Ninth World Conference in Seoul in July 2001, it was agreed that its objectives should be: † to increase our understanding of the performance of transport policy instruments; † to determine the principles of policy integration; † to develop good practice in the monitoring and appraisal of policy instruments; † to identify good practice in the design, implementation and operation of policy instruments; and † to develop interactive information tools to aid the understanding of urban transport policy for students, practitioners and decision-makers. The inaugural conference, held in Leeds in July 2002, included sessions on all five of these themes, with a total of 14 papers. Copies of the conference proceedings are available from the authors of this paper. The eight papers included in this special issue cover the range of themes, while in many cases addressing more than one of them. In this overview paper we have endeavoured to draw out the key issues from these papers, while focusing on the research challenges which remain to be tackled. The structure of the paper follows the five bullet points listed above, focusing in turn on the papers by Taylor and Ampt, Mackett et al. (Section 2); Geerlings and Stead (Section 3); Jones et al., Nicolas et al. (Section 4); Gaffron, Ison and Rye (Section 5); and Litman (Section 6); but bringing in ideas from other papers where appropriate. We conclude by highlighting our view of the key research challenges which lie ahead.
2. Understanding the performance of policy instruments One of the most significant developments of the last decade has been the emergence of a much wider range of policy instruments available to the urban transport planner.
0967-070X/03/$ - see front matter q 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0967-070X(03)00039-8
158
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
In our own work we identified some 80 types of policy instrument, including those in related sectors which influence transport (May et al., 2001); we have since focused on a shorter list of 60 which are being included in our Knowledgebase on Sustainable Land Use and Transport (KonSULT) (Matthews et al., 2002), which is referred to in more detail later in this paper. That there are now so many policy instruments from which to choose is a significant opportunity for transport planners, since it increases their ability to find the most suitable solutions in their particular circumstances. It does, however, represent a challenge, both in ascertaining the performance of this wider set of policy instruments, and in understanding how best they can be integrated into overall strategies. Categorising these policy instruments effectively is itself not easy. A popular way of doing so is in terms of transportation demand management (TDM), which Litman describes, in his paper, as ‘a general term for strategies and programmes that encourage more efficient use of transport resources’. Within the context of TDM, Litman uses five categories: improved transport options; incentives to shift mode; land use management; policy and planning reforms; support programmes. This can result in one policy intervention (e.g. pedestrian improvements) appearing in more than one category, and Litman provides for this by linking the instruments with multiple impacts to other categories. A second approach to categorisation is by mode, but this can make a multi-modal approach, the importance of which is increasingly recognised (Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, 2000), difficult to represent. Our own approach, in KonSULT, has been to categorise instruments by type of intervention, distinguishing between six types: † † † † † †
land use policies; infrastructure provision; management and regulation; information provision; attitudinal and behavioural measures; and pricing;
and introducing subcategories by mode where relevant (Matthews et al., 2002). This makes it possible to describe all impacts of an intervention in one place. A sophisticated search facility then allows readers to select one or more interventions on the basis of outcome, e.g. encouraging walking. One interesting attribute of the papers offered to the conference was the dominance of interest in attitudinal and behavioural measures. Of those presented here, Taylor and Ampt’s travel behaviour programmes, Mackett et al.’s walking buses and Ison and Rye’s company travel plans all come into this category. Both Taylor and Ampt and Ison and Rye note that these attitudinal measures differ from conventional transportation demand management, by increasing choice and empowering individual travellers to
make alternative choices, rather than imposing restrictions on them. Ison and Rye also consider road pricing, and Gaffron management of walking and cycling, while Jones et al. consider policy instruments from across the range identified in KonSULT. This emphasis reflects the novelty of some of these policy instruments, and the authors’ experience indicates some of the challenges which are faced in transferring empirical research methods to new types of policy intervention. Taylor and Ampt review the travel behaviour change programmes adopted in Australia, and conclude that they are showing promising results, which do not always coincide with conventional assessments of transport instrument outcomes. Firstly, the results may principally be increases in awareness of the need to reduce car use, the possibilities for doing so and the benefits of those possibilities. Such changes are not usually measured as an output of a transport policy intervention. However, increases in awareness are every bit as valid as outcomes of travel behaviour change programmes as are changes in mode. Secondly, clients for travel behaviour change programmes have to date principally been transport organisations for whom the only relevant outcome is the desired change in individuals’ travel patterns. While travel behaviour change programmes are primarily designed to reduce use of the private motorcar in urban areas, some have been specifically designed to achieve this through modal shift to public transport. The purpose of such design is to increase patronage and thus, fare box revenues, which can be used to increase service provision. This revenue aspect means that public transport operators can be brought on board and there is potential for the programme to become self-funding. However, Taylor and Ampt note there can be outcomes that are particularly relevant to other policy areas. Increases in walking and cycling provide individuals with health benefits that may have financial implications for the health sector. The programmes implemented with a specific emphasis on transfer to cycling would have cross-sector benefits for transport and health. Some travel behaviour change projects are part of wider ranging environmental programmes, which incorporate a transport element. This highlights a need to consider the changing contexts within which transport interventions are implemented. Mackett et al. consider a new policy instrument, walking buses, which are usually implemented through a school travel plan. By regarding a walking bus as a transport policy instrument in its own right, they raise an interesting issue regarding the categorisation of travel plans, which are frameworks through which a range of initiatives are implemented, and are usually considered as instruments in their own right. Whilst it is essential to consider the overall impact of the package of measures within a travel plan and the interactions between components, there is a case for assessing the individual elements of a plan in their own
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
right. It may then become more apparent whether some elements of a plan are more effective than others, and whether they are contributing to non-transport objectives. The research is in the early stages, and it is not yet clear whether walking buses are an effective element of such plans. Taylor and Ampt are the only authors to raise the challenging issue of transferability of performance. They demonstrate similar levels of response to travel behaviour programmes in Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, but question whether such results could be transferred even to Sydney, in which higher levels of congestion may already have stimulated people to choose alternative means of travel. More generally further research is needed to understand the effects of city size, density, current transport systems and culture on the performance of individual transport policy instruments. Our KonSULT knowledgebase is designed to collate and compare such information as it becomes available.
