Transport Policy [1 ed.] 9781624174599, 9781612095158

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Copyright © 2011. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Transport Policy, Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central,

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TRANSPORTATION ISSUES, POLICIES AND R & D

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TRANSPORT POLICY

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TRANSPORTATION ISSUES, POLICIES AND R & D

TRANSPORT POLICY

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CHRISTOPHER D. THOMSEN AND

ERIC R. GREEN EDITORS

Nova Science Publishers, Inc. New York

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Independent verification should be sought for any data, advice or recommendations contained in this book. In addition, no responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from any methods, products, instructions, ideas or otherwise contained in this publication. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered herein. It is sold with the clear understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or any other professional services. If legal or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent person should be sought. FROM A DECLARATION OF PARTICIPANTS JOINTLY ADOPTED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AND A COMMITTEE OF PUBLISHERS. Additional color graphics may be available in the e-book version of this book.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Transport policy / editors, Christopher D. Thomsen and Eric R. Green. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN:  (eBook)

1. Transportation and state. 2. Transportation--Environmental aspects. I. Thomsen, Christopher D. II. Green, Eric R. HE193.T64833 2011 388.0973--dc22 2011003973

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York

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CONTENTS

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Preface

vii

Chapter 1

Sustainable Transport System: European Policy and Appraisal Christina Nikolova

Chapter 2

Transit Service Quality Evaluation for a Sustainable Transportation System Laura Eboli and Gabriella Mazzulla

Chapter 3

Building a World Class Transport System and Commuting Affordability for Poor Workers in the New Towns of Singapore and Hong Kong Joseph Cho-Yam Lau

Chapter 4

Urban Structure and Transport María Jesús González González and Francisco Javier Gutierrez González

Chapter 5

Policy and Market-based Mechanism toward a Green and Sustainable Transport Ji Han

Chapter 6

Policies of Railway Interoperability: Influences in Energy Consumption Ignacio Lopez, Javier Rodriguez, Alberto Garcia, Angel Jimenez, Pilar Martin and Ignacio Gonzalez

Index

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61

95 123

149

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PREFACE Transportation infrastructure has a significant meaning for the economic growth, the mobility of labor, the opportunities for tendering transport services and the competitiveness of the economy as a whole. This new book presents topical research in the study of transport policy, including the European Union (EU) policy on the sustainability of transport and policy goals; public transit service quality evaluation for a sustainable transportation system; urban structure and transport; policy and market-based mechanisms towards a green and sustainable transport and policies of railway interoperability. Chapter 1 - The mobility is crucial for the prosperity of the national economies and for the freedom of movement within the European Union (EU). Along with the traffic growth during the recent years the pollution of the environment and the number of accidents are growing too. Besides, the main aim of the European transport policy is to ensure sustainable development of all modes of transport and to raise their energy and ecological efficiency. With regard to this it is necessary to distinguish between the positive and negative effects of the growing mobility. The technical innovations and the orientation towards less polluting and energy efficient modes of transport – especially when talking about the urban transport and long distance haulage – will contribute to a higher level of sustainability of European transport system. The changes in the global economy yield changes in the transport services demand. In order to take the advantages of the global trade, transport operators should supply services which are faster, safer and above all flexible in satisfying consumers‘ needs. It must be emphasized that during the last decades the demand for more flexible transport services leaded to a higher dependency of trade on the road transport. However, the usage of this mode of transport leaded to higher energy consumption and caused environmental pollution along with other external effects which aren‘t convertible and

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Christopher D. Thomsen and Eric R. Green

without any doubt are inconsistent with the principles of sustainable development. Practically, it is very difficult to repair these negative ecological and social effects as the societies have oriented their activities and have adapted themselves to this higher level of dependency on road transport. Sustainability demands a broader look at priorities for road transport alongside other modes, to find the best balance between the needs of the economy, society and the environment. With regard to this the main ambitions of the European transport policy are for transport that contributes to the economic success by enabling more people to travel in a way that minimizes the environmental impact; transport that is flexible enough to adapt and respond to social changes; transport that is easy and accessible to use. Namely this will be the main point in the chapter: to review the EU policy on how to deliver a higher level of sustainability of transport and to assess the level of achievement of policy goals. Chapter 2 - Transit service quality is a subject that has aroused considerable interest both in academic research and in public and private service sectors. Specifically in public transport, service quality is a matter of the greatest importance because an improvement of quality levels can attract further users. An increase of public transport use with a concurrent reduction of the use of private car could sort out many problems, like traffic congestion, air and noise pollution, and energy consumption. For these reasons, the measurement of transit performance has been, and will continue to be, an important concern for allocating resources among competing transit agencies. Scientific research is ever more oriented towards the establishment of appropriate transit performance measures and indicators. Specific measures defining transit performance include efficiency, effectiveness, and service quality. Service quality can be evaluated by considering customer perceptions and expectations, or by a range of simple disaggregate performance measures which can be used for measuring the ability of the transit agency to offer services that meet customer expectations. Both passenger perceptions and measures provided by transit agencies are fundamental for evaluating the performance of a transit service. Passengers‘ perceptions can be analysed in many different ways, including methods of statistical analysis for determining the impact of the attributes on the global service quality and customer satisfaction, and mathematical models which allow the relationship among variables to be explored, and passengers‘ choice behaviour to be simulated. There are also some procedures and methods for calculating performance indicators based on data providing from measurements on the field or by transit agencies, which provide a more

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Preface

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objective measure of service quality. The chapter aims to an as comprehensive as possible interpretative review of the different methods for measuring transit service quality, by differing between methods based on the use of performance data and methods based on the use of passengers‘ perceptions, and by describing the state of the research about this subject. Chapter 3 - This paper investigates the dynamic interactions among the social, economic and land-use development factors that influence the accessibility of the poor employed residents of distant new towns in Hong Kong and Singapore, both densely populated former British colonies. The Southeast island city state of Singapore has a population of about 4.8 million, and is 710 square kilometers in size. Singapore gained its independence from Britain in 1965. In the early independence years, it faced a high rate of unemployment, a lack of natural resources and hinterland, and political threats from Malaysia (Lee, 2000). To revive the economy, the People‘s Action Party government adopted a developmental state policy, whereby the government became the dominant force within society to push through socio-economic and land-use developments that would achieve economic growth and turn Singapore into an Asian financial center. Hong Kong is located in the southern part of China, has a population of approximately 7 million and an area of about 1000 square kilometers. Hong Kong had been a British colony for 155 years before being handed back to China in 1997. Under the agreed policy of ―One country two systems,‖ it became a special administrative region (SAR), now known as the HKSAR, and is to maintain its free enterprise-based economy for at least 50 years from the handover. In spite of the political changes it has undergone since 1997, the HKSAR has managed to maintain its position as one of the world‘s major banking and financial centers. Chapter 4 - When analysing the sustainability of an urban area, it is essential to know what relationship there is between the city and transport, as the latter is a determining factor in local sustainability. Transport overcomes the physical barrier of distance in a city, and this is its main function…Transport should be taken into account from the earliest stages of designing new urban developments, as well as the compactness and rationality of the location of uses. Chapter 5 - In the world wide scope after the Kyoto Protocol was signed, a variety of negotiations, mechanisms and policies have been addressed to prevent from the climate change. In this paper, the authors categorize national transport policies of Germany, Japan and China from the viewpoint of economic, information, regulation and technology. Moreover, the authors evaluate the development and insufficiencies of major international anti-

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climate-change negotiations and mechanisms in benefitting transport sector. As a result, the authors find that the selected developed and developing countries have been effectively implementing their own domestic policies guiding to a sustainable transport. However, methodological, financial and institutional barriers of existing mechanisms have hampered transport sector in abating climate change through international coordination. As a proposal for the future mechanism design, the authors suggest a flexible mechanism that is expected to be workable for transport through the development of policy based CDM, institutional reform, rewarding co-benefits and adoption of programmatic approaches. Chapter 6 - In this chapter the authors are going to analyze the potential of running freight trains on high-speed lines in mountainous regions. The authors shall evaluate the impact of the measure regarding energy consumption and CO2 emissions, and they shall discuss railway-specific matters related to its possible implementation. European transport policy is focused on a series of objectives as a reaction to a complex scenario of unbalanced modes of transport, heterogeneous railway infrastructures, rolling stock and legislation, inefficient railway transportation services and a drive for reducing energy consumption. These objectives pursue an overall harmonization of the transport sector, by balancing modes and, in the specific case of railways, by harmonizing infrastructure, exploitation systems and legislation. One of the main objectives in this line is to increase the degree of interoperability of the railway network both among the Member States and within them. The measure the authors are going to analyze here is one of the possible ways of using interoperability for improving freight transport. By shifting freight trains from conventional to high speed lines in mountainous areas they will have to ascend less, they will have to travel shorter distances and waste less energy in overcoming the resistance of curves. As a result, they will save energy, take less time to cover the same distance and possibly allow the operator to offer services which might not be possible today, when freight trains circulate exclusively by conventional lines. However, there exists a need for quantifying the effects of all the potential measures which will derive from European policy, so that technical criteria are made available for designing lower-level policies. The task of correlating figures to this kind of actions is arguably difficult. Any generic measure must, in the end, be deployed over a specific context whose particularities might invalidate it partially or completely. On the other hand, any measure must be studied in generic terms so that it may be applicable to a wide range of

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scenarios. As a result, a study capable of offering representative conclusions to a variety of specific scenarios of application must combine a sufficient level of generality with a certain degree of accuracy. The authors shall attempt here to achieve a compromise between both points. For this, they shall study the problem of freight transportation across the Guadarrama mountain range in the centre of Spain, NW of Madrid. This pass divides the Northern from the Southern Plains. The authors shall consider the real infrastructure but ideal trains, one representative of a light train and one of a dense one. There are four railway lines which cross the range, which they shall denote A, B, C and D, naming them from south to north. The two first were built in the nineteenth century, line C is a high-speed line opened in 2007 and line D is a mid-twentieth century infrastructure. The authors shall simulate both trains, always the same trains, running on each line on both directions, travelling fully loaded and empty. From this simulation the authors shall obtain consumption data with and without regenerative braking, which they shall analyze for obtaining further conclusions.

