Symposium on challenges and opportunities for global transportation in the 21st Century, 26–27 October, 1995, John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Cambridge, MA, USA

142 were often superb, but in such an venue more expensive conference attention should have been given to the efficiency of the visual display systems. Some participants, noting the state of affairs, refrained from showing their slides or overhead transparencies, while others struggled to set up and operate their own systems with little local assistance. These things were better ordered in Montreal, and even Genoa. After the conference ended, most participants took the opportunity to sail across to the enigmatic island of Go&e, the ancient base from which the French empire in West Africa effectively began. We were taken, as all visitors are, to see the famous Maison des Esclaves, now sensitively restored partly on the initiative of Danielle Mitterand, widow of the former French president. We explored the cells, touched the chains, read the moving inscriptions about in Auschwitz, man’s inhumanity Dachau, Hiroshima, Zanzibar, and gazed at the sunlit waves beyond the narrow sea gate through which untold thousands of West Africans passed on their way to the West Indies, to American plantations or to an earlier death en route. In this year of remem-

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brance, the significance of this remaining testimony to Euro-African and transatlantic relations in past times touched us deeply; delegates from Guadeloupe and Martinique, given their ancestry, were particularly affected. As our guide and his interpreter brought the visit to a close, someone quietly asked ‘Pourraiton avoir un moment de silence pour tous ceux qui sont passe par cc lieu?‘. Immediately the throng fell silent, the noonday stillness broken only by the sounds of the sea and happy children’s laughter in the street. Merci. It was a moment that none who was present will ever forget. The proceedings of the Dakar conference will be published, it is expected, during 1996. Plans for a 6th International Conference in 1997 are in progress. Further information on the IACP, its publications and resources, is available from Monsieur Olivier Lemaire, DCleguC General. Association Villes et Ports, 45 Rue Lord Kitchener, 76600 Le Havre, France; telephone (33) 35 42 78 84, fax (33) 35 42 21 94, email [email protected]. Brian Hoyle University of Southampton, UK

Symposium on Challenges and Opportunities for Global Transportation in the 21st Century, 2627 October, 199.5, John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Cambridge, MA, USA

This symposium, organized and sponsored by the Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA) of the US Department of Transportation (US DOT), was devoted to three separate topical areas: future global transport needs, the impacts of emerging transport systems on environmental pollution and petroleum consumption, and the problems of ensuring that such systems are safe and secure. The three topics above were addressed by plenary sessions on the first day of the symposium with the second day devoted to concurrent individual sessions on subjects related to the topical areas. These latter sessions were devoted to: the role of information technology in the transportation enterprise, investment in the global transport system during an era of limited public spending, urban transport trends in the developed and developing worlds, the outlook for advanced vehicle

technology alternative fuels, and opportunities for reducing transportation accidents and fatalities, and enhancing transportation security. A series of background papers on these topics were distributed to the 300 attendees to focus the discussion in the sessions on the second day. The symposium began with introductory comments by Dr RR John, director of the Volpe Center and Dr DK Sharma, Administrator of RSPA. The opening keynote address was given by Mortimer Downey, Deputy Secretary of the US DOT. Sharma noted some of the accomplishments of the Volpe Center, now celebrating its 25th year in operation, while the other two speakers addressed trends in US and global transport. John noted several transport facts that would be background for the symposium. The following four points illustrate these.