3. Integration of policy instruments While most authors consider the impact of individual policy instruments, many note that performance will be affected by any other instruments in place. Indeed, a package of policy instruments could be significantly more effective than any one instrument taken alone. This introduces the concept of integration, which has been interpreted in very different ways by different authors. Our recent guidebook (May, 2003) identifies the potential for integration at five levels: † operationally between services, particularly for public transport services, fares and information; † strategically between the types of policy instrument listed above; † between transport and land use; † more broadly between transport and other sectors such as health and education; and † institutionally between the agencies responsible for transport (and other sectors) within a region. The guidebook notes that most policy developments have focused on operational integration, while overlooking the potential benefits of integration at other levels. Few papers were offered on the principles of integration, though Taylor and Ampt, Mackett et al. and Jones et al. all address that between transport and other sectors, and Geerlings and Stead focus specifically on institutional integration. This lack of contributions reflects a gap in the research; few studies have yet addressed the benefits to be gained by integrating types of policy instrument, or the ways in which such integration can best be designed. Given the increasing emphasis on integration in government publications such as the UK guidance on Local Transport Plans (as outlined in
159
Jones et al.) and international reviews (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 1995, 2002), this is surprising. Some early work on the principles of integration can be found in the results of the EU projects TRENEN (Proost and Van Dender, 2000) and FATIMA (May et al., 2000). A recently commenced EU Fifth Framework research project—SPECTRUM—is seeking to tackle the issue of integration (Grant-Muller, 2003) and it is intended for its results to feed into our knowledgebase, KonSULT. Of particular interest is the growing range of other policy sectors with which transport planners now interact. Between them, Taylor and Ampt, Mackett et al. and Jones et al. mention community development, economic development, education, energy, environment, health, housing, leisure and public safety. This again presents challenges for transport planners, but also provides the opportunity to learn from the appraisal approaches adopted in these sectors and, potentially, to contribute to them. In assessing institutional integration, Geerlings and Stead consider theories of integration from organisational and political sciences, and what they can teach us about integration within transport and between transport, landuse and the environment. They draw a distinction between cooperation, coordination and integration, and advocate an increased emphasis on integration. They provide a useful review of the literature, but note that it lacks a consistent terminology. They endeavour to remedy this by distinguishing between vertical and horizontal integration and, within the latter, between intra-sectoral, inter-sectoral and inter-institutional integration. They identify the key problem as intra-sectoral issues where ‘a number of departments are responsible for one aspect of the problem or another, but none is responsible for it in its entirety’, and the vertical structures of government, which make integration and cooperation problematic. Within the transport arena, they note that research is focused on integration between modes and instruments and assessment methods, rather than on institutional, organisational and implementation issues. A new European project, Transport Institutions and the Policy Process (TIPP) is remedying this imbalance (Niskanen et al., 2003). Common themes in the policy instrument and integration papers are scale of measurement and institutional organisation. New attitudinal and behavioural instruments are now available to transport planners, but they often operate at a scale below that measured by most evaluation frameworks. In terms of institutional organisation, cross-sector benefits derived from some transport interventions and the transport impacts of decisions in other sectors means that there is a need for cross-sector collaboration and integration beyond that currently facilitated by institutional organisation. The availability of new attitudinal and behavioural instruments, developments in other areas of transport, e.g. road pricing and quality bus partnerships, and instruments from other public sectors, combined with government policy that encourages the development of integrated packages of
160
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
measures means that there are many more options and combinations of options available to planners and policy makers now than there has been in the past. These developments mean that the planning and policy environment is becoming more complicated. This requires enhanced management capability in terms of understanding of range of issues, strategic thinking and flexibility. This challenge is also heightened by the need for transparent policy and decision making.
4. Policy monitoring and appraisal Monitoring the performance of policy instruments as individual measures or packages of measures is essential to overall policy appraisal. Monitoring enables trends in the problems, and in the performance of overall strategies, to be determined. Two other elements which may be relevant are the setting of targets, as considered by Gaffron, and the use of benchmarking, to which Nicolas et al. refer in passing. In all cases, as all authors recognise, the process needs to be based on the objectives which cities set for their transport strategies, and on outcome indicators relevant to those objectives. As noted above, the conventional list of accepted transport policy objectives, such as efficiency, environment, safety, accessibility and equity, is gradually being extended into other sectors. Additional objectives have arisen in part because the issues themselves are of growing concern, and in part because some of the newer policy instruments, such as travel behaviour change and walking buses, operate at the interface between these sectors. Taylor and Ampt note that the principal objectives will vary with context. For example in Australian cities it is concern with global warming rather than congestion which has stimulated the pursuit of travel behaviour programmes. Jones et al. provide several examples of strategies being developed to address these wider issues. They also allude to a further reason for considering them: as financial allocations between sectors become more flexible, cities need to demonstrate that their transport strategies can compete with investment in other sectors as ways of alleviating social problems. This in turn gives rise to the need for a wider set of performance indicators, and both Nicolas et al. and Jones et al. focus specifically on this issue. Nicolas et al. consider quality of life as addressed by Urban Mobility Plans (UMPs) in France. UMPs seek to deliver efficient transport systems, provide services for all and a better quality of life through improved protection of the environment. At a higher level they seek to achieve sustainable development in the context of economic constraints and social disparities. However, the tools with which to judge the state of urban mobility and success of UMPs are lacking. Nicolas et al. discuss a range of potential indicators relating to global and local environmental impacts, economic impacts and social impacts. Taking
Greater Lyon as a case study, these indicators are assessed at the level of individual mobility. Transport services provided, and economic and social activities carried out are measured in terms of number of trips, purposes, time budgets, modes, distances and speeds. They also include indicators of space consumed by transport. They note that their analysis is essentially disaggregate rather than aggregate, descriptive rather than normative, and appropriate for monitoring trends rather than understanding causes. On this basis, they foresee the possibility of drawing direct comparisons between urban areas. Jones et al. also focus on quality of life. They note that their indicators need to be consistent across case studies, to be clearly linked to objectives, or themes, and to be able to be disaggregated by interest group within the population. Their themes include neighbourhood, environment, transport, health, education, local economy, crime, participation and lifestyle. They assess these themes through a series of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ indicators. For example, the neighbourhood theme is measured using ‘hard’ factors involving the rank score on index of local deprivation, condition of housing stock survey, built land use change statistics, and ‘soft’ factors comprising satisfaction with the local area and satisfaction with local services. Satisfaction is measured through attitudinal surveys using semantic scales. These data are then considered alongside perceptions of the local area, and quality of local amenities and services derived through focus groups. While the terms ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ are somewhat misleading, the involvement of the community in the measurement of qualitative issues is a distinct improvement on reliance solely on judgment by transport planners. The data for each set can be presented in any combination using a GIS system developed for the project. Based on these comparisons and the amount, direction and rate of change, areas can be classified as ‘a problem, a warning, neutral or good practice’. These states for quality of life themes highlight problems which need to be tackled or positive situations that need to be maintained. However, it is still left to the planners to decide which policy instruments from which sectors are most appropriate. It may be that the outcomes of the focus groups will be able to inform such decision-making processes in the future. These focus groups may prove to be the most important element of the project in demonstrating how transport and other crosscutting measures impact across different sectors, as the surveys are less likely to reveal this information. Mackett et al. consider the evaluation of walking buses against the UK Government’s New Approach to Transport Appraisal (NATA), which was originally designed for use in multi-modal studies of inter-urban transport options (Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions, 2000), and considers social, as well as economic and environmental impacts. They note that walking buses also have outcomes that need to be assessed against the objectives of parents and schools, such as fitness, social interaction and education, and that evaluation of new
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
161
transport instruments should not be constrained by existing evaluation frameworks. Like Taylor and Ampt, they experience problems in applying evaluation frameworks to policy interventions which are of much smaller cost and impact. They propose that a framework be developed which follows NATA as far as possible, but which also includes assessment against the objectives of other interested parties. Where these are most easily assessed through qualitative assessment, Mackett et al. propose open questioning, which allows the scale of impacts to be assessed by considering the number and nature of references to the impact. The issues raised by Taylor and Ampt, and Mackett et al. regarding what is assessed, and how it is assessed may have consequences for the future development of transport project evaluation. Whilst NATA was not primarily intended for post hoc use with local level projects such as walking buses, there is no established framework for the assessment of such small scale projects (either before or after implementation) against transport policy objectives, or the objectives of other sectors. Whether it is possible to develop an appraisal framework that is sufficiently transferable to work equally well for national and local level projects is not clear, but identification of what needs to be assessed, and whether it can currently be assessed is clearly an appropriate starting point. Consideration should be given to the assessment of multi-modal and integrated packages of policy instruments (transport or otherwise) when developing frameworks and methodologies. The limitations of conventional cost benefit analysis become clear in several of the papers (Taylor and Ampt, Mackett et al. and Jones et al.). Many of the interventions are very inexpensive, and it is possible therefore to generate very high cost-benefit ratios. At the same time many of the wider impacts now being considered are harder to quantify. It is almost certainly more appropriate to use a more qualitative form of appraisal, and a simpler cost-effectiveness assessment, for these lower cost policy instruments. This, however, raises the potentially difficult question of how to define a ‘lower cost’ project and what might be an appropriate cut-off point.
