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Workshop report – Public policy and transport
Research in Transportation Economics 29 (2010) 319e322
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Research in Transportation Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/retrec
Workshop report e Public policy and transport John Preston a, *, Kjell Jansson b a b
Transportation Research Group, School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, UK Department of Transport and Economics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
a b s t r a c t Keywords: Competition Integration Realist evaluation Economic welfare Accessibility Sustainability
This workshop considered the wider public policy goals of a range of transport interventions. Particular attention was paid to assessing the role of integration of the different components of the transport system and of the integration of transport with other economic sectors. This assessment was informed by Ray Pawson’s realist evaluation approach, with its emphasis on the inter-relationships between context, process and outcome. The context was provided by case studies covering small urban areas, large urban areas and inter-urban corridors. The three key processes identified related to a regulated system with public ownership and control, a deregulated system with private sector ownership (‘competition in the market’) and a system in which there was public planning of the transport system but private provision (‘competition for the market’). Outcomes can be assessed using cost-benefit analysis tools to determine impacts on economic welfare or more qualitative approaches can be used to determine the extent to which accessibility or sustainability goals have been achieved. The evidence provided suggests that wider public policy goals are more important for urban than for inter-urban transport and it thus in urban areas where integration should be pursued with most vigour. The most relevant process for achieving this would seem to be variants of the competition for the market model. Some policy recommendations are made and implications for further research and for future conferences assessed. Ó 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction This workshop considered wider public policy issues related to the development of land passenger transport networks. Somewhat surprisingly this was the first time in the 20 year history of the Conference series that this topic has been explicitly considered by a Workshop, although at Thredbo #9 in Lisbon there was a Workshop on Policy Evolution and Decision Making Process (Bray & Smyth, 2007). The rationale behind this workshop was that competitive models tend to consider public transport routes in isolation. They often fail to consider the interactions between public transport routes and modes. They also tend to ignore the inter-relationships between public and private transport, and they invariably fail to consider the links between land passenger transport and other sectors of the economy. Policies based on competitive models may have benefits in terms of productive efficiency but may be less successful in delivering the public policy benefits associated with,
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Preston). 0739-8859/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.retrec.2010.07.040
for example, integrated networks and coordinated transport and land-use policies. This led us to the following questions: What are the wider public policy goals of land passenger transport and can competitive markets deliver them? This is a long standing bone of contention in the Thredbo conference series. On the one hand there is the neo-Austrian school that postulates that external effects in land passenger transport are limited and Governmental intervention will lead to inevitable, and often disastrous, regulatory failure (see, for example Hibbs, 2000). The neo-classical school highlights the dangers of market failure that will arise from unfettered competition in transport markets (see, for example, Gwilliam, 1987). This has been a long standing theme of the Conference series (as highlighted by Preston, 2005). What are the benefits of integrated public transport and how can they be achieved? It is often claimed that there are substantial benefits from coordinating public transport services (to provide optimal network coverage, frequency and fares). Jansson (1997) highlights the principal aspects and provides a numerical example that shows that the addition of a route to a network can, in certain instances, reduce the overall level of service and also the overall revenue. The benefits of coordination can also be relevant for providing the appropriate infrastructure facilities,
320
J. Preston, K. Jansson / Research in Transportation Economics 29 (2010) 319e322
such as interchanges and park and ride sites (see for example NEA, OGM, & TSU, 2003). However although these benefits may be estimated with recourse to theory (such as the work of Nash, 1988), they are rarely quantified in practice, so it is difficult to know whether they are material. If they are material, then it is important to consider the regulatory frameworks that might deliver them. It might be argued that neither free markets nor classic regulated markets have had much success in this respect. What are the benefits of better linking land transport policies with other Governmental policies and how may they be delivered? The benefits of integrating transport and land-use polices have often been viewed as axiomatic, but the evidence base on the extent of these benefits, and on practical case studies of how they may be delivered, is relatively limited. This is despite a long history of transit oriented development policies. Similarly, there is relatively limited evidence on the interaction between transport and policies towards education, social services and health care. The evidence is particularly weak on the extent to which delivery of these benefits is affected by the extent of competition within the transport sector. Furthermore, the links between transport markets and financial markets are important in terms of funding, but again the extent to which these links are affected by the extent of competition has not often been considered. A last issue is how transport users and the public at large might contribute towards better linking land transport policies with wider Governmental policies.