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Chapter 1

SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT SYSTEM: EUROPEAN POLICY AND APPRAISAL Christina Nikolova

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Department of Economics of Transport, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria

ABSTRACT The mobility is crucial for the prosperity of the national economies and for the freedom of movement within the European Union (EU). Along with the traffic growth during the recent years the pollution of the environment and the number of accidents are growing too. Besides, the main aim of the European transport policy is to ensure sustainable development of all modes of transport and to raise their energy and ecological efficiency. With regard to this it is necessary to distinguish between the positive and negative effects of the growing mobility. The technical innovations and the orientation towards less polluting and energy efficient modes of transport – especially when talking about the urban transport and long distance haulage – will contribute to a higher level of sustainability of European transport system. The changes in the global economy yield changes in the transport services demand. In order to take the advantages of the global trade, transport operators should supply services which are faster, safer and above all flexible in satisfying consumers‘ needs. It must be emphasized that during the last decades the demand for more flexible transport

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Christina Nikolova services leaded to a higher dependency of trade on the road transport. However, the usage of this mode of transport leaded to higher energy consumption and caused environmental pollution along with other external effects which aren‘t convertible and without any doubt are inconsistent with the principles of sustainable development. Practically, it is very difficult to repair these negative ecological and social effects as the societies have oriented their activities and have adapted themselves to this higher level of dependency on road transport. Sustainability demands a broader look at priorities for road transport alongside other modes, to find the best balance between the needs of the economy, society and the environment. With regard to this the main ambitions of the European transport policy are for transport that contributes to the economic success by enabling more people to travel in a way that minimizes the environmental impact; transport that is flexible enough to adapt and respond to social changes; transport that is easy and accessible to use. Namely this will be the main point in the chapter: to review the EU policy on how to deliver a higher level of sustainability of transport and to assess the level of achievement of policy goals.

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I. INTRODUCTION Sustainability in transport has different implications and it has a key role for economic and social development. Transport sector generates growth by facilitating trade of industrial and agricultural goods and by increasing access to health and education facilities as well as local and national amenities. At the macroeconomic level, investments in transport raise growth by increasing the social return to private investments. At the microeconomic level, improvements in transport help to lower input prices of different goods and hence production costs, they increase access to markets and diversification of outputs, and indirectly they facilitate the development of the economy (World Bank, 2008). Transport infrastructure has a significant meaning for the economic growth, the mobility of labour, the opportunities for tendering transport services and the competitiveness of the economy as whole. The quality of transport infrastructure and public transport service affects the location decisions made by firms and individuals. On one hand the sustainable transport system must have a continuing capability to support improved standard of services and this corresponds to the concept of economic and financial sustainability. Furthermore, the transport system must provide an improvement in the general quality of life,

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and an increase in traded goods besides better energy efficiency which corresponds to the environmental and ecological sustainability. And finally, the benefits that transport produces must be equitably shared by all sections of the community which refers to the social sustainability. Sustainability demands the best balance between the needs of the economy, society and the environment. Based on this the main ambitions of the EU are for transport that: contributes to the economic success of the EU by enabling more people to travel in a way that minimises the environmental impact; is flexible enough to adapt and respond to social changes, protecting the network and improving its ability to operate for longer in the day and more consistently over the working week; is easy and accessible to use and transport that is built on stable foundations of safety, reliability and sound finance. Economic, social and environmental sustainability are often mutually reinforcing. Transport system that falls into disrepair because it is economically unsustainable fails to serve the needs of the society and often have environmentally damaging consequences. Hence, there are some policy instruments which serve all of the dimensions of sustainability in a synergistic way, generating ―win-win‖ solutions. These include measures to improve asset maintenance, charging for external effects, raising technical efficiency of supply, safety, contract design and administration. On the other hand, road transport is a key enabler for the free movement of people and transport of goods in Europe at local and regional levels. It has a major impact on the daily lives of European citizens as a primary means of their access to employment, services and social activities. Road transport creates links and these links have a major role in developing social, regional and economic cohesion in Europe but on the other hand, it impacts the environment and general quality of life of every European citizen (ERTRAC, 2007). During the last decades there is an increasing demand from European citizens for individual mobility, but at the same time the society as a whole must reduce the environmental impact of road transport and increase its efficiency. European Union wants a clean, energy-efficient, safe and intelligent road transport system and a highly competitive road transport industry is essential to the business community. With regard to that, the goal of the Sustainable transport policy is to ensure that the EU‘s transport systems meet the citizens‘ economic, social and environmental needs, as highlighted by the mid-term review of the 2001 White Paper, 'Keep Europe moving; Sustainable mobility for our continent'. The EU Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS), which was renewed in June 2006, sets out a

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coherent approach to how the EU will more effectively live up to its longstanding commitment to meet the challenges of sustainable development. The main aim is achieving continuous improvement of the quality of life and well-being of the society as whole, through the creation of sustainable economy able to manage and use resources efficiently and to tap the ecological and social innovation potential of the economy, ensuring prosperity, environmental protection and social cohesion. Increased mobility, particularly private motorized mobility, typically increases measured gross domestic product (GDP) but damages the environment. Global sourcing of manufacturing industry and just-in-time logistics reduce product costs (Black&Nijkamp, 2002). However, expenditures on road transport tend to increase as many more goods are transported throughout the European continent. Shifts to movement by faster modes (air transport) or in smaller batches (road one) with greater flexibility in frequency of schedule and variety of routes also have potentially adverse environmental implications. More efficient production of transport services in a competitive framework may involve loss of jobs, imposing some social costs and restructuring of prices and services which may hurt some users. However, the mobility is crucial for the prosperity of the national economies and for the freedom of movement within the European Union. Along with the traffic growth during the recent years, the pollution of the environment and the number of accidents are growing too. On the other hand, the main aim of the European transport policy is to ensure sustainable development of all modes of transport and to raise their energy and ecological efficiency. With regard to that, it is necessary to distinguish between the positive and negative effects of the growing mobility. The technical innovations and the orientation towards less polluting and energy efficient modes of transport – especially when talking about the urban transport and long distance haulage – will contribute to a higher level of sustainability of transport system in the EU (Jeon&Amekudzi, 2005). In this context it is very important to reveal the main policy objectives, measures and instruments for achieving sustainable transport system in Europe. Working out a strategy for increasing transport sustainability is a key point in the development of the EU‘s transport system. It must be considered that there exist a variety of problems and that they differ between the different modes. Obviously, consistent policy for sustainable development of transport is necessary in order to achieve economic, social and environmental sustainability.

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The main policy instruments outlined in the SDS are related to adopting measures to improve asset maintenance, charging for the external effects, as well as improving technical efficiency of supply, safety, contract design and administration. Respective economic instruments specified in this document in order to achieve sustainable transport system in Europe are connected to the increase in transport investments and the use of cost-benefit analysis for their appraisal but expanded to encompass environmental externalities as well as adequate maintenance of capital assets. The crucial problems to be resolved by the policy for sustainable development of transport on the EU level are related to the infrastructure and basic accessibility deficiency and service quality deficiency. With regard to this it should be noted that there are important criteria for strategic development which should be followed. They include the observation of transport and environmental objectives regarding short-term management, pricing instruments and long-term strategic instruments; strategic and structural actions, including the creation of economic incentives for environmentally sensitive behaviour and application of the most appropriate technology on the basis of relative cost-effectiveness. In this context the main measures to be undertaken are outlined to be: to assist passengers and other transport users and enhance their sense of security; delivering transport‘s environmental potential; and ensuring stable funding. The new focus in the transport policy does not influence the importance of the services‘ efficiency with respect to trade, mobility and economic growth as whole, but it aims to provide better conditions for asset maintenance, internalisation of external costs, safety and technical efficiency and improvement in contractual procedures. For achieving these goals and for the purposes of assessment of the sustainability of transport it is necessary to analyse the parameters and the main aspects of sustainable development: institutional; economic; social and environmental.

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II. INSTITUTIONAL SUSTAINABILITY OF TRANSPORT IN EU: A REVIEW OF POLICY DOCUMENTS Institutional sustainability of transport has been achieved when prevailing structures and processes have the capacity to continue to perform their functions over the long term. For institutional sustainability to be achieved it is important to have in place:

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well-defined laws; participatory policy-making processes; and effective public and private sector organisations that create a framework within which the quality of services and the performance of transport operators can be continuously improved. Sustainability is said to be closely associated with the planning process of an activity, and its inclusion of both the target group and in some cases the long term indirect beneficiaries (World Bank, 2008). On the other hand, the sustainability is affected by the human capital available – the capacity of staff and users. This may be technical capacity but is likely also to include organisational and management capacity. Finally, sustainability of transport is likely to be strongly influenced by the technology used e.g. operation and repair may be critical to the success of the transport operations. Principles of Sustainable transport refer to criteria to be followed in dealing with transport systems and policies (Gudmundsson, 2004). Obviously, the level of institutional sustainability of transport could be estimated on the ground of analysis of the European policy for sustainable development of transport as well as of the legislation and regulations in the sector. For clarification of the institutional aspect of sustainability the adopted policy in transport should be revealed and an accent should be given to the infrastructure management, market structures and social intervention in the sector. An important point is to study public orders agreements and the forms and results in the competition between the different modes. Transport plays а key role in people‘s everyday lives and is decisive factor in economic competitiveness and employment. The transport services sector in the EU-271 employed more than 9.2 million persons, some 4.4% of the total workforce and it contributes 11% of European GDP. 1

EU-27: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta,

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Current EU research and development in transport is aimed at four strategic objectives: 1) Reducing the environmental impact of transport, including harmful emissions and noise. 2) Improving the safety and security of transport operations and services. 3) Increasing the mobility of people and goods while achieving better balance among the transport modes. 4) Improving the competitiveness of the European surface transport industries, including manufacturers and operators.

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The promotion of its sustainable development without sacrificing either economic growth or the freedom of movement has become a central objective of the European policy. The transport sector has to face the challenge of supporting future economic development and subsequent traffic increase without degrading the quality of transport services and by protecting the environment. The sustainable transport policy of the EU addresses the following objectives: Objective 1: New technologies and concepts for all surface transport modes (road, rail and waterborne). Objective 2: Advanced design and production techniques. Objective 3: Rebalancing and integrating different transport modes. Objective 4: Increasing road, rail and waterborne safety and avoiding traffic congestion. For achieving the aim of sustainable development of the European transport system European Commission (EC) adopted a number of programs and policy documents focused on different topics.

the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

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1) White Paper – „European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide‟ In 2001, the EC published its White Paper on ‗European Transport Policy for 2010: time to decide‘ (European Commission, 2001), in which for the first time the Commission placed the needs of users at the heart of its transport strategy by proposing 60 measures to refocus European transport policy on the needs of its citizens and aimed at developing the European transport system. The most important of these measures are designed to shift the balance between modes of transport by 2010 by revitalizing the railways, promoting maritime and inland waterways transport and linking up the different modes of transport. For railways, the goal is to achieve by 2010 the same modal share as in 1998, thus reversing the decline of the last thirty years. Railway transport is therefore expected to grow significantly as the total transport demand in 2010 is expected to be 40 per cent higher than in 1998. The policy measures adopted have led EU Member States to institute a programme of organizational and financial restructuring of national railway undertakings. The degree and speed of change has varied widely. Typically, the passenger and freight divisions of national railways have been restructured into business units, with much greater financial accountability and stronger managerial control over rolling stock and human resources. European rail productivity, financial performance and service quality has improved as a result but principally on domestic rather than international rail networks. Whilst the European legislation has had some impact in stimulating restructuring of railways, the very limited access rights have had minimal impact in stimulating competition in the provision of rail services or the development of open access or international rail services. The other goals have been related to promoting transport by sea and inland waterways and controlling the growth in air transport. Sustainable transport is fundamental for economic development. Whereas it started as a movement driven by environmental concerns, over these last years there has been increased emphasis on social equity and fairness issues, and in particular the need to ensure proper access and services for lower income groups and people with mobility limitations, including the fast growing population of older citizens. Many of the people exposed to the most vehicle noise, pollution and safety risk have been those who do not own, or cannot drive cars, and those for whom the cost of car ownership causes a severe financial burden. For this purpose the EU Directorate-

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General for Transport and Energy (DG-TREN)2 has launched a programme which focuses mostly on Urban Transport.