Ison and Rye begin by reviewing Gunn’s seminal paper on implementation (Gunn, 1978), in which he set out ten preconditions for perfect implementation. Whilst acknowledging the criticisms of Gunn’s top-down approach to decision-making processes, Ison and Rye view the ten preconditions as an informative framework for analysing implementation processes. Consequently, they assess the implementation of two specific transport policy instruments, company travel plans and road user charging, using the framework provided by Gunn’s preconditions. These instruments provide an interesting comparison, as implementation of company travel plans has been quite widespread whilst implementation of road user charging has been very limited. Ison and Rye’s assessment identifies four of Gunn’s preconditions as being key:
5. Policy implementation
† the policy making process; † the relationships both within and between the bodies and organisations involved; † the behaviour of the implementing officers and the target group(s); † policy outputs; and † policy outcomes.
As the political focus turns from policy development towards implementation, the research agenda has similarly shifted and research into policy implementation has begun to emerge. It starts from a recognition that the implementation of transport policy involves a wide range of individuals and organisations, and that there may be barriers to the smooth implementation of policy. As noted earlier, a number of concerns about the difficulties of policy implementation have been highlighted by the European Conference of Ministers of Transport’s recent study (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 2002).
† it can be demonstrated that external circumstances merit the introduction of the policy instrument; † it can be demonstrated that the policy will have the intended effect; † there is a single implementing agency responsible for all implementation; and † resources are allocated to programme implementation. They conclude that Gunn’s preconditions are appropriate in that they permit a systematic categorisation of many implementation processes. However, they argue that the framework should be extended to include six further aspects: monitoring; a policy champion; political stability; trust amongst the parties involved; public relations; and phasing. Gaffron reports on a study of British local authorities and their relative activity in implementing walking and cycling policies. She seeks to answer three key questions. How are nationally set policies implemented at the local level? What mechanisms contribute to or detract from successful implementation? How does implementation at the local level differ across different authorities? Her research was structured on the basis of a conceptual model developed by Winter (Winter, 1990) which identified five factors determining the implementation process:
She undertook a survey of 92 British local authorities to assess how active they were in implementing walking and cycling policies, using Winter’s categorisation as an initial guideline, and then undertook a number of case studies to understand the key differences between more and less active authorities. To assist with the selection of case study
162
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
authorities, she constructs an index, designed to rank authorities and compare relevant characteristics. The index was found to relate most closely to the organisational types of local authority, rather than physical size, political control or population density. One of the key conclusions is that local policy implementation does not depend purely on local factors; national policy guidance and resource provision, as well as the existence of local champions and the existing infrastructure within the authority, were found to provide the most significant contributions to successful implementation. Thus, a number of studies have identified factors (or preconditions) contributing to, or hindering, successful implementation of transport policy. In our own work we have summarised the key barriers to implementation as being public and political acceptability, legal barriers, financial barriers and technical feasibility (May et al., 2001). There appears to be a degree of consistency between the types of barrier, or success factor, which are highlighted; there is, however, much less understanding of what to do in the face of these barriers. At a fundamental level there is a question of whether attempts should be made to remove the barrier or whether the policy should be amended in such a way as to side-step the barrier. For example, if the barrier to implementation relates to public acceptability, should the policy remain the same and efforts be put into marketing and selling the policy, or should the policy be adjusted so that it becomes more acceptable to the public? Undoubtedly a key issue in policy implementation concerns the distribution of responsibilities among organisations. Gaffron’s work is an interesting attempt to initiate a better understanding of a key set of organisations responsible for policy implementation: local authorities. It would be worthwhile to extend this analysis to other countries and to transport policy areas other than walking and cycling. Research in the areas of political science and institutional issues is likely to shed some light on these topics and the outputs of the EU project, TIPP (Niskanen et al., 2003), may prove to be relevant.
6. Interactive information tools Two new information tools were presented at the Conference: our own Knowledgebase on Sustainable Land Use and Transport, KonSULT (Matthews et al., 2002; www. transportconnect.net/konsult/index.html), and Litman’s Online Transportation Demand Management Encyclopaedia (www.vtpi.org/tdm/). Litman describes clearly the reasons for the development of such tools; cities need to understand how policy instruments work, whether they can help tackle the problems which a given city faces, and whether they might have any adverse side effects. The provision of up to date information from a wide range of case studies can help to overcome misperceptions as to the impact of some of the newer policy instruments, and also to
demonstrate that no one intervention on its own will provide an answer to a city’s problems. The key challenge lies in determining how to present this information, enable it to be readily updated, and ensure that it is of an appropriate quality. Litman’s paper describes the approach which he has adopted. He covers almost 50 policy instruments, but focuses on those which can be included under the broad heading of transportation demand management. As a result, infrastructure provision and improvements to the road network for general traffic are not covered. He adopts a standard structure for providing information on them, assesses them against a standard set of objectives, and provides guidance on the contexts in which they can be used. He also offers a series of background chapters on planning and evaluation. There are many similarities with our own KonSULT knowledgebase (Matthews et al., 2002); indeed we have compared ideas as both have developed. KonSULT now covers 30 policy instruments, drawn from across the full range of types of instrument listed above, and will include 50 by late 2003. It also adopts a standard structure for assessment, but starts with a first principles assessment in which the expected impacts on demand, supply and costs are identified, and used to assess the likely impacts on a standard list of objectives and problems. It then provides a series of case studies, structured in the same way, to test the first principles assessment, and to assess the transferability of experience. It provides a series of search processes, which enable users to specify their contexts, objectives and problems, and identify those instruments which they might consider further. It concludes with an identification of the barriers to implementation, and the complementary instruments which might help overcome those barriers and reinforce the performance of the chosen instrument. It is intended to develop a further level in KonSULT which will address more directly the design of integrated strategies. Careful website design makes it possible to update the material readily as new evidence emerges, and KonSULT actively encourages users to submit case studies of which they are aware. Even so, given the volume of material included, Litman notes that maintenance of his encyclopaedia currently requires one person half-time. This accords with our experience, and raises important questions as to how such facilities, if they are free to the user, should be maintained. Whilst not explicitly mentioned by Litman, quality assurance remains an important challenge. All entries to such websites will include an element of professional judgment by the authors, and case study results will depend in addition on the quality and completeness of the data collection process on which they are based. Ideally all entries should be refereed in the same way that articles in academic journals are, but reviews of website material have yet to become standard practice in the research community. In their absence, we currently rely on the advice of an
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
informal editorial advisory board and the internal checks which our first principles assessment provide.