2. Workshop method The workshop was based on 10 source papers and presentations, listed below, and involved 16 participants from seven countries. Given the broad nature of the research questions posed above, a conceptual structure was adopted to inform discussions. This was based on a variant of Ray Pawson’s realist evaluation (Pawson & Tilley, 1997) and is illustrated by Fig. 1. It is sometimes referred to as the CPO model (Context-Process-Outcome), although the Workshop felt it important to distinguish between actual and desired outcomes. Appraisal examines the processes by which, ex ante, desired outcomes can be achieved. Evaluation focuses on the extent to which, ex post, desired outcomes have been achieved. For this Workshop, the context was based on the ten presentations that covered experiences from some eight nation states: Australia (Daban); Brazil (Silva et al.); Japan (Sanko, Takahashi, Yukawa); Norway (Jansson); Singapore (Jansson); Spain (LópezLambas); Sweden (Ljungberg, Jansson, Jansson) and the UK (Preston, Jansson). These papers considered small urban (e.g. Linköping), large urban (e.g. Madrid) and inter-urban (e.g. Kobe e Osaka, Stockholm e Copenhagen) passenger transport. A range of transport interventions were considered, covering bus systems
(Ljungburg), urban rail (Daban), inter-urban rail (Sanko, K. Jansson), road pricing and parking (Jansson), cycling (Silva) and multimodal issues (López-Lambas, Takahashi, Yukawa). Three broad processes were considered. The first, and arguably most traditional, process was that of public planning and operation. The second process was that of competition for the market. This usually involves public planning and procurement from the private sector: e.g. Competitive Tendering for operations, and Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) contracts for infrastructure. The third was competition in the market. This was based on commercial authorisations but could be enforced by subsidisation. For example, currently this might involve concessionary fare reimbursements. In the future this might be supplemented by mobility credits. A number of other processes were considered by the Workshop. For example diversification in the form of the approval of land-use development in a negotiated contract, as has been used to develop public transport in Japan (Yukawa) and elsewhere. In Brazil, areaspecific public participation methods have been used to plan bicycle networks with an emphasis on network integrity, directness, attractiveness, safety/security and comfort (Silva). Another set of processes relate to the analytical approaches being used with a contrast between cost-benefit analysis approaches and other more qualitative approaches. Institutional integration was seen to be an important process and can involve informal (e.g., voluntary quality partnerships) and formal (e.g., statutory quality partnerships) structures, as witnessed in the UK (Preston). Integration works at a number of levels, including within the public transport sector, between public and private transport, between transport and transport-using sectors and between economic, environmental and social objectives. The workshop also noted the role of individual agency and the role of policy entrepreneurs, windows and communities, associated with the multiple streams framework developed by Kingdon (1984). Integration in the UK seems to have floundered on the lack of support from policy entrepreneurs and communities. By contrast, the development of the diversified private railways in Japan were often linked to forward looking individuals such as Ichizo Kobayashi (Takahashi). The chief danger of these processes, whether in public or private control or indeed involving some form of partnership, was seen as being monopolisation or cartelisation, often through some form of regulatory capture. In terms of desired outcomes, two overlapping viewpoints were identified. The first was that of the economists where the objective is to maximise economic welfare e the sum of producer surplus, consumer surplus, public accounts and externalities (providing transfers are adequately identified). The second is that of public administrators where the emphasis tends to be on more qualitative goals such as increasing accessibility and/or mobility and on promoting of sustainability (economic, social and environmental). The workshop believed that a key requirement was adaptabilityethat is to have processes that can be adapted to changing contexts whilst still delivering desired outcomes. 3. Case studies
Fig. 1. Workshop 6 conceptual structure.
Actual outcomes were provided by case studies sourced by the workshop papers. Four examples are given herein. In Linköping, the context was provided by a small Swedish town served by bus (Ljungberg). The process involved the public sector redesigning the bus network and staggering school hours (the key determinant for peak demand). Competitive tendering was used to procure operations and investment in newer vehicles. The outcome was an increase in economic welfare, with a Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) greater than 1.7, whilst bus use was up more than 40%.However,
J. Preston, K. Jansson / Research in Transportation Economics 29 (2010) 319e322
a note of caution needs to be issued about the robustness of BCR methods. In a case study of High Speed Rail in Sweden, it was shown that one model (Sampers) gave a BCR of 1.2, whilst an alternate model (based on VIPS/RDT) gave a BCR of 1.8 (K. Jansson). The two very different outcomes may though not be a failure of BCR in this case. One of the important reason for the different outcomes is that the Sampers model ignores combinations of modes and as a result the benefits in cases where travellers have to use another mode first to reach the High Speed rail services. In Gifu, the context was provided by a Japanese regional city served by bus and rail (Yukawa). The dominant process was diversification into land-use development, through a negotiated contract that involved direct subsidy from the local Chamber of Commerce and/or cross subsidy from rail. The existing regulatory system acts as an important constraint on the extent that the dominant rail operator (JR) can diversify. The intended outcome was to reverse decentralisation and automobilisation, although with limited success to date. In Madrid the context was provided by a large city with bus, rail and metro (López-Lambas). The process involved multimodal interchanges procured with a BOT contract. Such contracts could be enforced by road user and parking charges (see also Jansson) and land value capture. The outcome in this case was increased Public Transport usage and a Public Private Partnership that was perceived as being successful, although this might be related to generous shadow prices. In the Osaka-Kobe case study, the context was provided by an inter-urban corridor in a megalopolis (Sanko).The main process involved competition in the market between three routes for express rail services. Diversification into real estate development was also an important feature, whilst the scope for yardstick competition (competition by emulation) was also noted. The outcome was a high rail mode share. 