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2) The European Strategy Called “Keep Europe Moving: Sustainable Mobility for Our Continent” (European Commission, DG-TREN, 2006) The strategy draws attention to the changes in the context since 2001 – having in mind the EU enlargement, the acceleration of globalisation, international commitments to fighting global warming and rising energy prices and the need to take these into account. It is concentrated in three main areas: First, optimisation of the existing modes of transport – the strategy envisages priority actions along the line of European internal market review in order to ensure the proper functioning of the market and determine the role of social elements involved; launching the principles and priorities of the European Transport Policy; removal of technical barriers in rail transport to ensure interoperability between companies; programme to promote rail freight corridors and prepare a review of the internal market in rail transport (2006), with a core board for market performance of rail (2007); mobilisation of all sources of infrastructure financing; multi-annual investment programme up to 2013 for Trans-European networks. Second, mobility for citizens – envisaged measures include: a publication of a Green Paper on Urban Transport (2007); development of a strategy for critical infrastructure (2006), land and public transport security (2007); passenger rights: proposal on minimum standards for coach transport, notably for people with limited mobility (2007); organising a first European road safety day (2007); promotion of road safety through vehicle design and technology, infrastructure and drive behaviour (on a continuing basis); revising the legislation on working conditions in road sector (2007). Third, better transport solutions through new technologies – relevant measures included in this area are: development of a freight transport logistics strategy, as well as the launch of a broad debate on possible preparation of an EU action plan; development of a strategic technology plan for energy in 2007 and green propulsion programme for 2009; implementation of regional transportation districts and support to market 2

Transformed into Directorate for Mobility and Transport in the end of 2009.

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penetration, including big technology projects such as Galileo and ERTMS which should be implemented on certain corridors from 2009 onwards; smart charging (basis for methodology by 2008) and major programme to bring intelligent road transport systems to market (2008). In the end of July 2009 the European Commission published its mid-term review of the European Strategy for Sustainable Development. The main priorities in the report are connected with the following: rapid transition to a low-carbon and low-cost economy based on energy and resource efficient technologies and a change towards sustainable consumers‘ behaviour; increasing the efforts for conservation and management of the biodiversity, waters and other environmental resources; encouraging the social inclusion through raising employment rates, productivity and successful integration of migrants; strengthening the international dimension of the sustainable development and increasing the efforts for a struggle against global poverty.

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3) „Logistics: Keeping Freight Moving‟ Programme This programme envisages series of measures to promote the freight transport logistics, to make rail freight more competitive, to create a framework which will allow European ports to attract investment for their modernisation, to put maritime freight transport on an equal footing with other transport modes and to review progress made in developing ―Motorways of the Sea‖ (European Commission, DG-TREN, 2007). It includes following strategies: Action Plan to Keep Freight Moving; Towards a more competitive rail freight sector; Maritime transport without barriers.

4) The Greening Transport Package With this package the Commission aims to move transport further towards sustainability (European Commission, DG-TREN, 2008). This threepart package proposed by the Commission seeks to steer the European transport sector towards enhanced sustainability. It includes a strategy to ensure that the prices better reflect the real transport costs to society in terms of environmental damage and congestion; a proposal to help member states

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to make this happen through more efficient and greener road tolls for lorries; and a proposal for reducing noise pollution from rail freight. The package has five parts: Greening Transport Communication which summarises the whole package and sets out the new initiatives of the EU until 2009; Greening Transport Inventory - it describes the large amount of EU action already taken to green transport; Strategy to Internalise the External Costs of Transport focused on making transport prices better reflect their real costs to society so that environmental damage and congestion can be reduced while boosting the efficiency of transport and ultimately the economy as a whole; Proposal for a Directive on road tolls for heavy goods vehicles whose aim is to enable member states to reduce environmental damages and congestions through more efficient and greener road tolls for lorries. Revenue from the tolls would be used to reduce environmental impacts and cut congestions; Rail Transport and Interoperability communication - sets out the rule on how to reduce the perceived noise from existing rail freight trains by 50% and the measures the Commission and other stakeholders will need to take in the future to achieve this goal.

5) Maritime Transport Strategy 2018 It identifies key areas where action by the EU will strengthen the competitiveness of the sector while enhancing its environmental performance (European Commission, 2009). The strategic goals and recommendations refer to two main issues: The ability of the maritime transport sector to provide cost-efficient transport services adapted to the needs of sustainable economic growth of the EU and world economies; and The long-term competitiveness of the shipping sector, enhancing its capacity to generate value and employment in the EU, both directly and indirectly, through the whole cluster of maritime industries.

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The strategy is divided into six chapters: 1). Shipping trends & business conditions; 2). Human resources; 3). Quality shipping; 4). International scene; 5). Short-sea shipping and 6). Research and innovation.

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6) A Sustainable Future for Transport This is a strategic document, summarising the results of the measures and initiatives carried out in recent months – and a consultation document – aiming at identifying policy options to be tested and eventually included in the next White Paper in 2010. It outlines a way towards an integrated, technology-led and user-friendly system (European Commission, DG-TREN, 2009a). Having in mind all the programmes and policy documents the most important question that rise is: how could the available policy instruments be activated to reach the goals and respond to the sustainability challenge? The EU policy for sustainable development envisages three main areas of action measures and instruments for achieving the goals: The first area is infrastructure – its maintenance, development and the integration of modal networks. The optimal functioning of the transport system requires full integration and interoperability of the individual parts of the network and on the other hand, well-focused infrastructure expansion could help to avoid congestion and time losses. The second area is funding. The main objective in this area is to find the resources for delivering sustainable transport. The transition towards a low-carbon economy will impose a substantial overhaul of the transport system, which requires considerable and well-coordinated funding. Transport statistics shows that transport generates a substantial amount of revenues for public budgets - energy taxes amount to 1.9% of GDP, most of them coming from fuel taxes on road transport and the private car and a further 0.6% of GDP is collected in the form of vehicle taxes. In addition to taxes, there are also tolls and charges for infrastructure use. Transport users thus already pay a significant amount, but the price they pay often bears little connection to the real costs on society of their choices. For this reason, the Commission proposed a stepwise strategy for the internalisation of external costs in all transport modes. Action from member states and international organisations should complement this strategy and ensure that users‘ costs include relevant externalities for all modes and vehicles.

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The third area is further development of the legislative framework. The objective is to further promote the market opening and to foster competition. The completion of the internal market with a strong enforcement of competition rules is essential. It should also include administrative simplification aiming at reducing unnecessary burdens on transport companies. The regulatory framework needs to evolve towards harmonised environmental obligations, effective supervision, uniform protection of workers‘ conditions and users‘ rights. Education, information and awareness-raising campaigns will play an important role in influencing future consumer behaviour and facilitating sustainable mobility choices. Liberalisation in the transport sector poses the challenge of balancing market efficiency with public goals and the associated use of subsidies. There exist some areas where further deregulation is desirable (for instance to improve interoperability within the internal and international market). In addition, the review of the state regulation procedures shows experience to date, and provided tools and methods to support the implementation of regulatory reform. The intervention of the European governments in the functioning of the transport market is demonstrated in the following aspects:

6.1 Enacting Regulative Legislation As it was noted above the EU Parliament has adopted the necessary legislative framework for regulation of the functioning of the transport market. 6.2 Protecting Public Interests in the Market Functioning The individual states execute their rights of ownership on the infrastructure and offer access to it through the establishment of specialized public enterprises. The regulatory bodies in charge of control on transport and infrastructure operators‘ actions are established as well. 6.3. License Regimes for the Carriers They regulate the access of the consumers to the market. This aspect of the state regulation of transport market arises from the non-competitiveness of the provided public services on the one hand, and on the other hand – from the possibility of exclusion of certain consumers (carriers) through application of certain criteria which they have to meet in order to be granted access to the infrastructure. Thus the governments ensure reliability of transport services and infrastructure tendering.

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The applicants for licenses have to be financially stable, professionally competent, with good reputation, and to have the financial means to insure their civil liability. According to the transport directives a financially stable candidate is the one who proves that it will be able to cover its actual or potential liabilities for a period of 12 months. In order to be assessed as professionally competent, the carrier must have internal rules for the transport activities and its management organization. It must have knowledge and experience necessary to exercise safe and reliable operational control and supervision of the type of operations specified in the licence, it must employ personnel responsible for the safety, in particular drivers, who are fully qualified for their field of activity, it must have rolling stock and its organization could be able to ensure a high level of safety for the services to be provided. Good reputation is determined by the general formula that the management personnel of the applicant cannot have been sentenced or managed a company which has been declared insolvent and for which unsatisfied creditors have remained. Besides, meeting all the above requirements, the licensed persons have to certify the suitability of the vehicles they possess, for safe operation within the infrastructure and the compatibility of the qualifications of the personnel with a safety certificate. The application of regulatory measures for participation in the transport business through licensing aims at ensuring efficiency in the infrastructure use, offering transport services of high quality and achieving social wealth as a whole at cost efficiency and optimal provision of the public services.

6.4. Arrangements for Imposing Public Service Obligations (PSO) Arrangements for Imposing PSO and providing compensation from public funds are critical to the commercial freedom of transport operators and to the financial viability of the sector. Most EU member-states have introduced contracts that meet the aims of the regulation. In railway transport certain arrangements are made for passenger carriages with interregional, regional and suburban trains. The railway operators assume transport obligation, tariff engagement both for passengers entitled to travel free of charges or on reduced prices. Regarding the PSO in road transport it must be mentioned that the certain agreements exist in urban passenger transport and interurban carriages, financed by the local authorities. Services are organised under national transport schemes. With growing freight and passenger transport, pollution and congestion risk aggravating. With regard to this, the main aims are to tender a mobility that is sustainable, energy-efficient and respectful of the environment and to

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disconnect the mobility from its adverse effects. Respective measures envisaged in the European programmes to enhance sustainable development of transport system include promoting co-modality, i.e. optimally combining various modes of transport within the same transport chain, which is the solution for the future in the case of freight; encouraging technical innovation and shifting towards the least polluting and most energy efficient modes of transport — especially in the case of long distance and urban travel which will contribute to a more sustainable mobility. Institutional considerations are basic for clarifying the framework for sustainable development of transport system. Although different approaches to transport are offered by different governmental units, research into the most efficient forms should be pursued. Should the activities of transport operators and infrastructure managers be centralised or decentralised, regulated or deregulated, public or private? This is a question of market based decisions considering the specific conditions in every member state. Although the governments have taken actions in this area over the past ten years, assessments of their success have often been from an economic perspective as opposed to transport and mobility perspective (Black & Nijkamp, 2002). Namely these facts imply to study the compliance between adopted policy for sustainable development and measures conducted by the government to assure institutional framework for sustainable development of transport.

III. ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY OF THE EUROPEAN TRANSPORT: AN APPRAISAL The European Commission developed detailed indicators in order to monitor progress with regard to each particular challenge of sustainability. The sustainable development indicators‘ (SDI) framework outlined by the EC is based on ten themes, reflecting the seven key challenges of the strategy, as well as the key objectives of economic prosperity, and guiding principles related to good governance (Litman, 2008). The themes follow a general gradient from the economic, to the social, and then to the environmental and institutional dimensions. They are further divided into sub-themes to organise the set in a way that reflects the operational objectives and actions of the sustainable development strategy. Regarding the economic sustainability of transport the most important indicators are contribution of transport to GDP,

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employment, consuption of households for transport, investments in transport etc. Following the logic of these indicators the analysis of the European transport sector preformance is made.

1) Growth in Transport Compared to the Growth in GDP

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Main policy objective of the EU policy for sustainable development of transport is to ―bring about a significant decoupling of transport growth from GDP growth‖ (European Commission, 2001). An operational objective of the renewed EU sustainable development strategy is ‗decoupling economic growth and the demand for transport with the aim of reducing environmental impacts‘. The volume of freight transport to GDP ratio measures the decoupling of freight transport growth from real GDP growth (see figure 1).

Source: EUROSTAT, 2010. Figure 1. Volume of passenger and goods transport compared to GDP, EU-27, Index 1995=100.

Rising volumes of traffic can damage the environment and economic growth through rising levels of congestion, noise and pollution. The full internalisation of the social and environmental costs of transport should promote a significant decoupling of transport growth and GDP growth. Efficient transport system is essential for both the European economy and

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people's quality of life. With regard to the objectives of individual systems, the priority of transport policy is to ensure mobility of service users. The GDP generated in all member states of the European Union tends to increase constantly and this increase is followed by the growth in transport (see figure 1). Comparing growth in transport to the growth in GDP it is obvious that the annual average growth in GDP is 2.3% (see table 1). The average annual growth in freight traffic is 2.3%, respectively the average annual growth in road transport is 2.9%, in rail – 1.1%, in air transport – 2.3%, in sea transport - 2.1%, the growth in inland waterways transport is 1.3% and that in pipelines – 0.6%. Passenger transport performance grew at an average yearly rate of 1.6% - mainly on account of growth in air transport as well as in urban carriages (Tram&Metro).

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Table 1. Average annual growth in transport compared to the growth in GDP EU-27 avg growth 9508 2.3% GDP* 2.3% tkm 1.6% pkm Freight transport 2.9% Road 1.1% Rail 1.3% Inland waterways 0.6% Pipelines 2.1% Sea 2.3% Air Passenger transport 1.5% Passenger cars 1.8% Powered 2wheelers 0.7% Buses&Coaches 1.2% Railways 1.7% Tram&Metro 3.8% Air Source: EUROSTAT, 2010.

avg growth 0008 2.0% 2.0% 1.2%

growth 07-08 0.7% -2.1% -0.3%

2.7% 1.2% 1.0% -0.3% 1.7% 1.2%

-1.9% -2.3% -1.2% -2.2% -2.2% -1.8%

1.1% 1.8% 0.7% 1.2% 1.8% 2.6%

-0.7% 1.9% 0.9% 3.5% 3.5% -1.9%

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It should be noted that the traffic generated by private cars is included in the total passenger traffic. The volume of transport relative to GDP expresses the ratio between transport performance in tonne-kilometres and passengerkilometres and GDP indexing on reference year 1995. Changes in the structure and location of manufacturing industries, especially processes of economic restructuring as well as the changes in production methods and distribution channels, influenced by the EU integration are at the root of these trends. On the other hand, growing requirements for staff mobility in the services‘ sector and the increase in private car ownership influence the overall development in transport sector in the EU.

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2) Modal Split EUROSTAT defines as a key indicator for assessment of the economic sustainability of transport the modal split (EUROSTAT, 2010). The objective and the relevance of this indicator are argued to be very good as the indicator gives a view on the balance between transport modes used in the EU-27 and its impact on the economy, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The modal split of freight traffic is an indicator that measures the balance between different transport modes in total inland transport of goods. An important policy issue is the extent of the prevalence of road based transport which is considered the less environmental friendly means of transporting goods. Road transport is the least energy-efficient mode as well and it produces more emissions per tonne-kilometre than either rail or inland waterways transport. It has also the highest accident rate and a great economic impact. The main aim of the European Transport Policy is to shift the balance between road transport and other modes thereby removing the existing coupling of economic growth with increased road traffic. Analyzing the modal split in freight transport it could be noted that while road made up the largest share of total freight transport performance (46%), intra-EU sea transport was second (37%) and the rail transport is on the third place with a share of 11% (figure 2). Demand factors such as the increasing importance of door-to-door and just-in-time services have contributed to road‘s growing modal share in freight transport performance over the 1995to-2008 period.

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50,00

45,00 40,00

35,00 30,00 25,00

20,00 15,00

10,00

Road Rail Inland Waterways Pipelines Sea Air

5,00

0,00

Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010.

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Figure 2. Modal split in freight transport.

An important issue when analyzing the modal split is the extent of the prevalence of road transport by cars which is considered the least sustainable passenger transport mode. It determines considerable environmental and social impacts, such as pollution, global warming, etc. as well as a higher accident rate, thus producing negative economic impacts. The value of this indicator (averagely 55.5%) shows low effectiveness of the national transport policy whose aim is to achieve a shift towards more energy efficient and environmentally friendly modes of passenger transport (figure 3). 80,00

70,00 60,00

Passenger Cars

50,00

P2W

40,00

Bus & Coach

30,00

Railway

20,00

10,00 0,00

Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010. Figure 3. Modal split in passenger transport.

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Road clearly plays a predominant role in EU-27 transport, be it that of passenger or of good carriages. In 2008, passenger cars, powered twowheelers and buses & coaches together accounted for 83% of total passenger transport performance. However, especially due to the growing importance of low-cost carriers, the highest growth rate recorded in passenger transport was that of air transport (3.8%). This indicator is also related to the renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy‘s overall objective on transport: ‗to ensure that transport systems meet society‘s economic, social and environmental needs whilst minimising their undesirable impacts on the economy, society and the environment‘. More specific targets are to direct a shift from road to rail, water and public passenger transport. Finally, the indicator is partially related with the aim of reduction of transport greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions. Estimating the average road transport share of 83% of passenger traffic, it is absolutely clear that this aim is far away from the present performance of the transport system.

The level and the condition of the surface infrastructure show the opportunities for the European citizens to choose between different routes and modes.

290 240 190 140 90

Population

1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007

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3) Growth in Surface Transport Infrastructure Relative to Population

Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010. Figure 4. Growth in surface transport infrastructure compared to growth in population.

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The analysis of figure 4 shows that averaging 2.6% annually, growth in the length of motorways was fairly constant over the period. Data available for the 1995-2008 period show that the EU-27 rail infrastructure decreased fairly steadily in length between 1995 and 2001 at an average annual rate close to 1%. The length of the EU-27‘s railways then stabilised from 2001 to 2008, in fact growing at a small annual rate of 0.1%. The most significant growth is in the length of high speed rail lines – average annual growth of 10.4%. The length of navigable canals in EU grew by 0.8% annually. The overall density of the entire road network is 0.40 km/km² for the EU-27. The analysis of the data presented on figure 5 shows that motorways are continually extending across the EU. 160 Passenger carriages by road transport (pkm)

150 140

Freight transport by road (tkm)

130

120 Density of motorways by population (per 100 000 ihabitants)

110 100

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

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90

Density of motorways by area (per 1000 sq.km)

Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010. Figure 5. Growth in density of motorways compared to growth in road transport performance. 250 230

210 190 170 150

Passenger carriages by rail transport (pkm) Freight transport by rail (tkm) Density of rail lines by population (per 100 000 inhabitants)

130

Density of rail lines by area (per 100 000 inhabitants)

110

Density of HSRN by population

90

Density of HSRN by area

Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010. Figure 6. Growth in density of rail lines compared to growth in rail transport performance.

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The density of motorways per 100 000 inhabitants of the EU population is 13.2 in 2008 and respectively 15.1 km per 1000 sq. km of the territory. With regard to rail network density, the EU-27 counted 49.2 km of railway lines per 1 000 sq.km in 2008 and 42.9 km – per 100 000 inhabitants (figure 6).

4) Additional Indicators In order to appraise thoroughly the level of economic sustainability of transport in the EU-27 some additional indicators will be put in the analysis. These are as follows:

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Final Consumption of Households for Transport Expenditure on transport in EU are roughly 13.4% of the total consumption in 2008 of which: 29.6% are used to purchase vehicles, another 52% was spent on the operation of personal equipment (e.g. to buy fuel for the car, spare parts etc.) and 18.5% was spent on transport services (e.g. bus, train, plane tickets). The average annual share of transport in final consumption of households is 5.5%; Employment in Transport In transport sector in the EU are involved 9.2 million people. Transport services together with auxiliary services3 accounted for 6.9% of the persons employed and for 7.1% of the value added in the EU-27‘s non-financial business economy. Road transport services have a share of 53% of persons employed in the whole sector, 32% of them are involved in freight services and the other 21% - in passenger road transport (see figure 7). Number of Enterprises In 2008, 1 163 160 enterprises in the EU-27 had transport services as their main activity. The largest share - 945 230 (81.3% of total), were active in road and other land transport, especially due to the importance of road freight (52.3%) services. Supporting and auxiliary transport activities (9.6%) made up the second largest group of enterprises, followed by enterprises 3

Auxiliary services include the operation of infrastructure and terminals (roads, railways, inland waterways, sea and airports, etc.), navigational services (waterway navigation and air traffic control), berthing, parking and towing services, cargo handling, storage, warehousing

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active in water transport (maritime and inland waterways) as well as air transport, which made up respectively 1.7% of enterprises delivering passenger services and 0.3% of the enterprises in freight transport (see figure 8).

Road freight transport

25%

32%

Road passenger transport Railways Pipelines

5%

Inland water transport

5%

Sea transport 9%

21%

Air transport

2%

Travel agencies & tour operators

1%

Other auxiliary transport activities

0%

Source: EUROSTAT, 2010. Figure 7. Employment by modes of transport.

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Road freight transport Road passenger transport 1%

0%

1% 0% 0%

Railways

10% 7%

Pipelines 52%

Inland water transport

29% Sea transport Air transport Travel agencies & tour operators Other auxiliary transport activities

Source: EUROSTAT, 2010. Figure 8. Share of enterprises by modes.