7. Research challenges The papers in this special issue provide a flavour of the breadth of research which is underway in the subject area, but also indicate how much further work is needed. Much still needs to be learnt about the performance of many of the transport policy instruments now available. A recent review of modelling capabilities suggested that only around 25% could be reliably represented in transport models (Simmonds et al., 2001). While this is in part a criticism of the structure of current models, it also indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of how many instruments work, and what are the causal processes which lead them to contribute positively or negatively to different objectives. Individual case studies can provide evidence on performance in a given context, but they will not, without wider testing, indicate how transferable these results are. Even where case studies are available, they are not always comprehensive in their coverage or reliably documented. There is a case, therefore, for a targeted international programme which specifies a set of standard requirements for case study evidence, determines those instruments and contexts for which more evidence is needed, identifies opportunities for collecting case study evidence, and ensures that it is widely disseminated. The interactive information tools described above offer a means for such dissemination as the empirical evidence becomes available; they also offer a basis for specifying the standard information requirements. If some individual instruments are little understood, the position with integrated strategies is even more serious. After a decade or more of advocacy of integrated approaches, there are still few good case studies of their application, and empirical evidence is thus hard to find. Even where it is in principle available, the practical constraints on collecting true before and after data are immense. Rarely will all elements of an integrated strategy be implemented together, and assessment will be affected by the sequence and timescale of implementation, and the countervailing factors which will inevitably affect the performance of the transport system. These considerations in turn will make it even more difficult to assess transferability of performance. Not surprisingly, therefore, much analysis for the present has to be model-based, and is itself limited by the ability of models to represent the range of policy instruments to be integrated, and the synergy between them. But at least it is then possible to test the interaction between policy instruments within a controlled environment. Some research in this area is currently underway (Emberger et al., 2003; www.ltcon.fi/propolis). In the longer term it
163
may be appropriate to develop a comparative monitoring programme for a series of cities which are committed to implementing integrated strategies, so that evidence on their impacts, as they are implemented, and the underlying causal processes, can be obtained in a consistent way. As noted earlier, the wider range of instruments and policy objectives brings with it a need for a broader approach to appraisal, which can address social, health and education impacts and enable transport interventions to be compared with those from other sectors. This in turn requires a more comprehensive set of both quantitative and qualitative indicators, a form of multi-criteria appraisal which can address them, and either a reduced reliance on formal cost-benefit analysis or a concerted programme to enable this wider range of often somewhat abstract benefits to be valued. Again, some early work on this is underway (Jopson and Nellthorp, 2003). Another emerging theme is the use of such indicators to set targets for the performance of strategies. In some cases these are based on input indicators, such as kilometres of bus priority, in others on process indicators such as the bus mode share, and in others on outcome indicators such as accessibility by bus. We argue elsewhere (May, 2003) that it is the last of these which are most appropriate, since they relate directly to policy objectives. Even so, there is some concern that such targets may lead to rather biased and less effective strategies. Our early model-based assessments (Emberger et al., 2003) suggest that this may prove to be a serious weakness. Implementation practice is also an area in which there is relatively little evidence-based research. A number of papers, including those by Gunn and Winter cited by Ison and Rye and Gaffron, offer basic principles, but they are somewhat dated, and do not necessarily reflect the complexities of the current decision-making environment (May, 2003). There is a need to revisit and update these basic principles, specify a framework for research into implementation practice and the treatment of barriers, and develop a programme of empirical research to test that framework. One of the projects in the current programme of European land use and transport research (www.lutr.net), TRANSPLUS, is addressing these issues, and its results will be awaited with interest. As an extension of this, there is a case for further research into the relative merits of different decision-making processes, and into best practice in the involvement of stakeholders. All of these are themes which the Special Interest Group on Urban Transport Policy will be addressing in its future conferences, and other contributions to them are welcome. Once results become available, the interactive information tools now under development should offer a ready and consistent means for their dissemination.
164
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
References Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions, 2000. Guidance on the Methodology for Multi-modal Studies, DETR, London,. Emberger, G., May, A.D., Shepherd, S.P., 2003. Methods to Identify Optimal Land Use and Transport Policy Packages. Proceedings of the Ninth TRB Conference on the Application of Transportation Planning Methods, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 6–10 April, 2003. European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 1995. Urban travel and sustainable development. Report to the Council of Ministers, EMCT, Paris European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 2002. Implementing sustainable urban travel policies. Final Report. Report to the Council of Ministers, ECMT, Paris Grant-Muller, S., 2003. SPECTRUM Inception Report. Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, unpublished report Gunn, L.A., 1978. Why is Implementation so difficult? Management Services in Government I (33), 169 –176. Jopson, A., Nellthorp, J., 2003. Clarifying Qualitative Sub-objectives in Appraisal, Work Package 1. Final Appraisal Review, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, unpublished report Matthews, B., Jopson, A., May, A.D., 2002. Developing a Method for the Assessment of Evidence on the Impacts of Transport Policy
Instruments. Proceedings of the European Transport Conference, Homerton College, Cambridge, 9–11 September, 2002, PTC. London. May, A.D., 2003. Developing Sustainable Urban Land Use and Transport Strategies: a Decision-makers Guidebook Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds. May, A.D., Shepherd, S.P., Timms, P.M., 2000. Optimal transport strategies for European cities. Transportation 27 (3), 285– 315. May, A.D., Matthews, B., Jarvi-Nykanen, T., 2001. Decision Making Requirements for the Formulation of Sustainable Urban Land Use— Transport Strategies. Proceedings of the Ninth World Conference on Transport Research, Seoul, Korea, July 2001. Niskanen, E., de Palma, A., Kallioinen, J., Lindsey, R., Matthews, B., May, A.D., Moilanen, P., Tegner, H., Wieland, B., Zografos, K., 2003. Approach to Analysing Institutional Issues in Transport Policy Implementation, TIPP Deliverable One (forthcoming), Strafica, Helsinki,. Proost, S., Van Dender, K., 2000. TRENEN II STRAN. Final report for publication, Catholic University, Leuven Simmonds, D., May, A.D., Bates, J.J., 2001. A New Look at Multi-modal Modelling. Proceedings of the 28th European Transport Conference, Homerton College, Cambridge, September 2001, PTCR, London. Winter, S., 1990. Integrating Implementation Research. In: Palumbo, D.J., Calista, D.J. (Eds.), Implementation and the Policy Process, Greenwood Press, New York.