4. Conclusions The wider public policy goals of public transport conventionally involve economic development, social inclusion and environmental (and public health) goals. The case studies suggest that only in exceptional circumstances will these be met by competition in the market (although Osaka-Kobe might be such an exception). For urban public transport networks, there appear to be strong benefits from integration, although quantification is often difficult, and some form of public intervention in the planning process is usually required. However, the exact nature of this intervention, as illustrated by our case studies will be context specific and may involve private sector participation. The benefits of integrated transport are less apparent at the inter-urban scale, although this may because they can be internalised within one firm. There is though some evidence on the wider economic benefits of high quality inter-urban transport, as provided by high speed rail for example. Particular benefits may arise from the integrated use of policy instruments. For instance, the scope to which parking policy may support (or substitute) congestion pricing has been given insufficient attention, as has how the two interact with public transport markets (Jansson). An issue that also arose in this context is path dependency. London and Stockholm have both invested in high levels of enforcement for their road pricing schemes and this may have resulted in a degree of technological lock-in. There may also be substantial benefits of integrating transport policy with other governmental policies, for example concerning health care, education, and social services. However, such joinedup government is often difficult to achieve, whilst the benefits, or indeed, the costs have rarely been quantified. For example,
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staggered school hours would save on transport costs but may have substantial social costs in terms of the disruption to household activity schedules. There are similar challenges in terms of quantifying the benefits of transit oriented development in terms of liveability and community diversity (Daban). It is the view of the workshop that many of these issues could be investigated by forms of the context-process-outcome approach outlined above. We would particularly emphasise the need for evaluation studies to examine how actual outcomes have matched desired outcomes and the extent to which the achievement of desired outcomes is shaped by context and process. 5. Policy recommendations There is sufficient evidence to suggest that wider public policy goals are important and they should be taken into account when making decisions. It seems likely that past decisions with respect to competition and ownership in land passenger transport may have neglected these wider goals and as a result, in certain cases, inappropriate decisions may have been made. It also seems likely that competition in the market approaches will neglect these wider policy goals. By contrast, classic regulation with public ownership and control of transport can ostensibly deliver the wider public policy goals but in practice this is usually mitigated by high costs and low productivity, exacerbated by political interference and tendencies towards ossification. Competition for the market models offer the prospects of delivering both wider public policy goals and cost efficiency. However, there are a number of policy issues that should be considered: (i) Traditional tendering and franchising models have tended to adopt a top-down planning approach. Policies that promote more participative, localised bottom-up planning should be encouraged. (ii) Competition for the market models have tended to involve a separation of public planning from private operations. There is competition for operations but rarely is this extended to the planning function, even though this has been posited for some time as a possibility, not least by this Conference series (Preston, 2007). Such competition would prevent planning from being overly bureaucratic. (iii) Public private partnerships have been widely used for capital investments in transport infrastructure but they have been rarely used with respect to recurrent expenditure on transport operations.Policies that permit private operators to feed into the planning process need to be found. Most policies to deliver wider public policy goals have concentrated on supply side interventions such as investment in transport infrastructure or the subsidisation of transport services. In future there may be more consideration of user side interventions. For example, given the likely impacts of peak oil and climate change, it may be that in the longer term a system of personalised carbon credits will be required and transport, as the main consumer of oil in most countries, is most likely to be affected. In the interim, with the development of smartcards relatively blunt policy instruments, such as universal concessionary fares schemes, could be converted into more targeted mobility vouchers. Given the greater importance of wider economic, social and environmental goals for urban compared to inter-urban transport, commercial authorisations may be more appropriate for interurban transport. Competition in the market could be encouraged, but in the expectation that only small group competition will emerge. As a result regulation will be needed to preserve network benefits and to ensure prices and outputs do not drift too far from