Stock of Vehicles During the period 1995 – 2008 passenger carriages by road increased by an average annual rate of 1.6% while freight carriages grew at an yearly rate

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of 3.5%. The highest annual rate of increase is for goods vehicles – 3.8%, followed by passenger cars – 2.2% and buses and coaches – 0.7%. In terms of car density on the population, in 2008 there were 472 passenger cars for 1000 inhabitants in the EU-27, somewhat less than one car for every two inhabitants. From 1995 to 2008, the number of cars per 1 000 inhabitants in the EU-27 grew at an average annual rate of 1.9%. The rate of growth of freight transport by road is supported by a growth in stocks of vehicles, especially in goods vehicles in order to serve the increased demand for freight carriages by road (see figure 9). The respective average annual growth in rail freight carriages is 3.8% but the stock of railcars and locomotives decrease by 0.2% and stock of rail coaches, railcars and trailers increase by average percent of 1% yearly (see figure 10). The trend is towards optimisation of the use of stock of vehicles in rail transport. The figures do however reflect technical improvements with, for example, more efficient transport and scheduling. The data related to the stock of vehicles of the other modes present only partial picture (see table 2). Growing from 2 891 to 6 421 aircraft between 1990 and 2007, the EU-27‘s civil commercial fleet more than doubled in size, rising at an average rate of 4.7% per year. Over one third of the increase in the number of civil aircraft was accounted for by additional ‗Business/ corporate/ executive‘ aircraft, and over one third by new ‗Passenger aircraft with 151 to 250 seats‘, as the fleets in those two categories grew at strong rates of 10% and 9% respectively. 160

150

Passenger carriages by road transport (pkm)

140

Freight transport by road (tkm)

130

Passenger cars

120 Buses&coaches

110 Goods vehicles

100

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

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24

Source: EUROSTAT, 2010. Figure 9. Growth in stock of road vehicles compared to growth in freight and passenger traffic.

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160 150

140

Passenger carriages by rail transport (pkm)

130

Freight transport by rail (tkm)

120

Locomotives and railcars

110

Rail coaches, railcars and trailers

100

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

90

Source: EUROSTAT, 2010. Figure 10. Growth in stock of vehicles in rail transport compared to the growth in freight and passenger traffic.

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Table 2. Stock of vehicles in air and sea transport Sea : EU Merchant Fleet, data as at January 1st, 2008 Ships of 1000 GRT and over Foreign flag Total fleet (including other controlled National flag EU) Number mio dwt Number mio dwt Number mio dwt EU27 11130 392,052 3498 123,005 7632 269,047 Air : Passenger aircraft Number of civil aircraft in service at 31 December 2009 Passenger aircraft 50 seats or 51 to 150 151 to 250 251 seats and less seats seats more Total EU27 614 1447 1568 500 4129 Air : Freight, Special, Business aircraft Number of Civil Aircraft In Service at 31 December 2009 Quick-change Special Business / Freight / Cargo convertible purpose / Corporate / under over (passenger / Ambulance Executive 100,000lbs 100,000lbs cargo) mtow mtow Multi-role EU27 190 163 69 84 1979

Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010.

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5) Assessment of the Economic Sustainability of Transport: Methodological Framework and Key Indicators Having in mind that transport activities contribute to the economic development, it is very important to estimate the overall impact of transport or of a separate mode on the economic growth and society‘s wealth (Chen et al., 2007). The evaluation of the impact of transport on the economic development of the EU will permit to assess the achievement of the main goals regarding economic sustainability of transport. The transport sustainability impact assessment can be done by identifying the specific contribution of transport to the process of total wealth formation (Korzhenevich, A et al., 2007). For the purpose of estimation, the indicators analysed above are included in an assessment matrix. Using this matrix will enable to estimate the overall accomplishment of the objective of economic sustainability of transport included in the European Transport Policy. The model suggested in the paper is developed in order to analyse economic aspects in sufficient details and to assess the influence of the development of transport on the economy. The model considers the linkages between transport and economy, mainly in terms of the effects of transport development on economic variables like GDP, transport performance etc. As a result its contribution to the sustainability could be estimated. The set of variables presented in table 3 are used to compute the correspondence between the indicators and the respective transport measures. In some cases, however, the indicator is not a direct output of the model. On the other hand, there appears to exist some gaps as described in the previous part, several measures of contribution of transport to the economic development are available only for one or two years (such as employment in transport, share of transport expenditure in the total of households‘ consumption etc.), consequently they are not included in the assessment matrix. As far as the usage of the modelling tool is concerned, a partial assessment is provided. On the other hand, the recommendations of EUROSTAT related to economic sustainability assessment are towards the usage of traffic volume and modal split as common measures for the contribution of transport to the economic development. With regard to that, an attempt for evaluation of the economic sustainability of road transport is presented in the paper. The model data included in the table 3 is analysed using SPSS statistical software.

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Table 3. Transport impact on economic development indicators assessment matrix Economic indicators

Influencing factors

Factors‟ influence Indicator‟s response Significance (average) Sig t

GDP

Freight traffic, tkm; Passenger traffic, pkm

0.63 1.7

0.007% 0.018%

0.056 0.000

Freight traffic

Modal split - freight carriages Rail transport; Road transport; Inland waterways transport; Sea transport; Air transport.

165.9 357.8 87.9 43.3 0

9.9% -

0.248 0.005 0.693 0.802 -

Modal split - passenger carriages Rail transport; Road transport; Tram&Metro; Sea transport; Air transport.

-0.602 -0.777 0.064 -0.775 0.223

-0.01% -0.013% 0.004%

0.003 0.000 0.175 0.205 0.000

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Passenger traffic

Freight traffic, tkm

Length of roads; Length of rail lines; Length of HSRN Length of navigable inland waterways Length of pipelines

0.057 -0.003 0.08 0.077

-

0.376 0.893 0.655 0.548

-0.229

-

0.389

Passenger traffic, pkm

Length of roads; Length of rail lines; Length of HSRN Length of navigable inland waterways Length of pipelines

-0.023 -0.018 0.242 0.186

-

0.615 0.302 0.134 0.113

0.034

-

0.851

Road freight traffic, tkm

Length of motorways

0.037

0.002%

0.000

Road passenger traffic, pkm

Length of motorways

0.053

0.004%

0.000

Rail freight traffic, tkm

Length of rail lines Length of HSRN

0.000 0.004

0.98%

0.085 0.000

Rail passenger traffic, pkm

Length of rail lines Length of HSRN

-0.005 0.747

0.20%

0.052 0.021

Freight traffic, tkm

Stock of goods vehicles; Rail coaches, railcars and trailers; Locomotives and railcars

0.053 -0.29

0.13% 0.01%

0.013 0.016

-0.009

-

0.228

Passenger traffic, pkm

Passenger cars; Buses & Coaches; Rail coaches, railcars and trailers; Locomotives and railcars

0.24 -1.063 -0.110

0.007% -

0.000 0.671 -

-0.002

-

-

Source: Own calculations.

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Introduction of the key economic indicators and respective indicators for the development of transport in the matrix seems to give a good notion about its impact on the economic development of the EU. Obviously, in Europe the major share of the contribution of transport to GDP is on account of road transport. The influence of the passenger traffic on GDP is significant. On 1% change in the share of road transport the transport market response with 9.9% change in the freight traffic and 0.013% change in passenger traffic. On 1% change in the total length of the roads corresponds а 0.002% change in road freight traffic and 0.004% in passenger traffic. Another factors included in the matrix is the change in stock of vehicles. The results show that there‘s no significant influence of these factors on the passenger and freight traffic. The case is the same regarding the length of roads and rail lines. The main general result from the analysis made is that notwithstanding the important role of transport for the mobility, its development does not ensure consistent contribution to the economic development. The overall effects of road transport and transport infrastructure investments and other transport policies are the most important contribution but they have to be compared to other socio-economic and technical macro-effects. On the other hand, transport provides benefits in terms of personal mobility and economic activity, but also contributes to environmental degradation. The indirect economic impacts (losses of productivity and output and costs, related to elimination of negative effects such as noise, air and soil pollution, greenhouse gases, etc.) should be included in the model in order to evaluate the overall long-term sustainability of transport and this will enable to evaluate their indirect influence on the GDP growth.

IV. SOCIAL DIMENSION OF TRANSPORT SUSTAINABILITY Social sustainability is about people – individuals and the comm.unity. While no universally accepted definition exists, it is generally agreed that socially sustainable communities are characterized by: equity, diversity, inter-connectedness, democratic governance and good quality of life (Partridge, 2005). The social dimension of sustainability has traditionally received less attention than the environmental and economic dimensions (in part because of the difficulty in defining and measuring social sustainability). Thinking has been changing, however, with the recognition that any efforts to promote

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sustainability (environmental or economic) involve decisions and actions by people (i.e. they are fundamentally social in nature). People ultimately experience the impacts of such decisions and actions, which can directly or indirectly affect and alter their behaviour. For example, the physical environment and land use pattern of a city (i.e. how large the blocks are, how easy it is to cross main arterial roads to get to a park, how many parks and trails there are, whether there are shops or places of employment nearby) has an effect on how likely a person is to exercise regularly, or choose a sustainable mode of transport, such as walking, cycling, or taking the bus (Barron & Gauntlett, 2002). Similarly, economic decisions, such as the feasibility of establishing a bus service to an area, contributes to determining whether older adults are able to continue living in their own home as they age (known as 'aging in place'). A number of economic, environmental and social factors influences people's level of well-being and their sense of belonging and connection to their community - all key elements of a sustainable community. The most important issues regarding the social sustainability of transport are related to the safety of carriages, personal security of passengers and clients, accessibility of disabled people to transport services, the assessment of health impact of transport, community engagement and consultation in the development of transport infrastructure and services, social inclusion and ensuring equal opportunities and fair treatment for customers and staff. All these issues could be generalized in six key elements of social sustainability (Housely & Atkins, 2007):

1) Meeting Diverse Needs of People The necessity to meet fundamental human needs is related to recognising the rights of existing and future generations. In the sphere of transport this means to apply accessibility planning while keeping the long–term inter– generational goal to deliver sustainable transport system. On the other hand, the land use planning is very important for building up sustainable communities. Besides, procurement and investment processes should be refined.

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2) Promoting Personal Well–Being Well–being or happiness goes beyond physical good health and economic well-being. It measures relative income as well as personal and social relationships, meaningful work and participation in communities. All this is connected to the personal status and fulfilment of people, to the good physical and emotional health, to the respect from peers and relationships with family and friends. The transport could promote personal well-being through ensuring an access to activities in order to enhance life satisfaction.

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3) Promoting Social Cohesion and Inclusion The social cohesion and inclusion could be measured through the use of so-called factors of deprivation – such as the level of unemployment in the society, the percent of low educational attainment and poor health, the size of the low incomes groups, the level of poor housing, the percent of crimes and poor accessibility. All these occurrences are undesirable from political perspective having in mind their social (moral) effect and they are economically undesirable as well because they boost public expenditure. Tackling social exclusion is a key objective of government policies. With regard to this transport has been recognized as a means to overcome local disadvantages and gain access to better jobs, education, facilities and services.