Research challenges in urban transport policy A.D. May*, A.F. Jopson, B. Matthews Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
1. Introduction Transport is one of the most significant sources of unsustainability in urban areas. In European cities alone, traffic congestion costs in excess of e100B each year, local pollution and the resultant health impacts impose costs of a similar magnitude, and there are around 20,000 fatalities on urban roads each year. Many countries are now advocating integrated approaches to these problems, in which the full range of transport policy interventions (infrastructure, management, regulation, information and pricing) are combined with land use, environmental and wider social policy instruments (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 1995). Most of the constituent elements of these strategies are already available, but there is a serious lack of detailed understanding of the impacts of many of these policy instruments and of their transferability to different contexts. Even more serious is the lack of understanding of how to design integrated strategies which most effectively combine infrastructure, management, regulation and pricing. Even where appropriately sustainable strategies are identified, there are serious barriers to their implementation. The recent ECMT report (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 2002) highlights poor policy integration and coordination, counterproductive institutional roles, unsupportive regulatory frameworks, weaknesses in pricing and poor data quality and quantity as reasons for the failure of most cities to pursue the policies advocated in its earlier report (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 1995). The papers in this special issue of Transport Policy are a selection of those presented at the inaugural conference of a new Special Interest Group (SIG) of the World Conference on Transport Research Society, SIG-10, which focuses on these critical issues in urban transport policy. Membership of the SIG is open to anyone with an interest in research, * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44-113-233-6610; fax: þ 44-113-2335334. E-mail address: [email protected] (A.D. May).
teaching or practice in urban transport, and details can be found in the WCTRS section of the journal. When the new SIG was launched at the Ninth World Conference in Seoul in July 2001, it was agreed that its objectives should be: † to increase our understanding of the performance of transport policy instruments; † to determine the principles of policy integration; † to develop good practice in the monitoring and appraisal of policy instruments; † to identify good practice in the design, implementation and operation of policy instruments; and † to develop interactive information tools to aid the understanding of urban transport policy for students, practitioners and decision-makers. The inaugural conference, held in Leeds in July 2002, included sessions on all five of these themes, with a total of 14 papers. Copies of the conference proceedings are available from the authors of this paper. The eight papers included in this special issue cover the range of themes, while in many cases addressing more than one of them. In this overview paper we have endeavoured to draw out the key issues from these papers, while focusing on the research challenges which remain to be tackled. The structure of the paper follows the five bullet points listed above, focusing in turn on the papers by Taylor and Ampt, Mackett et al. (Section 2); Geerlings and Stead (Section 3); Jones et al., Nicolas et al. (Section 4); Gaffron, Ison and Rye (Section 5); and Litman (Section 6); but bringing in ideas from other papers where appropriate. We conclude by highlighting our view of the key research challenges which lie ahead.
2. Understanding the performance of policy instruments One of the most significant developments of the last decade has been the emergence of a much wider range of policy instruments available to the urban transport planner.
0967-070X/03/$ - see front matter q 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0967-070X(03)00039-8
158
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
In our own work we identified some 80 types of policy instrument, including those in related sectors which influence transport (May et al., 2001); we have since focused on a shorter list of 60 which are being included in our Knowledgebase on Sustainable Land Use and Transport (KonSULT) (Matthews et al., 2002), which is referred to in more detail later in this paper. That there are now so many policy instruments from which to choose is a significant opportunity for transport planners, since it increases their ability to find the most suitable solutions in their particular circumstances. It does, however, represent a challenge, both in ascertaining the performance of this wider set of policy instruments, and in understanding how best they can be integrated into overall strategies. Categorising these policy instruments effectively is itself not easy. A popular way of doing so is in terms of transportation demand management (TDM), which Litman describes, in his paper, as ‘a general term for strategies and programmes that encourage more efficient use of transport resources’. Within the context of TDM, Litman uses five categories: improved transport options; incentives to shift mode; land use management; policy and planning reforms; support programmes. This can result in one policy intervention (e.g. pedestrian improvements) appearing in more than one category, and Litman provides for this by linking the instruments with multiple impacts to other categories. A second approach to categorisation is by mode, but this can make a multi-modal approach, the importance of which is increasingly recognised (Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, 2000), difficult to represent. Our own approach, in KonSULT, has been to categorise instruments by type of intervention, distinguishing between six types: † † † † † †
land use policies; infrastructure provision; management and regulation; information provision; attitudinal and behavioural measures; and pricing;
and introducing subcategories by mode where relevant (Matthews et al., 2002). This makes it possible to describe all impacts of an intervention in one place. A sophisticated search facility then allows readers to select one or more interventions on the basis of outcome, e.g. encouraging walking. One interesting attribute of the papers offered to the conference was the dominance of interest in attitudinal and behavioural measures. Of those presented here, Taylor and Ampt’s travel behaviour programmes, Mackett et al.’s walking buses and Ison and Rye’s company travel plans all come into this category. Both Taylor and Ampt and Ison and Rye note that these attitudinal measures differ from conventional transportation demand management, by increasing choice and empowering individual travellers to
make alternative choices, rather than imposing restrictions on them. Ison and Rye also consider road pricing, and Gaffron management of walking and cycling, while Jones et al. consider policy instruments from across the range identified in KonSULT. This emphasis reflects the novelty of some of these policy instruments, and the authors’ experience indicates some of the challenges which are faced in transferring empirical research methods to new types of policy intervention. Taylor and Ampt review the travel behaviour change programmes adopted in Australia, and conclude that they are showing promising results, which do not always coincide with conventional assessments of transport instrument outcomes. Firstly, the results may principally be increases in awareness of the need to reduce car use, the possibilities for doing so and the benefits of those possibilities. Such changes are not usually measured as an output of a transport policy intervention. However, increases in awareness are every bit as valid as outcomes of travel behaviour change programmes as are changes in mode. Secondly, clients for travel behaviour change programmes have to date principally been transport organisations for whom the only relevant outcome is the desired change in individuals’ travel patterns. While travel behaviour change programmes are primarily designed to reduce use of the private motorcar in urban areas, some have been specifically designed to achieve this through modal shift to public transport. The purpose of such design is to increase patronage and thus, fare box revenues, which can be used to increase service provision. This revenue aspect means that public transport operators can be brought on board and there is potential for the programme to become self-funding. However, Taylor and Ampt note there can be outcomes that are particularly relevant to other policy areas. Increases in walking and cycling provide individuals with health benefits that may have financial implications for the health sector. The programmes implemented with a specific emphasis on transfer to cycling would have cross-sector benefits for transport and health. Some travel behaviour change projects are part of wider ranging environmental programmes, which incorporate a transport element. This highlights a need to consider the changing contexts within which transport interventions are implemented. Mackett et al. consider a new policy instrument, walking buses, which are usually implemented through a school travel plan. By regarding a walking bus as a transport policy instrument in its own right, they raise an interesting issue regarding the categorisation of travel plans, which are frameworks through which a range of initiatives are implemented, and are usually considered as instruments in their own right. Whilst it is essential to consider the overall impact of the package of measures within a travel plan and the interactions between components, there is a case for assessing the individual elements of a plan in their own
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
right. It may then become more apparent whether some elements of a plan are more effective than others, and whether they are contributing to non-transport objectives. The research is in the early stages, and it is not yet clear whether walking buses are an effective element of such plans. Taylor and Ampt are the only authors to raise the challenging issue of transferability of performance. They demonstrate similar levels of response to travel behaviour programmes in Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, but question whether such results could be transferred even to Sydney, in which higher levels of congestion may already have stimulated people to choose alternative means of travel. More generally further research is needed to understand the effects of city size, density, current transport systems and culture on the performance of individual transport policy instruments. Our KonSULT knowledgebase is designed to collate and compare such information as it becomes available.