(1) US air traffic in 25 years is expected to be 1 billion passengers, approximately twice the current level. (2) The world motor vehicle fleet now exceeds 500 million; this is expected to double or triple by 2020. (3) Currently, 250 000 people are killed annually in transport accidents, and over 10 million are injured. These numbers are expected to become nearly 1 million fatalities and 40 to 50 million injuries by 2020. (4) The driving population is ageing. It is expected that one in five licensed drivers in the USA in 2020 will be over age 65. Downey noted some transport-related security concerns as illustrated by the poison gas on the Tokyo subway system, the recent Amtrak derailment in Arizona and the recent bomb near the Paris Metro station. He also took the opportunity to note the short-sightedness of the US Congress which was considering cuts in several transport programs. WB Johnston led off the first plenary session with a presentation on challenges and opportunities in the newly developing world and the developed world. He sees the problem as being due to increasing population (with nonmotorized transport) and an increase in disposable income. These factors will lead to a growth in demand for motor vehicles and the associated problems. He sees urban air pollution as being very low by 2020 because of fleet turnovers and catalytic converters. Congestion, on the other hand, is not yet solved anywhere. He does not believe that increasing oil use, carbon emissions or congestion will be solved by technology; he sees the solutions to all of these being linked to prices and markets. Additions to capacity are not the answer, nor is government involvement. Daniel Kasper, an aviation expert with Coopers and Lybrand, followed, noting that air travel will increase by 5.1% per year in revenue passenger miles between 1995 and2015. He pointed out that air travel is highly related to disposable income. Once a threshold level of $5000 in disposable income is reached, air travel increases. It is expected that leisure travel will grow faster than business travel. Most of this will be outside the USA. He cited a recent Boeing Aircraft study that expects the current fleet of 10 000 aircraft to

Conference double by 2014. It is expected that the newer aircraft will be smaller; orders for super jumbo jets have been cancelled because there are few corridors with markets large enough to merit these. Dr Anthony Pellegrini of the World Bank discussed requirements for transportation development in the developing world. He sees the current major challenge in this area as affordable access and maintenance. With regard to the latter he noted that road maintenance needs at present are $45 billion (45 X 10’) in the developing world. The new challenges will be coping with changes in trade patterns and rapid motorization. He suggested sustainable transport was possible if fuel prices included a resource cost, an environmental cost and a road capital cost. He further suggested IO-year highway contracts similar to those used in France, where the contractor is responsible for construction and maintenance. This stimulates innovation. Demand and the implications of rising motor vehicle use in an increasingly urbanized world were addressed by Dr Ralph Gakenheimer of MIT as the second plenary session began. He pointed out that world stocks of motor vehicles increased from 98 million in 1960 to 468 million in 1991, during a time when population only doubled. The developing world is experiencing rapid growth, eg from 1983 to 1990 South Korea saw an increase in automobiles of 460%. If we look at a series of countries, the higher a country’s average income, the greater their automobile ownership. However, viewed over time the relationship is less clear. There are congestion problems occurring worldwide, eg in Rio de Janeiro and Bogota, average travel time to work is 3 hours per day. In Bangkok citizens must be in their vehicles by 4:00 am to get their children to school by 8:OO am. Congestion is so bad in these places that it lowers pollution levels. Gakenheimer noted several issues and solutions to these. He concluded by noting that the problem is not necessarily the number of vehicles, but how fast the figure is growing; services cannot keep pace. He sees the major problems as congestion cost, pollution and fuel cost. All of these are amenable to solution using transport-demand management techniques, in his opinion. Dr David Greene, a geographer with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, examined the question of US oil depend-

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ence in the face of a growing global motor vehicle fleet. He noted that the USA still lacks an energy policy and as a result we continue to consume large amounts of petroleum. This accounts for nearly all energy growth in the USA. Greene expects the rate of petroleum use to increase soon. He bases this on the fact that improvements in efficiency are over; the vehicle fleet has changed. He does not see a problem with the world running out of petroleum; the problem is who has the petroleum, notably the countries of the OPEC cartel. Greene is concerned that potential increases in petroleum prices could have a significant impact on the US economy. Research at ORNL suggests that the OPEC embargoes of 1973-74 and 1979-81 cost the USA approximately $4.1 trillion (4.1 X 10”). Greene concluded with several scenarios involving price increases and their impacts. The merits of electrical power as a clean energy source for urban transportation were extolled by James Hogarth of Boston Edison. The third plenary session addressed the topic of a safe and secure transportation system. Motor vehicle crashes and their attributes were examined by Dr Leonard Evans of the General Motors Research and Development Center. Based on an analysis of FARS (fatal accident reporting system) data, Evans concluded that the major causal factor in US motor vehicle accidents is simply the young male driver. He illustrated this point in several ways, noting that no other conclusion was possible. John Sullivan of Quality Management discussed the challenge of global aviation safety and security. He noted the difficulty of controlling security in areas of rapid growth. The problem of an ageing population of vehicle drivers was addressed by Dr Patricia Wailer of the University of Michigan. Among the several points noted was the fact that motor vehicle accidents begin to increase when the driver reaches age 5.5. For drivers over the age of 80 the accident rates are worse than they are for teenagers. Concurrent breakout sessions were held on the second day of the symposium. The topics of these sessions were noted at the beginning of this report. I selected the sessions that examined urban transportation trends in the developed and developing world, and the outlook for advanced vehicle tech-