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perfectly competitive benchmarks. Yardstick competition may help determine such benchmarks. Permissive policies might be adopted towards diversification into complementary economic activities. There may be substantial benefits of institutional integration. For small urban areas such integration can be developed based on personal relationships. Elsewhere more formal arrangements will be required. This will include planning laws to integrate transport and land-use, mechanisms to encourage cross departmental agencies and joint committees and new structures, such as the Integrated Transport Authorities in England. 6. Research recommendations An evidence base is emerging on the impacts of transport interventions on wider policy goals and on the benefits of integration within the transport system and between transport and related economic sectors. However, this evidence base remains limited and dominated by certain countries (e.g. the UK) and there is a need to bring together more case studies that will give truly global coverage. The challenge will then be to generalise these case study results. One possible approach would be to use principal component analysis (and related techniques) to classify urban transport markets. There may be scope for meta-analysis and related techniques to determine key influences. The development of a more comprehensive evidence base might permit examination of critical mass e the threshold at which certain transport policies (such as cycling or rail provision) become appropriate. This evidence base is currently dominated by cost-benefit analysis approaches. Future research might focus on alternative techniques such as multi-criteria analysis or goal achievement matrices. Accessibility and/or sustainability indicators might be developed to replace or complement economic efficiency measures. There has been a tradition in transport to undertake partial analyses. Concern with wider policy issues points in the direction of more general approaches such as the use of systems dynamic approaches or computable generalised equilibrium models. Such approaches might help identify perverse incentives, rebound effects and other interactions that lead to potential unintended policy consequences. It also suggests that the network, rather than the route, should be the key unit of analysis. With complex networks, modelling of route choice becomes a challenge, particularly for public transport, whilst improved understandings of destination choices are also needed. In considering wider public policy goals, there is perhaps an understandable tendency to focus on structures. The role of individual agency, both in terms of the top-down leadership of large organisations and the bottom-up role of community groups and activists, is worthy of further study. 7. Recommendations for Thredbo 12 Thredbo 11 was the first time that the wider public policy impacts of transport were explicitly considered in a workshop. Given the need identified above to develop the evidence base, we recommend that a similar workshop be convened at Thredbo 12. Given the location of Thredbo 12, the evidence base might be particularly enhanced with respect to developing countries and the role of third sector organisations and of paratransit. We suggest
that a realist evaluation approach should be adopted in the construction of the evidence base. Although we believe that wider public policy impacts are more important for urban than inter-urban transport, high speed rail is being promoted in the UK and the US on the basis that it provides wider economic benefits. Such assertions might be usefully reviewed at an international scale. Given our assertion that the network is the fundamental unit of analysis, more evidence on the role of network benefits and economies would be particularly useful. Similarly given our arguments for general rather than partial analysis, consideration should be made of more holistic approaches to modelling, appraisal and policy implementation. Lastly, given our view that agency has been somewhat neglected at the expense of structures, we recommend that transport policies be reviewed with respect to political science models such as those outlined in Bray and Smyth (2007). It may well be that it is politics rather than economics that ultimately determines the extent to which transport delivers wider public policy goals. References Bray, D., & Smyth, A. (2007). Workshop F: policy evolution and decision making process. Selected Papers from the 9th International Conference (Thredbo 9), Lisbon, September 2005. In R. Macario, J. Viegas, & D. A. Hensher (Eds.), Competition and ownership in land passenger transport (pp. 831e844). Oxford: Elsevier. Gwilliam, K. (1987). Market failure, subsidy and welfare maximisation. In S. Glaister (Ed.), Transport subsidy (pp. 6e25). Newbury: Policy Journals. Hibbs, J. (2000). Transport policy: The myth of integrated planning. London: Institute of Economic Affairs. Jansson, K. (1997). Welfare aspects on organisation of public transport. International Journal of Transport Economics, 24, 1. Kingdon, J. (1984). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. Boston: Little, Brown. Nash, C. A. (1988). Integration of public transport: an assessment. In J. Dodgson, & N. Topham (Eds.), Bus deregulation and privatisation. Aldershot: Gower. NEA, OGM and TSU. (2003). Integration and regulatory structures in public transport. Final report. Brussels: DGTREN. Pawson, R., & Tilley, N. (1997). Realistic evaluation. London: Sage. Preston, J. (2005). The road to Rio: a brief history of the international conferences on competition and ownership in land passenger transport. Selected papers from the 8th International Conference (Thredbo 8), Rio de Janeiro, September 2003. In D. A. Hensher (Ed.), Competition & ownership in land passenger transport. Oxford: Elsevier. Preston, J. (2007). Contracting-out public transport planning: prospects and options. Selected papers from the 9th International Conference (Thredbo 9). In R. Macario (Ed.), Competition and ownership in land passenger transport. Oxford: Elsevier.