4) Equal Opportunities for All Social sustainability requires fair treatment of everyone and in particular the elimination of unfair discrimination. When measuring the equal opportunities for all, the society could be subdivided into groups according to the age, gender, disability, race, sexual orientation or socio–economic status. Public authorities must actively strive to promote the position of those who are disadvantaged. People with reduced mobility should be supplied with comfortable transport solutions. On the other hand, infrastructure has to be built, maintained and upgraded on the principle of accessibility to all. In this context the transport has three main aims:

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– transport authorities and operators not to discriminate any of the society members; – operators‘ staff should treat customers with dignity and respect; – the local authorities to make an equality impact assessment – good example with regard to this aim is the US legal requirement to demonstrate that schemes using federal funding do not discriminate against particular groups.

5) Promoting Good Governance

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Promoting good governance requires for every citizen to have a voice in decision making that affects him. This is an important aspect of the framework for social integration. For example the developing countries often are poorly served by institutions of the state and of the society as they are powerless to influence key decisions affecting their lives. Regarding the transport sector, the good governance is very important in the process of transport planning and especially in recognition of the need to consult with the concerned population about issues and schemes that affect them.

6) Engaging People‟s Creativity, Diversity and Energy People‘s lives are enriched by participation in a wide range of arts, culture and sporting endeavours. On the other hand, transport serves the destinations where such activities take place. The transport infrastructure, vehicles and services can also be a part and promote such programmes. One percent of the construction costs have been allocated to public art for some major projects. The measurement and appraisal of the level of social sustainability of transport requires an assessment of happiness and well-being (from personal, societal and governmental point of view), health impact assessment and equality impact assessment. Access to goods and services have to be ensured for society that is likely to demand greater transport safety, security and comfort, at a time in which the growth of traffic and the tensions of the urban environment risk to work in the opposite direction (Housely & Atkins, 2007). Consequently, an improvement of the overall quality of transport, including personal security, the reduction of accidents and of health hazards, the protection of passengers‘ rights and the accessibility of remote region are

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crucial. People with reduced mobility should be supplied with comfortable transport solutions. On the other hand, transport infrastructure has to be built, maintained and upgraded on the principle of accessibility to all. A safer and more secure urban environment can be conducive to greater use of public transport, of cycling and of walking, which would not only ease congestion and reduce emissions, but also have positive effects on people‘s health and well-being. Unlike the economic and environmental aspects, social sustainability cannot be easily reduced to quantitative indicators that are easy to measure; rather, social sustainability is subjective, qualitative and political. It is essential to consider the elements of social sustainability in any evaluation of transportation modes. The social implications of transport affect behavioural choices, which are ultimately responsible for the success or failure of any transport strategy. Therefore, it is important to present some safety related indicators and their influence on social sustainability of transport. Europe‘s roads have become safer in recent years: the number of road accidents involving a personal injury fell by some 12% between 1991 and 2008. More importantly, the number of road fatalities dropped by more than 44% over the same period. Yet much progress remains to be made to achieve the target of halving the number of road fatalities by the end of 2010 compared with 2001 levels (see figure 11).

Source: CARE database, national data. Figure 11. Road fatalities in the EU-27 since 1990.

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1,300,000 accidents a year cause more than 40,000 deaths and 1,700,000 injuries on the roads. The direct and indirect costs have been estimated at 160 billion euro‘s, i.e. 2% of the EU's GDP. Certain groups of the population or categories of road users are particularly vulnerable: young people aged between 15 and 24 (10 000 killed each year), pedestrians (7 000) and cyclists (1 800). Figure 11 shows that the number of fatalities decreases in the last 19 years but the situation can still be improved. All member states are faced with the same road safety problems, namely excessive speed; drinking and driving; failure to wear a seat belt; the insufficient protection provided by vehicles; the existence of accident black spots; non-compliance with driving and rest times by commercial drivers and poor visibility. Obviously, the transport by road is the most dangerous of all modes and the most costly in terms of human lives. For this reason, the European Transport Policy proposes a series of measures such as stepping up checks on road traffic, deploying new road safety technologies, improving road infrastructure and measures to improve users' behaviour. The main areas of action outlined are the following (European Commission, 2003):

Encouraging Road Users Encouraging road users to improve their behavior through stricter compliance with the existing legislation, while harmonizing the penalties at EU level, having continuous training for private and commercial drivers, improving police checks and promoting education and road user awareness campaigns. The failure of drivers to comply with basic road safety legislation is the main cause of serious accidents. The main measures envisaged for resolving this problem are: to encourage the general use of crash helmets by cyclists and by all two-wheel motor vehicle users; to continue specific work on young drivers; to harmonize the penalties for international hauliers; to establish the appropriate classification and labelling of medicines which affect driving ability, and develop best practice guidelines as regards police checks, etc. Technical Progress Making use of technical progress through the harmonization of passive safety measures (such as mandatory fitting of seat belts) and support for technical progress. Given that car occupants account for 57% of fatal accident victims, it is necessary that technical progress in vehicle safety is maintained. The eSafety

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initiative launched in 2002 by the European Commission and the motor vehicle industry aims to formulate recommendations and propose a number of actions at EU level. The measures adopted in EU are as follows: to introduce universal anchorage systems for child restraint devices, improve cars to reduce the severity of accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists, eliminate blind spots in heavy goods vehicles, facilitate the movement of persons with reduced mobility, and improve motorcycle safety, etc.

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Improvement of Road Infrastructure Encouraging the improvement of road infrastructure by identifying and eliminating accident black spots. Road infrastructure improvements can contribute towards reducing the frequency and seriousness of road traffic accidents. The early detection of abnormal traffic conditions and the transmission of relevant data to drivers can help to improve road safety. In the context of the development of the 'intelligent road', the entry into service in 2011 of the Galileo European satellite positioning system will enable navigation and guidance systems to be developed and make it possible to provide traffic information and to monitor vehicles carrying hazardous goods (European Space Agency, 2010). Safe Commercial Goods and Passenger Transport In view of the growth of heavy goods traffic, it is necessary to continue to improve the safety of the trans-European road network. Driving heavy goods vehicles is one of the most dangerous professions, and commercial drivers also have a right to a safe working environment in line with the standards on working conditions. Main measures of the European Policy are directed to tightening legislation on commercial drivers' working conditions, installing digital tachographs in commercial vehicles, adapting to technical progress the Community legislation concerning the carriage of hazardous goods, making the wearing of seatbelts compulsory in coaches and heavy goods vehicles, improving protection in vehicles regularly used for the carriage of children, etc. Emergency Services and Care for Road Accident Victims Through carrying out demonstration projects involving the whole chain of emergency service provision and studying best practices in post-accident care.

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Accident Data Collection, Analysis and Dissemination Although accidents are random events, it is necessary to understand their causes, circumstances and consequences, so that they can be managed and prevented or mitigated. One example is the European Road Accident Database (CARE database), made up of police reports, which should be developed in the interests of achieving greater transparency. The policy measures are oriented towards developing and expanding the CARE database; assessing and improving systems for linking hospital data and national road accident statistics; setting up a European road safety observatory; establishing a European methodology for independent road accident investigations, setting up a group of independent experts, etc. Regarding railway transport only partial data are available for the number of the whole European Union. Nevertheless, obviously this mode of transport is the safest.

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Table 4. Number of railway passengers killed in accidents involving railways Years

2005

2006

2007

2008

EU-27

65

138

76

83

Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010.

While the safety level of rail transport in the European Union is generally very good, particularly in comparison with its main competitor, road transport, the White Paper on European transport policy nevertheless revealed the existence of shortcomings in railway safety. There are currently different national approaches to railway safety, different targets and different methods applied. Technical standards, the rolling stock and the certification of staff and railway undertakings differ from one member state to another and have not been adapted to the needs of an integrated European rail system. Safety rules and standards, such as operating rules, signalling rules, requirements on staff and technical requirements applicable to rolling stock have been devised mainly nationally. Under the regulations currently in force, a variety of bodies deal with safety. These national safety rules, which are often based on national technical standards, should gradually be replaced by rules based on common standards, established by technical specifications for interoperability (TSIs). In this

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connection, the member states should ensure that (European Commission, 2010a):

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railway safety is generally maintained and continuously improved, taking into consideration the development of Community legislation; safety rules are laid down, applied and enforced in an open and nondiscriminatory manner; responsibility for the safe operation of the railway system and the control of risks associated with it, is borne by the infrastructure managers and railway undertakings; information is collected on common safety indicators through annual reports in order to assess the achievement of the common safety targets (CSTs) and monitor the general development of railway safety. In order to coordinate the different rules, a distinction has been drawn between two sets of actors: infrastructure managers, which are bodies or companies responsible, in particular for establishing, building and maintaining infrastructure or a part of it, and safety. In some member states, however, safety is be delegated to railway undertakings, which are public or private undertakings engaged in the supply of goods and/or passenger transport services by rail. To be granted access to the railway infrastructure, railway undertakings must hold safety certificates. These safety certificates may cover the whole railway network of a member state or only a defined part thereof (Official Journal of the European Union, 2004). The fact that national safety certificates differ is an obstacle to the development of the European railway system. The ultimate objective is to arrive at the introduction of a single Community certificate. In other words, if a railway undertaking obtains a safety certificate in a member state, that certificate should be the subject of mutual recognition in another member state. An essential aspect of safety is the training and certification of staff, particularly of train drivers. The training covers operating rules, the signalling system, the knowledge of routes and emergency procedures. Each EU-member state established a safety authority which is independent from railway undertakings, infrastructure managers, applicants for certificates and procurement entities. It responds promptly to requests and applications, it communicates the requests for information without delay and

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adopts all its decisions within four months after all requested information has been provided (Official Journal of the European Union, 2004). Serious train accidents, such as derailments and collisions with fatal consequences, occur rarely, but when they do, they attract public interest and the interest of safety professionals all over Europe. Criteria governing the independence of the investigating body are strictly defined so that this body has no link with the various actors of the sector. This body decides whether or not an investigation of such an accident or incident should be undertaken, and determines the extent of investigations and the procedure to be followed. The investigations should be carried out with as much openness as possible, so that all parties can be heard and can share the results. The relevant infrastructure manager and railway undertakings, the safety authority, victims and their relatives, owners of damaged property, manufacturers, emergency services involved and representatives of staff and users are regularly informed of the investigation and its progress.

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Table 5. Lives lost in air transport Period 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Lives lost over EU27* territory by any operator 20 71 19 46 113 122 101 5 0 144 5 0 154 9

Lives lost by EU27 4operators anywhere 1 62 66 113 125 25 5 0 125 6 1 154 228

Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010. Note: Onboard fatalities, and only those in aircraft with a take-off mass above 5,701kg. Data include fatalities from Commercial Air Transport (passenger, cargo, air taxi, ferry/positioning and emergency medical service) and fatalities from General Aviation (only 'Business' flights).