3. Integration of policy instruments While most authors consider the impact of individual policy instruments, many note that performance will be affected by any other instruments in place. Indeed, a package of policy instruments could be significantly more effective than any one instrument taken alone. This introduces the concept of integration, which has been interpreted in very different ways by different authors. Our recent guidebook (May, 2003) identifies the potential for integration at five levels: † operationally between services, particularly for public transport services, fares and information; † strategically between the types of policy instrument listed above; † between transport and land use; † more broadly between transport and other sectors such as health and education; and † institutionally between the agencies responsible for transport (and other sectors) within a region. The guidebook notes that most policy developments have focused on operational integration, while overlooking the potential benefits of integration at other levels. Few papers were offered on the principles of integration, though Taylor and Ampt, Mackett et al. and Jones et al. all address that between transport and other sectors, and Geerlings and Stead focus specifically on institutional integration. This lack of contributions reflects a gap in the research; few studies have yet addressed the benefits to be gained by integrating types of policy instrument, or the ways in which such integration can best be designed. Given the increasing emphasis on integration in government publications such as the UK guidance on Local Transport Plans (as outlined in
159
Jones et al.) and international reviews (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 1995, 2002), this is surprising. Some early work on the principles of integration can be found in the results of the EU projects TRENEN (Proost and Van Dender, 2000) and FATIMA (May et al., 2000). A recently commenced EU Fifth Framework research project—SPECTRUM—is seeking to tackle the issue of integration (Grant-Muller, 2003) and it is intended for its results to feed into our knowledgebase, KonSULT. Of particular interest is the growing range of other policy sectors with which transport planners now interact. Between them, Taylor and Ampt, Mackett et al. and Jones et al. mention community development, economic development, education, energy, environment, health, housing, leisure and public safety. This again presents challenges for transport planners, but also provides the opportunity to learn from the appraisal approaches adopted in these sectors and, potentially, to contribute to them. In assessing institutional integration, Geerlings and Stead consider theories of integration from organisational and political sciences, and what they can teach us about integration within transport and between transport, landuse and the environment. They draw a distinction between cooperation, coordination and integration, and advocate an increased emphasis on integration. They provide a useful review of the literature, but note that it lacks a consistent terminology. They endeavour to remedy this by distinguishing between vertical and horizontal integration and, within the latter, between intra-sectoral, inter-sectoral and inter-institutional integration. They identify the key problem as intra-sectoral issues where ‘a number of departments are responsible for one aspect of the problem or another, but none is responsible for it in its entirety’, and the vertical structures of government, which make integration and cooperation problematic. Within the transport arena, they note that research is focused on integration between modes and instruments and assessment methods, rather than on institutional, organisational and implementation issues. A new European project, Transport Institutions and the Policy Process (TIPP) is remedying this imbalance (Niskanen et al., 2003). Common themes in the policy instrument and integration papers are scale of measurement and institutional organisation. New attitudinal and behavioural instruments are now available to transport planners, but they often operate at a scale below that measured by most evaluation frameworks. In terms of institutional organisation, cross-sector benefits derived from some transport interventions and the transport impacts of decisions in other sectors means that there is a need for cross-sector collaboration and integration beyond that currently facilitated by institutional organisation. The availability of new attitudinal and behavioural instruments, developments in other areas of transport, e.g. road pricing and quality bus partnerships, and instruments from other public sectors, combined with government policy that encourages the development of integrated packages of
160
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
measures means that there are many more options and combinations of options available to planners and policy makers now than there has been in the past. These developments mean that the planning and policy environment is becoming more complicated. This requires enhanced management capability in terms of understanding of range of issues, strategic thinking and flexibility. This challenge is also heightened by the need for transparent policy and decision making.
4. Policy monitoring and appraisal Monitoring the performance of policy instruments as individual measures or packages of measures is essential to overall policy appraisal. Monitoring enables trends in the problems, and in the performance of overall strategies, to be determined. Two other elements which may be relevant are the setting of targets, as considered by Gaffron, and the use of benchmarking, to which Nicolas et al. refer in passing. In all cases, as all authors recognise, the process needs to be based on the objectives which cities set for their transport strategies, and on outcome indicators relevant to those objectives. As noted above, the conventional list of accepted transport policy objectives, such as efficiency, environment, safety, accessibility and equity, is gradually being extended into other sectors. Additional objectives have arisen in part because the issues themselves are of growing concern, and in part because some of the newer policy instruments, such as travel behaviour change and walking buses, operate at the interface between these sectors. Taylor and Ampt note that the principal objectives will vary with context. For example in Australian cities it is concern with global warming rather than congestion which has stimulated the pursuit of travel behaviour programmes. Jones et al. provide several examples of strategies being developed to address these wider issues. They also allude to a further reason for considering them: as financial allocations between sectors become more flexible, cities need to demonstrate that their transport strategies can compete with investment in other sectors as ways of alleviating social problems. This in turn gives rise to the need for a wider set of performance indicators, and both Nicolas et al. and Jones et al. focus specifically on this issue. Nicolas et al. consider quality of life as addressed by Urban Mobility Plans (UMPs) in France. UMPs seek to deliver efficient transport systems, provide services for all and a better quality of life through improved protection of the environment. At a higher level they seek to achieve sustainable development in the context of economic constraints and social disparities. However, the tools with which to judge the state of urban mobility and success of UMPs are lacking. Nicolas et al. discuss a range of potential indicators relating to global and local environmental impacts, economic impacts and social impacts. Taking
Greater Lyon as a case study, these indicators are assessed at the level of individual mobility. Transport services provided, and economic and social activities carried out are measured in terms of number of trips, purposes, time budgets, modes, distances and speeds. They also include indicators of space consumed by transport. They note that their analysis is essentially disaggregate rather than aggregate, descriptive rather than normative, and appropriate for monitoring trends rather than understanding causes. On this basis, they foresee the possibility of drawing direct comparisons between urban areas. Jones et al. also focus on quality of life. They note that their indicators need to be consistent across case studies, to be clearly linked to objectives, or themes, and to be able to be disaggregated by interest group within the population. Their themes include neighbourhood, environment, transport, health, education, local economy, crime, participation and lifestyle. They assess these themes through a series of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ indicators. For example, the neighbourhood theme is measured using ‘hard’ factors involving the rank score on index of local deprivation, condition of housing stock survey, built land use change statistics, and ‘soft’ factors comprising satisfaction with the local area and satisfaction with local services. Satisfaction is measured through attitudinal surveys using semantic scales. These data are then considered alongside perceptions of the local area, and quality of local amenities and services derived through focus groups. While the terms ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ are somewhat misleading, the involvement of the community in the measurement of qualitative issues is a distinct improvement on reliance solely on judgment by transport planners. The data for each set can be presented in any combination using a GIS system developed for the project. Based on these comparisons and the amount, direction and rate of change, areas can be classified as ‘a problem, a warning, neutral or good practice’. These states for quality of life themes highlight problems which need to be tackled or positive situations that need to be maintained. However, it is still left to the planners to decide which policy instruments from which sectors are most appropriate. It may be that the outcomes of the focus groups will be able to inform such decision-making processes in the future. These focus groups may prove to be the most important element of the project in demonstrating how transport and other crosscutting measures impact across different sectors, as the surveys are less likely to reveal this information. Mackett et al. consider the evaluation of walking buses against the UK Government’s New Approach to Transport Appraisal (NATA), which was originally designed for use in multi-modal studies of inter-urban transport options (Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions, 2000), and considers social, as well as economic and environmental impacts. They note that walking buses also have outcomes that need to be assessed against the objectives of parents and schools, such as fitness, social interaction and education, and that evaluation of new
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
161
transport instruments should not be constrained by existing evaluation frameworks. Like Taylor and Ampt, they experience problems in applying evaluation frameworks to policy interventions which are of much smaller cost and impact. They propose that a framework be developed which follows NATA as far as possible, but which also includes assessment against the objectives of other interested parties. Where these are most easily assessed through qualitative assessment, Mackett et al. propose open questioning, which allows the scale of impacts to be assessed by considering the number and nature of references to the impact. The issues raised by Taylor and Ampt, and Mackett et al. regarding what is assessed, and how it is assessed may have consequences for the future development of transport project evaluation. Whilst NATA was not primarily intended for post hoc use with local level projects such as walking buses, there is no established framework for the assessment of such small scale projects (either before or after implementation) against transport policy objectives, or the objectives of other sectors. Whether it is possible to develop an appraisal framework that is sufficiently transferable to work equally well for national and local level projects is not clear, but identification of what needs to be assessed, and whether it can currently be assessed is clearly an appropriate starting point. Consideration should be given to the assessment of multi-modal and integrated packages of policy instruments (transport or otherwise) when developing frameworks and methodologies. The limitations of conventional cost benefit analysis become clear in several of the papers (Taylor and Ampt, Mackett et al. and Jones et al.). Many of the interventions are very inexpensive, and it is possible therefore to generate very high cost-benefit ratios. At the same time many of the wider impacts now being considered are harder to quantify. It is almost certainly more appropriate to use a more qualitative form of appraisal, and a simpler cost-effectiveness assessment, for these lower cost policy instruments. This, however, raises the potentially difficult question of how to define a ‘lower cost’ project and what might be an appropriate cut-off point.