Workshop presentations Daban, G. A., Successful TOD Will Reinforce Both the Community and the Transit System. Jansson, J. O., Road Pricing and Parking Policy. Jansson, K., Models for Competition between Public Transport Routes and Modes. Ljungberg, A., Local Public Transport On The Basis Of Social Economic Criteria. López-Lambas, M. E., Private Funding and Management for Public Interchanges in Madrid. Preston, J., What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Integration? Sanko, N., Analysis on the Structural Characteristics of the Station Catchment Area in Japan. Silva, S., Area Specific Bicycle Planning. (Presented by Rob Hulleman). Takahashi, Y., Public Transport for Shopping: An Analysis on the Interaction between Intrinsic and Derived Demand. Yukawa, S., Suburbanization and Urban Public transport, Declining Public Transport in Japanese. Regional City and Regional Transport Policy.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Research in Transportation Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/retrec
Workshop report e Public policy and transport John Preston a, *, Kjell Jansson b a b
Transportation Research Group, School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, UK Department of Transport and Economics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
a b s t r a c t Keywords: Competition Integration Realist evaluation Economic welfare Accessibility Sustainability
This workshop considered the wider public policy goals of a range of transport interventions. Particular attention was paid to assessing the role of integration of the different components of the transport system and of the integration of transport with other economic sectors. This assessment was informed by Ray Pawson’s realist evaluation approach, with its emphasis on the inter-relationships between context, process and outcome. The context was provided by case studies covering small urban areas, large urban areas and inter-urban corridors. The three key processes identified related to a regulated system with public ownership and control, a deregulated system with private sector ownership (‘competition in the market’) and a system in which there was public planning of the transport system but private provision (‘competition for the market’). Outcomes can be assessed using cost-benefit analysis tools to determine impacts on economic welfare or more qualitative approaches can be used to determine the extent to which accessibility or sustainability goals have been achieved. The evidence provided suggests that wider public policy goals are more important for urban than for inter-urban transport and it thus in urban areas where integration should be pursued with most vigour. The most relevant process for achieving this would seem to be variants of the competition for the market model. Some policy recommendations are made and implications for further research and for future conferences assessed. Ó 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction This workshop considered wider public policy issues related to the development of land passenger transport networks. Somewhat surprisingly this was the first time in the 20 year history of the Conference series that this topic has been explicitly considered by a Workshop, although at Thredbo #9 in Lisbon there was a Workshop on Policy Evolution and Decision Making Process (Bray & Smyth, 2007). The rationale behind this workshop was that competitive models tend to consider public transport routes in isolation. They often fail to consider the interactions between public transport routes and modes. They also tend to ignore the inter-relationships between public and private transport, and they invariably fail to consider the links between land passenger transport and other sectors of the economy. Policies based on competitive models may have benefits in terms of productive efficiency but may be less successful in delivering the public policy benefits associated with,
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Preston). 0739-8859/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.retrec.2010.07.040
for example, integrated networks and coordinated transport and land-use policies. This led us to the following questions: What are the wider public policy goals of land passenger transport and can competitive markets deliver them? This is a long standing bone of contention in the Thredbo conference series. On the one hand there is the neo-Austrian school that postulates that external effects in land passenger transport are limited and Governmental intervention will lead to inevitable, and often disastrous, regulatory failure (see, for example Hibbs, 2000). The neo-classical school highlights the dangers of market failure that will arise from unfettered competition in transport markets (see, for example, Gwilliam, 1987). This has been a long standing theme of the Conference series (as highlighted by Preston, 2005). What are the benefits of integrated public transport and how can they be achieved? It is often claimed that there are substantial benefits from coordinating public transport services (to provide optimal network coverage, frequency and fares). Jansson (1997) highlights the principal aspects and provides a numerical example that shows that the addition of a route to a network can, in certain instances, reduce the overall level of service and also the overall revenue. The benefits of coordination can also be relevant for providing the appropriate infrastructure facilities,
320
J. Preston, K. Jansson / Research in Transportation Economics 29 (2010) 319e322
such as interchanges and park and ride sites (see for example NEA, OGM, & TSU, 2003). However although these benefits may be estimated with recourse to theory (such as the work of Nash, 1988), they are rarely quantified in practice, so it is difficult to know whether they are material. If they are material, then it is important to consider the regulatory frameworks that might deliver them. It might be argued that neither free markets nor classic regulated markets have had much success in this respect. What are the benefits of better linking land transport policies with other Governmental policies and how may they be delivered? The benefits of integrating transport and land-use polices have often been viewed as axiomatic, but the evidence base on the extent of these benefits, and on practical case studies of how they may be delivered, is relatively limited. This is despite a long history of transit oriented development policies. Similarly, there is relatively limited evidence on the interaction between transport and policies towards education, social services and health care. The evidence is particularly weak on the extent to which delivery of these benefits is affected by the extent of competition within the transport sector. Furthermore, the links between transport markets and financial markets are important in terms of funding, but again the extent to which these links are affected by the extent of competition has not often been considered. A last issue is how transport users and the public at large might contribute towards better linking land transport policies with wider Governmental policies.