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The accident rate in civil aviation has remained fairly constant over the last ten years (see table 5). However, the increase in air traffic could lead to an increase in the number of accidents in the near future. To enhance the safety of civil aviation, better knowledge of occurrences is required in order to facilitate analysis and prevent accidents (European Commission, 2010b). Recent experience has shown that third-county carriers using the EU airports do not always comply with international minimum safety standards, which could place European citizens travelling with these carriers or living near the airports in danger. In this context, it is necessary to improve air safety by ensuring that third-country aircraft using European airports comply with international safety standards. The EU policy on maritime safety is relatively recent. The safety of shipping in European waters is of crucial importance since 90% of the European Union's trade with third countries is seaborne (European Commission, 2010c). The risk of accidents due to the concentration of traffic in the main European seaways is particularly high in areas where the traffic converges, such as the Strait of Dover or the Strait of Gibraltar (see table 6).

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Table 6. Ship lost Ships lost by World Bulkers and Year Tankers Combined carriers no 1000 gt no 1000 gt 1996 13 58 14 247 1997 13 308 6 137 1998 5 26 11 160 1999 6 71 11 277 2000 10 173 21 394 2001 9 202 12 341 2002 10 119 10 234 2003 9 158 8 107 2004 18 104 6 103 2005 11 103 8 117 2006 9 20 8 384 2007 6 34 11 197 Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010.

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Other ships no 59 58 62 55 68 88 77 74 62 79 61 70

1000 gt 294 274 323 283 248 319 454 274 277 309 260 311

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Furthermore, the environmental consequences of an accident at sea, even outside areas of high traffic density, can be disastrous for the economy and the environment of the member states concerned. The aim therefore is for the European Union to acquire the means to monitor and control more effectively the traffic off its coasts and to take more effective action in the event of critical situations arising at sea. Another important task, when the social sustainability of transport is concerned, is to ensure that working conditions are maintained or improved. The social dimension of transport policy was strengthened also with respect to transport workers. Legislation on working time, the minimum level of training and mutual recognition of diplomas and qualifications was introduced — in collaboration with the social partners — to improve working conditions in road, rail, air and maritime transport (European Commission, 2009). An important factor for achieving social sustainability of transport is the migration and personal mobility. Net migration to the EU might add 56 million people to the EU‘s population in the next five decades4. Migration could play an important role in mitigating the effect of ageing on the labour market. Migrants, generally young and mainly living in urban areas, will further intensify Europe‘s ties with neighbouring regions, by creating cultural and economic links with their country of origin. These links will entail more movement of people and goods. Mobility of workers within the Union is also expected to increase with the gradual removal of administrative and legal barriers and further deepening of the internal market. Ageing is also related to the social sustainability of transport. By 2060, the median age of the European population is projected to be more than 7 years higher than today and the number of people aged 65 or more is expected to represent 30% of the population as opposed to 17% today5. Although above a certain age people generally travel less than when they were younger, aged people of today tend to travel more than their parents did. This tendency is expected to continue and is reinforced by improved health, more travelling options and better foreign language skills. An ageing society will place more emphasis on the provision of transport services involving a high level of perceived security and reliability, and which feature appropriate solutions for users with reduced mobility (European Commission, 2009). A society with a higher ratio of older people will need to devote more public 4 5

Source: EUROSTAT: Population and Social Conditions, Statistics in Focus No 72/2008. Source: European Commission, ‗Demography report 2008: Meeting social needs in an ageing society‘. SEC(2008) 2911

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resources to pension payments, health care and nursing. Through its effect on public finances, ageing will put a strain on the supply and maintenance of transport infrastructure and set a limit for funding available to public transport. A scarcity of labour and skills may arise, further aggravating the shortage of skilled labour already experienced in some segments of the transport sector. All this may result in higher transport costs for society.

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V. ENVIRONMENTAL DIMENSION OF TRANSPORT SUSTAINABILITY The growth of transport activity raises concerns for its environmental sustainability. Transport systems are major emitters of greenhouse gases (GHG)6. Currently 95% of transport energy comes from petroleum, although electric trams and trains are also common and natural gas is used as well. Internationally, biofuels are forecast to have little or no impact on greenhouse emissions, at significantly higher cost than energy efficiency measures (Munasinghe, 1993). Electric vehicles are another technology which has the potential to reduce transport CO2 emissions, depending on the embodied energy of the vehicle and the source of the electricity. The environmental impacts of transport can be reduced by improving the walking and cycling environment in cities, and by enhancing the role of public transport, especially electric rail. The most popular forms of green transport, providing a way of sustainable mobility are walking, bicycling and so-called green vehicles7. Green vehicles also include: Solar vehicles - not practical day-to-day transportation devices at present, but are primarily demonstration vehicles and engineering exercises, often sponsored by government agencies; Wind-powered electric vehicles;

6

GHG - Greenhouse gases are gases in an atmosphere that absorb and emit radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The main greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone 7 They are significantly less harmful to the environment than comparable conventional vehicles. Presently, the term ―green vehicle‖ is used for any vehicle surpassing the Euro 6 - norm, and also more informally to California's zero emissions vehicles and other low-carbon emission vehicles.

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Electric cars - currently, in most cases, electrical power is derived from battery packs carried on board the vehicle; Hybrid vehicles; and Electric trains and electric buses. Final energy consumption covers all forms of energy, as they are delivered to the final consumers (industry, transport, households and other sectors), for all energy uses. Data on figure 12 show the quantities of fuel consumed in the EU-27, expressed in tons of oil equivalent (toe).

1000 toe

400000 Industry

300000

Transport

200000

Households

100000

Agriculture Services

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2008

2006

2004

2002

2000

1998

1996

1994

1992

1990

0

Other sectors

Source: EUROSTAT, 2010. Figure 12. Final Energy Consumption - EU27, by sector.

The final energy consumption of the EU-27 transport sector amounted to 374.2 million toe in 2008. It made up somewhat around one third (32%) of total final energy consumption (Figure 13), a share which rose from 26.3% in 1990. This is due to transport‘s energy consumption growing at an average annual rate of 1.8% from 1990 to 2008, while energy consumption in industry was reduced. Transport accounted for 83% of the 108.6 million toe increase in total final energy consumption from 1990 to 2008. Growing fleets of passenger and goods road vehicles with higher performances, and a strong increase in the provision of air transport services were the main contributors to the higher energy consumption of the transport sector. Road transport is the mode consuming most energy in the EU-27 (figure 14). From 1990 to 2008, the final energy consumption of road transport grew at an annual rate of 1.6%, to reach 304.2 million toe in 2008, which

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amounted to 25.8% of total final energy consumption, and to 81.3% of consumption in transport. 1.3 2.2

11.8

Industry

27.2

Transport

25.4

Households Agriculture

32.0

Services Other sectors

Source: EUROSTAT, 2010. Figure 13 Final energy consumption by sector, 2008.

Road transport

300000 Rail transport

200000 100000

Air transport 2008

2006

2004

2002

2000

1998

1996

1994

1992

0 1990

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400000

Inland waterway transport

Source: EUROSTAT, 2010. Figure 14. Final energy consumption by mode of transport.

According to data from a recent EUROSTAT publication8, private cars accounted for 55.9% and lorries for 39.4% of total energy consumption in road transport. Road freight transport also saw progress as it consumed 66 toe per million tkm. 8

EUROSTAT, Panorama of Transport, 2009.

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Rail made up 2.5% of final energy consumption in transport in 2008 compared to 3.4% in 1990. While energy consumption by rail was close to unchanged in 2004 compared to 1990, (both years: 9.6 million toe), it fell thereafter to reach 9.3 million toe in 2008. This is due to reductions in rolling stock. Given 1% yearly increases in rail passenger and freight transport performance over the period, energy efficiency gains may be expected to have been made, with for example electric-power replacing diesel oil. Inland navigation was the transport mode that consumed least energy in 2008 (6.5 million toe) when it made up 1.7% of total transport energy consumption. From 1990 to 2008, energy consumption by inland navigation fell at an average yearly rate of 1.0%. While vessel numbers have decreased, their performance has tended to grow, also pointing at energy efficiency gains. The final energy consumption of air transport increased throughout the period, except between 2000 and 2002. It raised from 29.1 million toe in 1990 to 54.3 million toe in 2008, at an average annual rate of 3.7%, the highest rate among the four transport modes covered. The share of air transport in final energy consumption increased from 10.4% in 1990 to 14.5% in 2008. Through the improved design of aircrafts and engines, and through higher passenger and freight loads, air transport may be expected to have made noticeable energy efficiency gains measured in toe per pkm. In the coming decades, oil and other fossil fuels are expected to become more expensive as demand increases and low-cost sources dry up. The negative impact on the environment will be greater, as conventional sources are replaced by more polluting supplies. At the same time, the need to move to a low-carbon economy and the growing concerns about energy security will bring about a greater supply of renewable energy, made much cheaper by technological progress and mass production. Nearly the entire energy consumption of the EU-27 transport sector consists of hydrocarbon fuels. In yielding their performance, transport vehicles combust fossil fuels and release substantial amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as a range of other types of emissions harmful to human health and which can effect anthropogenic changes on the living environment. As it could be seen from the figure 15, compared with 1990 levels, in no other sector has the growth rate of GHG emissions been as high as in transport. This section predominantly covers the emissions of greenhouse gases which can contribute to global warming, and thus form a major external cost of transport.

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Total

6000000 5000000 4000000 3000000 2000000 1000000 0

Energy Industries

2008

2005

2002

1999

1996

1993

Transport 1990

1000 tonnes CO² equivalent

44

Waste

Source: EUROSTAT, 2010. Figure 15. GHG Emissions by sectors, EU-27.

13% 44%

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4%

Energy Industries Transport Waste

27%

Industrial Processes Agriculture

Source: EUROSTAT, 2010. Figure 16. GHG Emissions shares by sector – EU-27, 2008.

Total GHG emissions of 4 940 million tonnes CO2 equivalent were attributable to transport in the EU-27 in 2008. Second largest after the energy industries (44%), transport made up a share of 27% of total GHG emissions (Figure 16). Its proportional contribution has risen from 14% in 1990 due to own-increases and to reductions in all other sectors. If one were to add the emissions of international maritime shipping and aviation calculated on the basis of emissions from bunkers – of which maritime shipping accounted for

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57% and aviation for 43% – the total amount would rise from 961,8 to 1 297.3 million tonnes CO2 equivalent. In comparison to an average yearly decrease in total GHG emissions of 0.5% in the EU-27 from 1990 to 2008, transport was the only sector not to display a reduction in emissions, rather recording growth at an average annual rate of 1.5% over the period. The 1.5% average yearly increase in total GHG emissions by transport was driven by annual increases of 1.6% in road transport and of 2.7% in air transport. In contrast, rail‘s GHG emissions fell at a yearly rate of 3.5% over the period (see figure 17). Road transport contributed 70.9% to the greenhouse gas emissions of the transport sector in 2008 (Figure 18). Its share in total transport emissions rose from around 91.8% at the beginning of the first half, then stabilizing at above 93% in the latter half of the 1990s. This may be attributed to the road sector‘s growth and to the reduced emissions of other transport modes. After peaking at around 93.5% in 2002, road‘s contribution to the total GHG emissions of transport fell gradually due to the growing share of air transport. With the aim of improving air quality, cars have to comply with standards for exhaust emissions before being sold on the EU market. Successive 'Euro' emission standards for passenger cars and light vehicles – typically referred to as Euro I, Euro II, etc. – have already helped to reduce air pollution from cars, for example by obliging carmakers to equip exhaust pipes with catalytic converters and particle filters (EUROSTAT, 2009). 1990=1 1.90 1.40 0.90

Total Civil Aviation

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

0.40 1990

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Sustainable Transport System

Road Transportation

Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010. Figure 17. Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) from Transport by Mode, including International Bunkers: EU-27.