Ison and Rye begin by reviewing Gunn’s seminal paper on implementation (Gunn, 1978), in which he set out ten preconditions for perfect implementation. Whilst acknowledging the criticisms of Gunn’s top-down approach to decision-making processes, Ison and Rye view the ten preconditions as an informative framework for analysing implementation processes. Consequently, they assess the implementation of two specific transport policy instruments, company travel plans and road user charging, using the framework provided by Gunn’s preconditions. These instruments provide an interesting comparison, as implementation of company travel plans has been quite widespread whilst implementation of road user charging has been very limited. Ison and Rye’s assessment identifies four of Gunn’s preconditions as being key:
5. Policy implementation
† the policy making process; † the relationships both within and between the bodies and organisations involved; † the behaviour of the implementing officers and the target group(s); † policy outputs; and † policy outcomes.
As the political focus turns from policy development towards implementation, the research agenda has similarly shifted and research into policy implementation has begun to emerge. It starts from a recognition that the implementation of transport policy involves a wide range of individuals and organisations, and that there may be barriers to the smooth implementation of policy. As noted earlier, a number of concerns about the difficulties of policy implementation have been highlighted by the European Conference of Ministers of Transport’s recent study (European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 2002).
† it can be demonstrated that external circumstances merit the introduction of the policy instrument; † it can be demonstrated that the policy will have the intended effect; † there is a single implementing agency responsible for all implementation; and † resources are allocated to programme implementation. They conclude that Gunn’s preconditions are appropriate in that they permit a systematic categorisation of many implementation processes. However, they argue that the framework should be extended to include six further aspects: monitoring; a policy champion; political stability; trust amongst the parties involved; public relations; and phasing. Gaffron reports on a study of British local authorities and their relative activity in implementing walking and cycling policies. She seeks to answer three key questions. How are nationally set policies implemented at the local level? What mechanisms contribute to or detract from successful implementation? How does implementation at the local level differ across different authorities? Her research was structured on the basis of a conceptual model developed by Winter (Winter, 1990) which identified five factors determining the implementation process:
She undertook a survey of 92 British local authorities to assess how active they were in implementing walking and cycling policies, using Winter’s categorisation as an initial guideline, and then undertook a number of case studies to understand the key differences between more and less active authorities. To assist with the selection of case study
162
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
authorities, she constructs an index, designed to rank authorities and compare relevant characteristics. The index was found to relate most closely to the organisational types of local authority, rather than physical size, political control or population density. One of the key conclusions is that local policy implementation does not depend purely on local factors; national policy guidance and resource provision, as well as the existence of local champions and the existing infrastructure within the authority, were found to provide the most significant contributions to successful implementation. Thus, a number of studies have identified factors (or preconditions) contributing to, or hindering, successful implementation of transport policy. In our own work we have summarised the key barriers to implementation as being public and political acceptability, legal barriers, financial barriers and technical feasibility (May et al., 2001). There appears to be a degree of consistency between the types of barrier, or success factor, which are highlighted; there is, however, much less understanding of what to do in the face of these barriers. At a fundamental level there is a question of whether attempts should be made to remove the barrier or whether the policy should be amended in such a way as to side-step the barrier. For example, if the barrier to implementation relates to public acceptability, should the policy remain the same and efforts be put into marketing and selling the policy, or should the policy be adjusted so that it becomes more acceptable to the public? Undoubtedly a key issue in policy implementation concerns the distribution of responsibilities among organisations. Gaffron’s work is an interesting attempt to initiate a better understanding of a key set of organisations responsible for policy implementation: local authorities. It would be worthwhile to extend this analysis to other countries and to transport policy areas other than walking and cycling. Research in the areas of political science and institutional issues is likely to shed some light on these topics and the outputs of the EU project, TIPP (Niskanen et al., 2003), may prove to be relevant.
6. Interactive information tools Two new information tools were presented at the Conference: our own Knowledgebase on Sustainable Land Use and Transport, KonSULT (Matthews et al., 2002; www. transportconnect.net/konsult/index.html), and Litman’s Online Transportation Demand Management Encyclopaedia (www.vtpi.org/tdm/). Litman describes clearly the reasons for the development of such tools; cities need to understand how policy instruments work, whether they can help tackle the problems which a given city faces, and whether they might have any adverse side effects. The provision of up to date information from a wide range of case studies can help to overcome misperceptions as to the impact of some of the newer policy instruments, and also to
demonstrate that no one intervention on its own will provide an answer to a city’s problems. The key challenge lies in determining how to present this information, enable it to be readily updated, and ensure that it is of an appropriate quality. Litman’s paper describes the approach which he has adopted. He covers almost 50 policy instruments, but focuses on those which can be included under the broad heading of transportation demand management. As a result, infrastructure provision and improvements to the road network for general traffic are not covered. He adopts a standard structure for providing information on them, assesses them against a standard set of objectives, and provides guidance on the contexts in which they can be used. He also offers a series of background chapters on planning and evaluation. There are many similarities with our own KonSULT knowledgebase (Matthews et al., 2002); indeed we have compared ideas as both have developed. KonSULT now covers 30 policy instruments, drawn from across the full range of types of instrument listed above, and will include 50 by late 2003. It also adopts a standard structure for assessment, but starts with a first principles assessment in which the expected impacts on demand, supply and costs are identified, and used to assess the likely impacts on a standard list of objectives and problems. It then provides a series of case studies, structured in the same way, to test the first principles assessment, and to assess the transferability of experience. It provides a series of search processes, which enable users to specify their contexts, objectives and problems, and identify those instruments which they might consider further. It concludes with an identification of the barriers to implementation, and the complementary instruments which might help overcome those barriers and reinforce the performance of the chosen instrument. It is intended to develop a further level in KonSULT which will address more directly the design of integrated strategies. Careful website design makes it possible to update the material readily as new evidence emerges, and KonSULT actively encourages users to submit case studies of which they are aware. Even so, given the volume of material included, Litman notes that maintenance of his encyclopaedia currently requires one person half-time. This accords with our experience, and raises important questions as to how such facilities, if they are free to the user, should be maintained. Whilst not explicitly mentioned by Litman, quality assurance remains an important challenge. All entries to such websites will include an element of professional judgment by the authors, and case study results will depend in addition on the quality and completeness of the data collection process on which they are based. Ideally all entries should be refereed in the same way that articles in academic journals are, but reviews of website material have yet to become standard practice in the research community. In their absence, we currently rely on the advice of an
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
informal editorial advisory board and the internal checks which our first principles assessment provide.