2. Workshop method The workshop was based on 10 source papers and presentations, listed below, and involved 16 participants from seven countries. Given the broad nature of the research questions posed above, a conceptual structure was adopted to inform discussions. This was based on a variant of Ray Pawson’s realist evaluation (Pawson & Tilley, 1997) and is illustrated by Fig. 1. It is sometimes referred to as the CPO model (Context-Process-Outcome), although the Workshop felt it important to distinguish between actual and desired outcomes. Appraisal examines the processes by which, ex ante, desired outcomes can be achieved. Evaluation focuses on the extent to which, ex post, desired outcomes have been achieved. For this Workshop, the context was based on the ten presentations that covered experiences from some eight nation states: Australia (Daban); Brazil (Silva et al.); Japan (Sanko, Takahashi, Yukawa); Norway (Jansson); Singapore (Jansson); Spain (LópezLambas); Sweden (Ljungberg, Jansson, Jansson) and the UK (Preston, Jansson). These papers considered small urban (e.g. Linköping), large urban (e.g. Madrid) and inter-urban (e.g. Kobe e Osaka, Stockholm e Copenhagen) passenger transport. A range of transport interventions were considered, covering bus systems
(Ljungburg), urban rail (Daban), inter-urban rail (Sanko, K. Jansson), road pricing and parking (Jansson), cycling (Silva) and multimodal issues (López-Lambas, Takahashi, Yukawa). Three broad processes were considered. The first, and arguably most traditional, process was that of public planning and operation. The second process was that of competition for the market. This usually involves public planning and procurement from the private sector: e.g. Competitive Tendering for operations, and Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) contracts for infrastructure. The third was competition in the market. This was based on commercial authorisations but could be enforced by subsidisation. For example, currently this might involve concessionary fare reimbursements. In the future this might be supplemented by mobility credits. A number of other processes were considered by the Workshop. For example diversification in the form of the approval of land-use development in a negotiated contract, as has been used to develop public transport in Japan (Yukawa) and elsewhere. In Brazil, areaspecific public participation methods have been used to plan bicycle networks with an emphasis on network integrity, directness, attractiveness, safety/security and comfort (Silva). Another set of processes relate to the analytical approaches being used with a contrast between cost-benefit analysis approaches and other more qualitative approaches. Institutional integration was seen to be an important process and can involve informal (e.g., voluntary quality partnerships) and formal (e.g., statutory quality partnerships) structures, as witnessed in the UK (Preston). Integration works at a number of levels, including within the public transport sector, between public and private transport, between transport and transport-using sectors and between economic, environmental and social objectives. The workshop also noted the role of individual agency and the role of policy entrepreneurs, windows and communities, associated with the multiple streams framework developed by Kingdon (1984). Integration in the UK seems to have floundered on the lack of support from policy entrepreneurs and communities. By contrast, the development of the diversified private railways in Japan were often linked to forward looking individuals such as Ichizo Kobayashi (Takahashi). The chief danger of these processes, whether in public or private control or indeed involving some form of partnership, was seen as being monopolisation or cartelisation, often through some form of regulatory capture. In terms of desired outcomes, two overlapping viewpoints were identified. The first was that of the economists where the objective is to maximise economic welfare e the sum of producer surplus, consumer surplus, public accounts and externalities (providing transfers are adequately identified). The second is that of public administrators where the emphasis tends to be on more qualitative goals such as increasing accessibility and/or mobility and on promoting of sustainability (economic, social and environmental). The workshop believed that a key requirement was adaptabilityethat is to have processes that can be adapted to changing contexts whilst still delivering desired outcomes. 3. Case studies
Fig. 1. Workshop 6 conceptual structure.
Actual outcomes were provided by case studies sourced by the workshop papers. Four examples are given herein. In Linköping, the context was provided by a small Swedish town served by bus (Ljungberg). The process involved the public sector redesigning the bus network and staggering school hours (the key determinant for peak demand). Competitive tendering was used to procure operations and investment in newer vehicles. The outcome was an increase in economic welfare, with a Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) greater than 1.7, whilst bus use was up more than 40%.However,
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a note of caution needs to be issued about the robustness of BCR methods. In a case study of High Speed Rail in Sweden, it was shown that one model (Sampers) gave a BCR of 1.2, whilst an alternate model (based on VIPS/RDT) gave a BCR of 1.8 (K. Jansson). The two very different outcomes may though not be a failure of BCR in this case. One of the important reason for the different outcomes is that the Sampers model ignores combinations of modes and as a result the benefits in cases where travellers have to use another mode first to reach the High Speed rail services. In Gifu, the context was provided by a Japanese regional city served by bus and rail (Yukawa). The dominant process was diversification into land-use development, through a negotiated contract that involved direct subsidy from the local Chamber of Commerce and/or cross subsidy from rail. The existing regulatory system acts as an important constraint on the extent that the dominant rail operator (JR) can diversify. The intended outcome was to reverse decentralisation and automobilisation, although with limited success to date. In Madrid the context was provided by a large city with bus, rail and metro (López-Lambas). The process involved multimodal interchanges procured with a BOT contract. Such contracts could be enforced by road user and parking charges (see also Jansson) and land value capture. The outcome in this case was increased Public Transport usage and a Public Private Partnership that was perceived as being successful, although this might be related to generous shadow prices. In the Osaka-Kobe case study, the context was provided by an inter-urban corridor in a megalopolis (Sanko).The main process involved competition in the market between three routes for express rail services. Diversification into real estate development was also an important feature, whilst the scope for yardstick competition (competition by emulation) was also noted. The outcome was a high rail mode share. 