143 nology and reformulated/alternative fuels. In the former session there were interesting presentations by Dr Daniel Brand of Charles River Associates and Dr Charles Wright of the Interamerican Development Bank. Brand noted that the traditional transportation planning process (trip generation, trip distribution, modal choice, and route choice) would have to be altered in developing countries to examine incomes, car ownership, mode choice, trip distribution and route choice. This is dictated by the growth occurring in automobile ownership today in less developed areas. Wright, the author of Fast Wheels, Slow Traffic- Urban Transport Choices, noted the differences between transport in the USA and less developed nations in terms of three sets of characteristics; these are related to the cities, the users and the modes available. Cities in the developing world usually have very high population densities (IO to 20 times those found in the USA), mixed land uses. grid systems with some diagonals and difficult financial situations. Users generally have low incomes, value quality public transit, have lower needs and incomes, and 50 to 99% do not have automobiles. The modes in use are also different with transit being dominantfollowed bywalkingandfinally automobiles. WC cannot approach problems in these areas in the same way as is done in the USA. The second breakout session had Dr James MacKenzie of the World Resources Institute as its initial presenter. He noted that there were several fuel-related issues in terms of the sustainability of transportation in the USA: domestic oil depletion. CO? emissions, global oil supplies and air pollution. He also noted that there were land-use and congestion-related issues. His primary thrust was on the oil supply side and he argued that total US reserves, estimated to have been I89 billion (189 X 10”) barrels at one time, are 83% depleted. He further noted that proved reserves have not changed in spite of a decade of exploration. There arc no new fields: 3% of the fields now have 94% of the petroleum. We arc finding 8 billion (8 X 10’) barrels a year and consuming 25 billion (25 X 10”) barrels. In total he sets 2050 billion (2.05 X IO”) barrels as ultimately recoverable. USC of global oil resources should peak between 2007 and 2018, and begin to fall off after that. MacKenzie’s basic thesis is that we

144 should assume it will be gone and move on to an alternative fuel now. James Shields of TASC System Integration Group addressed the area of next international and domestic generation motor vehicle programs. He noted that there are several major efforts under way to develop electric and hybrid vehicles. In the USA this is the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV). Similar efforts are under way in Europe (EUCAR), Japan, Korea and China. implications of the Economic to new fuels for the transition next generation of motor vehicles were addressed by Dr W Peter Teagan of AD Little, Inc. He sees significant economic and spatial impacts if a shift is made to a new fuel. He asked what would be done with the massive investments the US

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has made in its pipeline system. It is estimated that the shift to an alternative fuel would result in the loss of one million jobs. He also noted that the Big Three automakers in the USA all oppose the shift to such a fuel. Teagan did not address the jobs that would be created by the development and use of a new fuel. Symposium proceedings are being prepared that will include the text of all presentations as well as some of the discussion that took place. There is no announced time for the release of this document. William R Black Department of Geography Indiana University Bloomington, IN 474056101 USA

UK and Canadian transport compared: 1995 Meeting of the Canada-UK Colloquium: ‘Into the 21st Century with UK and Canadian Transport’, Wiston House, Sussex, 2630 November, 1995. Organized by the British Committee and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ottawa,