7. Research challenges The papers in this special issue provide a flavour of the breadth of research which is underway in the subject area, but also indicate how much further work is needed. Much still needs to be learnt about the performance of many of the transport policy instruments now available. A recent review of modelling capabilities suggested that only around 25% could be reliably represented in transport models (Simmonds et al., 2001). While this is in part a criticism of the structure of current models, it also indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of how many instruments work, and what are the causal processes which lead them to contribute positively or negatively to different objectives. Individual case studies can provide evidence on performance in a given context, but they will not, without wider testing, indicate how transferable these results are. Even where case studies are available, they are not always comprehensive in their coverage or reliably documented. There is a case, therefore, for a targeted international programme which specifies a set of standard requirements for case study evidence, determines those instruments and contexts for which more evidence is needed, identifies opportunities for collecting case study evidence, and ensures that it is widely disseminated. The interactive information tools described above offer a means for such dissemination as the empirical evidence becomes available; they also offer a basis for specifying the standard information requirements. If some individual instruments are little understood, the position with integrated strategies is even more serious. After a decade or more of advocacy of integrated approaches, there are still few good case studies of their application, and empirical evidence is thus hard to find. Even where it is in principle available, the practical constraints on collecting true before and after data are immense. Rarely will all elements of an integrated strategy be implemented together, and assessment will be affected by the sequence and timescale of implementation, and the countervailing factors which will inevitably affect the performance of the transport system. These considerations in turn will make it even more difficult to assess transferability of performance. Not surprisingly, therefore, much analysis for the present has to be model-based, and is itself limited by the ability of models to represent the range of policy instruments to be integrated, and the synergy between them. But at least it is then possible to test the interaction between policy instruments within a controlled environment. Some research in this area is currently underway (Emberger et al., 2003; www.ltcon.fi/propolis). In the longer term it
163
may be appropriate to develop a comparative monitoring programme for a series of cities which are committed to implementing integrated strategies, so that evidence on their impacts, as they are implemented, and the underlying causal processes, can be obtained in a consistent way. As noted earlier, the wider range of instruments and policy objectives brings with it a need for a broader approach to appraisal, which can address social, health and education impacts and enable transport interventions to be compared with those from other sectors. This in turn requires a more comprehensive set of both quantitative and qualitative indicators, a form of multi-criteria appraisal which can address them, and either a reduced reliance on formal cost-benefit analysis or a concerted programme to enable this wider range of often somewhat abstract benefits to be valued. Again, some early work on this is underway (Jopson and Nellthorp, 2003). Another emerging theme is the use of such indicators to set targets for the performance of strategies. In some cases these are based on input indicators, such as kilometres of bus priority, in others on process indicators such as the bus mode share, and in others on outcome indicators such as accessibility by bus. We argue elsewhere (May, 2003) that it is the last of these which are most appropriate, since they relate directly to policy objectives. Even so, there is some concern that such targets may lead to rather biased and less effective strategies. Our early model-based assessments (Emberger et al., 2003) suggest that this may prove to be a serious weakness. Implementation practice is also an area in which there is relatively little evidence-based research. A number of papers, including those by Gunn and Winter cited by Ison and Rye and Gaffron, offer basic principles, but they are somewhat dated, and do not necessarily reflect the complexities of the current decision-making environment (May, 2003). There is a need to revisit and update these basic principles, specify a framework for research into implementation practice and the treatment of barriers, and develop a programme of empirical research to test that framework. One of the projects in the current programme of European land use and transport research (www.lutr.net), TRANSPLUS, is addressing these issues, and its results will be awaited with interest. As an extension of this, there is a case for further research into the relative merits of different decision-making processes, and into best practice in the involvement of stakeholders. All of these are themes which the Special Interest Group on Urban Transport Policy will be addressing in its future conferences, and other contributions to them are welcome. Once results become available, the interactive information tools now under development should offer a ready and consistent means for their dissemination.
164
A.D. May et al. / Transport Policy 10 (2003) 157–164
References Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions, 2000. Guidance on the Methodology for Multi-modal Studies, DETR, London,. Emberger, G., May, A.D., Shepherd, S.P., 2003. Methods to Identify Optimal Land Use and Transport Policy Packages. Proceedings of the Ninth TRB Conference on the Application of Transportation Planning Methods, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 6–10 April, 2003. European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 1995. Urban travel and sustainable development. Report to the Council of Ministers, EMCT, Paris European Conference of Ministers of Transport, 2002. Implementing sustainable urban travel policies. Final Report. Report to the Council of Ministers, ECMT, Paris Grant-Muller, S., 2003. SPECTRUM Inception Report. Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, unpublished report Gunn, L.A., 1978. Why is Implementation so difficult? Management Services in Government I (33), 169 –176. Jopson, A., Nellthorp, J., 2003. Clarifying Qualitative Sub-objectives in Appraisal, Work Package 1. Final Appraisal Review, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, unpublished report Matthews, B., Jopson, A., May, A.D., 2002. Developing a Method for the Assessment of Evidence on the Impacts of Transport Policy
Instruments. Proceedings of the European Transport Conference, Homerton College, Cambridge, 9–11 September, 2002, PTC. London. May, A.D., 2003. Developing Sustainable Urban Land Use and Transport Strategies: a Decision-makers Guidebook Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds. May, A.D., Shepherd, S.P., Timms, P.M., 2000. Optimal transport strategies for European cities. Transportation 27 (3), 285– 315. May, A.D., Matthews, B., Jarvi-Nykanen, T., 2001. Decision Making Requirements for the Formulation of Sustainable Urban Land Use— Transport Strategies. Proceedings of the Ninth World Conference on Transport Research, Seoul, Korea, July 2001. Niskanen, E., de Palma, A., Kallioinen, J., Lindsey, R., Matthews, B., May, A.D., Moilanen, P., Tegner, H., Wieland, B., Zografos, K., 2003. Approach to Analysing Institutional Issues in Transport Policy Implementation, TIPP Deliverable One (forthcoming), Strafica, Helsinki,. Proost, S., Van Dender, K., 2000. TRENEN II STRAN. Final report for publication, Catholic University, Leuven Simmonds, D., May, A.D., Bates, J.J., 2001. A New Look at Multi-modal Modelling. Proceedings of the 28th European Transport Conference, Homerton College, Cambridge, September 2001, PTCR, London. Winter, S., 1990. Integrating Implementation Research. In: Palumbo, D.J., Calista, D.J. (Eds.), Implementation and the Policy Process, Greenwood Press, New York.