4. Conclusions The wider public policy goals of public transport conventionally involve economic development, social inclusion and environmental (and public health) goals. The case studies suggest that only in exceptional circumstances will these be met by competition in the market (although Osaka-Kobe might be such an exception). For urban public transport networks, there appear to be strong benefits from integration, although quantification is often difficult, and some form of public intervention in the planning process is usually required. However, the exact nature of this intervention, as illustrated by our case studies will be context specific and may involve private sector participation. The benefits of integrated transport are less apparent at the inter-urban scale, although this may because they can be internalised within one firm. There is though some evidence on the wider economic benefits of high quality inter-urban transport, as provided by high speed rail for example. Particular benefits may arise from the integrated use of policy instruments. For instance, the scope to which parking policy may support (or substitute) congestion pricing has been given insufficient attention, as has how the two interact with public transport markets (Jansson). An issue that also arose in this context is path dependency. London and Stockholm have both invested in high levels of enforcement for their road pricing schemes and this may have resulted in a degree of technological lock-in. There may also be substantial benefits of integrating transport policy with other governmental policies, for example concerning health care, education, and social services. However, such joinedup government is often difficult to achieve, whilst the benefits, or indeed, the costs have rarely been quantified. For example,
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staggered school hours would save on transport costs but may have substantial social costs in terms of the disruption to household activity schedules. There are similar challenges in terms of quantifying the benefits of transit oriented development in terms of liveability and community diversity (Daban). It is the view of the workshop that many of these issues could be investigated by forms of the context-process-outcome approach outlined above. We would particularly emphasise the need for evaluation studies to examine how actual outcomes have matched desired outcomes and the extent to which the achievement of desired outcomes is shaped by context and process. 5. Policy recommendations There is sufficient evidence to suggest that wider public policy goals are important and they should be taken into account when making decisions. It seems likely that past decisions with respect to competition and ownership in land passenger transport may have neglected these wider goals and as a result, in certain cases, inappropriate decisions may have been made. It also seems likely that competition in the market approaches will neglect these wider policy goals. By contrast, classic regulation with public ownership and control of transport can ostensibly deliver the wider public policy goals but in practice this is usually mitigated by high costs and low productivity, exacerbated by political interference and tendencies towards ossification. Competition for the market models offer the prospects of delivering both wider public policy goals and cost efficiency. However, there are a number of policy issues that should be considered: (i) Traditional tendering and franchising models have tended to adopt a top-down planning approach. Policies that promote more participative, localised bottom-up planning should be encouraged. (ii) Competition for the market models have tended to involve a separation of public planning from private operations. There is competition for operations but rarely is this extended to the planning function, even though this has been posited for some time as a possibility, not least by this Conference series (Preston, 2007). Such competition would prevent planning from being overly bureaucratic. (iii) Public private partnerships have been widely used for capital investments in transport infrastructure but they have been rarely used with respect to recurrent expenditure on transport operations.Policies that permit private operators to feed into the planning process need to be found. Most policies to deliver wider public policy goals have concentrated on supply side interventions such as investment in transport infrastructure or the subsidisation of transport services. In future there may be more consideration of user side interventions. For example, given the likely impacts of peak oil and climate change, it may be that in the longer term a system of personalised carbon credits will be required and transport, as the main consumer of oil in most countries, is most likely to be affected. In the interim, with the development of smartcards relatively blunt policy instruments, such as universal concessionary fares schemes, could be converted into more targeted mobility vouchers. Given the greater importance of wider economic, social and environmental goals for urban compared to inter-urban transport, commercial authorisations may be more appropriate for interurban transport. Competition in the market could be encouraged, but in the expectation that only small group competition will emerge. As a result regulation will be needed to preserve network benefits and to ensure prices and outputs do not drift too far from