The Canada-UK Colloquium is unusual in that it brings together in debate practitioners, politicians and academics in a given area of mutual concern, each country alternating as host. This was the first time the Colloquium has focused on a comparison of transport problems (immediately previous meetings treated ‘Cities’ and ‘Health Services’). In the first sessions academics from both countries (Trevor Heaver: Director, Centre for Transportation Studies, UBC; Peter Headicar: Reader in Transport Planning, Oxford Brookes; and Marc Gaudry: Professor of Economics, University of Montreal) set the parameters, focusing strongly on the role of transport in industrial competitiveness, economic regeneration and planning. Daniel Instone (Head, Transport Policy Unit, DOT) underlined the main issues of British transport policy, sensitively explaining why it is that strong passions are aroused in relation to new developments. The factors affecting traffic forecasts gave way to the problems of trying to maintain a balance of environmental inputs to policy, concentrating on the need to curb our motorized pollution (Kenneth Ogilvie, Ontario Round

Table) and proclaim policies for sustainable development (Stephen Joseph, Transport 2000). A great feature of the Colloquia is the opportunity to quiz the experts without the fear that (as on radio or television, for example) a few million people are listening to every answer or watching every word. As the theme turned to air and rail transport, the role of liberalization and privatization came to the fore. Broadly, as ‘Open Skies’ air transport policy (Geoffrey Elliot, Air Canada) and British air transport policy (RM (Bob) Cotterill, Civil Aviation Authority, and Nick Starling, International Civil Aviation Directorate DOT) were underlined, we could see greater freedom and less regulation on the way in the air than may seem possible on the ground, although Nick Mulder (Deputy Minister, Transport Canada) emphasized a steadily reducing role generally for big government in Canada in the broader field of transport. The Colloquium attracted a galaxy of stars to the theme ‘Whither rail’, beginning with Harvey M Romoff (principal author of Railway Financial Viability, 1992) and Graham Corbett (Chief Financial Officer, Eurotunnel)

who gracefully reviewed the investment issues and traffic forecasts of the when the big ‘Chunnel’. Inevitably, locomotives came into the platform, there was focus on their different roles in a privatizing world. Robert Ritchie (President, CP Rail System) told how his all-freight empire is moving into the world’s top 20 container operators, while John K Welsby (Chairman and Chief Executive, British Railways Board) explained to the Canadians how it is proposed to sell off British Rail as over 20 separate operating concerns for passengers and freight running over the privatized Railtrack. What each expert expected from government-led ports policy was highlighted by Richard Goss (lately Professor of Maritime Economics, University of Wales) and Raymond Miles (President, CP Ships). The strict regimes of past port investment policy in Great Britain were contrasted vividly with the newsworthy story that the burghers of Calais were interested in purchasing the Port of Dover. As for Canada, if it had a ports policy today it was considered to be firmly boxed up by CP and other very satisfied port users. This left ‘The Cybernet Alternative’ and ‘The Channel Tunnel’. The first of these themes (Bill Whyte, British Telecom and Jocelyne Cote-O’Hara, Stentor Policy Inc.) was developed as the alternative to personal commuting: from one kind of screen to another or, as someone said, ‘leaving the by-pass for the Superhighway’. Perhaps (it was UK Budget Day) they had heard the Chancellor give his speech in the Commons; Minister of State John Watts arrived safely at Steyning that evening to confirm a cut in the Roads Programme. It was perfectly in tune with the grand theme that the invited participants reviewed one of the greatest transport engineering and operational achievements of the century (led by Bob Reid ‘The Third’ of Eurotunnel). Yes! Le Shuttle took just 35 minutes before a tour of the impressive terminal facilities at Calais, And yes! There was an hour’s wait on each side; all 34 ferries were cancelled because of the French transport strike. Here, no one had heard of the Cybernet Alternative. The Colloquium was sponsored by Air Canada, British Airways, Canadian Pacific, Transport Canada and the Foreign Offices of the respective nations. The papers and discussion ‘Into The 21st With UK and Canadian Transport’ will be published in 1996 under