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perfectly competitive benchmarks. Yardstick competition may help determine such benchmarks. Permissive policies might be adopted towards diversification into complementary economic activities. There may be substantial benefits of institutional integration. For small urban areas such integration can be developed based on personal relationships. Elsewhere more formal arrangements will be required. This will include planning laws to integrate transport and land-use, mechanisms to encourage cross departmental agencies and joint committees and new structures, such as the Integrated Transport Authorities in England. 6. Research recommendations An evidence base is emerging on the impacts of transport interventions on wider policy goals and on the benefits of integration within the transport system and between transport and related economic sectors. However, this evidence base remains limited and dominated by certain countries (e.g. the UK) and there is a need to bring together more case studies that will give truly global coverage. The challenge will then be to generalise these case study results. One possible approach would be to use principal component analysis (and related techniques) to classify urban transport markets. There may be scope for meta-analysis and related techniques to determine key influences. The development of a more comprehensive evidence base might permit examination of critical mass e the threshold at which certain transport policies (such as cycling or rail provision) become appropriate. This evidence base is currently dominated by cost-benefit analysis approaches. Future research might focus on alternative techniques such as multi-criteria analysis or goal achievement matrices. Accessibility and/or sustainability indicators might be developed to replace or complement economic efficiency measures. There has been a tradition in transport to undertake partial analyses. Concern with wider policy issues points in the direction of more general approaches such as the use of systems dynamic approaches or computable generalised equilibrium models. Such approaches might help identify perverse incentives, rebound effects and other interactions that lead to potential unintended policy consequences. It also suggests that the network, rather than the route, should be the key unit of analysis. With complex networks, modelling of route choice becomes a challenge, particularly for public transport, whilst improved understandings of destination choices are also needed. In considering wider public policy goals, there is perhaps an understandable tendency to focus on structures. The role of individual agency, both in terms of the top-down leadership of large organisations and the bottom-up role of community groups and activists, is worthy of further study. 7. Recommendations for Thredbo 12 Thredbo 11 was the first time that the wider public policy impacts of transport were explicitly considered in a workshop. Given the need identified above to develop the evidence base, we recommend that a similar workshop be convened at Thredbo 12. Given the location of Thredbo 12, the evidence base might be particularly enhanced with respect to developing countries and the role of third sector organisations and of paratransit. We suggest
that a realist evaluation approach should be adopted in the construction of the evidence base. Although we believe that wider public policy impacts are more important for urban than inter-urban transport, high speed rail is being promoted in the UK and the US on the basis that it provides wider economic benefits. Such assertions might be usefully reviewed at an international scale. Given our assertion that the network is the fundamental unit of analysis, more evidence on the role of network benefits and economies would be particularly useful. Similarly given our arguments for general rather than partial analysis, consideration should be made of more holistic approaches to modelling, appraisal and policy implementation. Lastly, given our view that agency has been somewhat neglected at the expense of structures, we recommend that transport policies be reviewed with respect to political science models such as those outlined in Bray and Smyth (2007). It may well be that it is politics rather than economics that ultimately determines the extent to which transport delivers wider public policy goals. References Bray, D., & Smyth, A. (2007). Workshop F: policy evolution and decision making process. Selected Papers from the 9th International Conference (Thredbo 9), Lisbon, September 2005. In R. Macario, J. Viegas, & D. A. Hensher (Eds.), Competition and ownership in land passenger transport (pp. 831e844). Oxford: Elsevier. Gwilliam, K. (1987). Market failure, subsidy and welfare maximisation. In S. Glaister (Ed.), Transport subsidy (pp. 6e25). Newbury: Policy Journals. Hibbs, J. (2000). Transport policy: The myth of integrated planning. London: Institute of Economic Affairs. Jansson, K. (1997). Welfare aspects on organisation of public transport. International Journal of Transport Economics, 24, 1. Kingdon, J. (1984). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. Boston: Little, Brown. Nash, C. A. (1988). Integration of public transport: an assessment. In J. Dodgson, & N. Topham (Eds.), Bus deregulation and privatisation. Aldershot: Gower. NEA, OGM and TSU. (2003). Integration and regulatory structures in public transport. Final report. Brussels: DGTREN. Pawson, R., & Tilley, N. (1997). Realistic evaluation. London: Sage. Preston, J. (2005). The road to Rio: a brief history of the international conferences on competition and ownership in land passenger transport. Selected papers from the 8th International Conference (Thredbo 8), Rio de Janeiro, September 2003. In D. A. Hensher (Ed.), Competition & ownership in land passenger transport. Oxford: Elsevier. Preston, J. (2007). Contracting-out public transport planning: prospects and options. Selected papers from the 9th International Conference (Thredbo 9). In R. Macario (Ed.), Competition and ownership in land passenger transport. Oxford: Elsevier.
Workshop presentations Daban, G. A., Successful TOD Will Reinforce Both the Community and the Transit System. Jansson, J. O., Road Pricing and Parking Policy. Jansson, K., Models for Competition between Public Transport Routes and Modes. Ljungberg, A., Local Public Transport On The Basis Of Social Economic Criteria. López-Lambas, M. E., Private Funding and Management for Public Interchanges in Madrid. Preston, J., What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Integration? Sanko, N., Analysis on the Structural Characteristics of the Station Catchment Area in Japan. Silva, S., Area Specific Bicycle Planning. (Presented by Rob Hulleman). Takahashi, Y., Public Transport for Shopping: An Analysis on the Interaction between Intrinsic and Derived Demand. Yukawa, S., Suburbanization and Urban Public transport, Declining Public Transport in Japanese. Regional City and Regional Transport Policy.