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Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010.

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Figure 18. Share by mode in Total Transport Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG), Including international bunkers: EU-27, 2008.

The Euro standards set limits on vehicles‘ emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM). Separate emissions regulations apply for diesel and petrol cars, vehicles of successive motor capacity, heavy-duty lorries and buses as well as motorcycles. New cars‘ and light commercial vehicles‘ (vans) emissions are currently regulated by the Euro IV standards which came into force in 2003 and 2005 respectively. Reducing emissions from road vehicles has come a long way, and the proportion of cars complying with the latest and most stringent emission standards is increasing. With a share of 2.3% of transport greenhouse gas emissions, and displaying an average annual growth rate of 0.8% from 1990 to 2008, inland navigation is of considerable interest from the perspective of greenhouse gases and it still has potential for further development at EU level. According to EUROSTAT external trade data, maritime transport is used for about 70% of the EU‘s freight exchanges with the rest of the world. International navigation accounted for 13% of EU-27 transport sector GHG emissions in 2008. In November 2002, the European Commission adopted a European Union Strategy to reduce atmospheric emissions from seagoing ships. The strategy reports on the magnitude and impact of ship emissions in the EU and sets out a number of actions to reduce the contribution of shipping to acidification, ground-level ozone, eutrophication, health, climate change and ozone depletion (European Commission, 2009).

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Liberalization of air traffic has certainly brought further positive effects with regard to the ‗democratization‘ of air travel, but it is increasing rapidly, at rates which may outperform the impact of technological improvements that reduce engine emissions. At a local level, in the immediate vicinity of airports, concerns focus on the potential health and environmental effects of noise and air pollution, especially from NOx, volatile organic compounds and particulates. Not only was air transport the fastest growing energy consumer in EU-27 transport from 1990 to 2008, but it was also the fastest climbing contributor of GHG as its emissions grew at an average annual rate of 2.7%. As the transport sector relies on fossil fuels for 97% of its needs, the fight against climate change in this sector goes hand in hand with efforts to improve its energy security of supply. Over recent decades, EU transport has increased at a sustained pace. Freight transport generally follows trade activity and has grown more than GDP, while passenger transport, except for aviation, has undergone a less dramatic rise (see figure 19) . These trends can only be sustained, however, if transport radically improves its energy efficiency and reduces its GHG emissions. 145,0 GDP

125,0

Freight traffic (tkm)

115,0 Passenger traffic (pkm)

105,0 95,0

GHG emmissions from Transport, mio tonnes CO2 equivalent

85,0

CO2 Emissions from Transport, mio tonnes

75,0 65,0

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

55,0

1995

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135,0

Emissions of tropospheric ozone precursors from Transport

Source: DG-TREN, Energy and Transport in figures, 2010. Figure 19. GNG Emissions relative to GDP, freight and passenger traffic, EU-27.

Apart from the choice of vehicle and transport mode, a key to further reducing energy consumption and pollutant emissions is efficient use. The more efficiently vehicles are used – through their higher occupancy rate, optimum volumes of goods transported, style of driving, etc. - the less energy is consumed and the less pollution is caused per person or per tonne of goods per kilometre travelled. Occupancy rates have generally tended to

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decline over time both for passenger cars and for buses and coaches, while they have remained more or less constant for rail transport. In contrast in air transport, a steady increase in the occupancy rate has taken place. This can be explained, for example, by the increased demand in air travel, the further development of hub-and-spoke systems and the market penetration of lowcost carriers (Gudmundsson, 2004.). Obviously, there is a compelling need for a technological shift towards lower and zero-emission vehicles and for the development of alternative solutions for sustainable transport. The 21st century will most likely see the replacement of vehicles relying on the internal combustion engine by electric vehicles, including fuel-cell vehicles9. At present, electric and fuel-cell cars remain expensive for their performance. While research is closing the costcompetitiveness gap, improvements can be made to the internal combustion engine where the fossil fuels they use can be complemented with biofuels. The European ‗green cars‘ initiative focuses on five main areas of research: electric and hybrid vehicles, hydrogen fuel cells, biofuels, improvements in the internal combustion engine and logistics. Funds provided under this initiative will come from two main sources: grants from the EU‘s seventh research framework programme (EUR 1 billion) and loans from the European Investment Bank (EUR 4 billion). In addition, the fuel cells and hydrogen joint technology initiative brings together resources from the EU and the private sector to accelerate the development and broad market introduction of these two technologies (ERTRAC, 2007). The development of modern aircraft, road vehicles, rail and maritime fleets and new logistic concepts linked with the renewal of fleets can be considered the major determinants of increasing energy efficiency. However, external incentives – determined by markets and policies – strongly affect the time taken for fleet renewal and modern logistics concepts to take root.

9

Fuel-cell vehicles are electric vehicles which are capable of producing their own electricity out of hydrogen.

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Another crucial problem related to the negative effects from transport is the noise. Noise created by transport has been attracting increasing attention in recent years, and has lead to various measures at EU level concerning the harmonization of noise assessment and management, market access requirements for certain vehicles and equipment, railway interoperability specifications and rules on operating restrictions at airports. Measures taken in road transport include the more widespread use of ‗quieter‘ car tires with low rolling resistance (for increased fuel efficiency) and the use of noise-absorbing road surfacing as well as mitigation measures such as the construction of noise barriers along roads through or near residential areas. Railway industry measures cover infrastructure operators (e.g. the acoustic grinding of rails, noise barriers, speed limits at night) and train operators (e.g. replacement of cast-iron brakes with low-noise composite materials). Newly constructed high-speed train tracks are mostly built with noise barriers along sensitive areas. Aircraft are particularly noisy and they largely affect areas at and around airports, even if modern aircraft are 10 to 15 decibels quieter than previous generations of aircraft. Current legislation provides for the reduction of airplanes‘ noise at source, land-use planning and management measures, noise abatement operational procedures and operating restrictions. Another area offering potential for reducing aviation‘s environmental impact is the improvement of air traffic management. Many Europeans still remain exposed to dangerously high levels of air and noise pollution. Transport itself is suffering from the effects of climate change and necessitating adaptation measures. Global warming resulting in a rising sea level will amplify the vulnerability of coastal infrastructures, including ports. Extreme weather events affect the safety of all modes. Droughts and floods pose problems for inland waterways. Transport activities give rise to environmental impacts, accidents and congestion. In contrast to the benefits, the costs of these effects of transport are generally not borne by the transport users. The internalization of external costs means making such effects part of the decision-making process of transport users. Besides, the measures for improving the use of existing infrastructure are related to shift towards more ecological modes of transport. It could be achieved through internalization of the external costs for transport. With regard to this the infrastructure charges could be considered as economic instruments for decreasing oil consumption and pollution.

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The European Commission released in 2008 a handbook with estimates of external costs in the transport sector (Maibach et al., 2008). The handbook, jointly prepared by several transport research institutes, summarizes the state of the art as regards the valuation of external costs. The Commission intends has make use of this handbook to prepare a communication on a strategy to internalize the external costs for all modes of transport. Expected results from the initiative are related to: the opportunity for balancing modal split while considering for externalities, which will lead to more efficient impact of charges on the use of the infrastructure; more efficient use of the transport infrastructure - will lead to reduction in budget expenses for infrastructure, healthcare and environment as well as to direct financial benefits for lower taxes.

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The net effect in commercial sector is expected to be positive and direct effect from higher infrastructure charges to be neutralized by decreasing costs for congestions, accidents and by all possible reductions in taxes given by the governments.

VI. SUSTAINABLE URBAN TRANSPORT Urbanisation has been a clear trend in the past decades and is expected to continue, with the proportion of the European population residing in urban areas increasing from 72% in the end of 2007 to 84% in 2050. The proximity of people and activities is a major source of advantages that drive urbanisation. The urban sprawls are the main challenge for urban transport, as they bring about a greater need for individual transport modes, thereby generating congestion and environmental problems (European Commission, 2009). Urban transport accounts for 40% of CO2 emissions and 70% of emissions of other pollutants arising from road transport. Congestion that is prevalent in agglomerations and in their access routes is the source of large costs in terms of delays and higher fuel consumption. While denser cities are better served by collective modes of transport, the availability of land and public acceptability to construct new infrastructures for public or alternative means of transport will remain a great challenge.

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There is an emerging trend to pay greater attention to the links between different aspects of transport infrastructure and mobility behaviour, in a quest to further the potential of reform towards more sustainable cities. There is a more differentiated understanding of the concept of mobility and its relation to the various dimensions of urban space and the activities of transport users (Jahn & Wehling, 1999):

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the physical-geographical - availability and quality of technology and infrastructure, and the ability to traverse physical distance efficiently and rapidly; the socio-physical - the ability to satisfy everyday needs and attend social activities; and the socio-cultural - the ability to participate in activities and expressions that are indicative of such choices and their associated social milieu. The conditions of movement within a neighbourhood are primarily determined by the parameters of density, concentration and mix of land uses (Newman & Kenworthy, 1999; Barton, 2000; Carmona et al., 2003). A certain minimum density of activities (population and jobs per hectare) is necessary to generate a sufficient level of community interaction within easy walking distance from homes. To make walking within the neighbourhood attractive, it is critical to prioritise, or at least provide equal rights to pedestrians over motorised traffic along the internal road and path network (Apel et al., 1997; Rudlin & Falk, 1999) - design of all vehicular roads for low speeds (30 km/h or less) and the conception of a legible, comfortable and direct network of pedestrian routes. Service standards in urban public transport networks must be frequent and offer a viable alternative to car use in urban areas (Laube, 1998; Mees, 2000). The network should be well-connected with easy transfers between routes, and reflect the hierarchical pattern of central places and corridors in the settlement structure. Individual choices of travel modes and destinations do not always follow strictly rational or functional criteria so mobility policies need to extend to engaging with transport users more directly, with the aim of instigating changes in their practical decision-making, their habitual behaviour in its socio-cultural context and their environmental awareness with regard to mobility (Scheurer, 2005). On the other hand, the land-grab for parking and vehicle access adds substantially to the cost of housing, covers valuable open space with bitumen

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and unnecessarily reduces residential density (Newman & Kenworthy 1999; Tönnes 1997). Housing policy has typically been most concerned with maximising parking space without compromising residential standards. In contrast to the attention given to the supply of increasing numbers of cars with parking space, the accommodation of the bicycle in residential areas has long been regarded with complacence. The new policy for sustainable urban transport should provide incentives to excessive car ownership, which can be reduced or eliminated by (Scheurer, 2005): separate marketing of residential or non-residential units and parking spaces, thus making the costs of the latter more explicit to vehicle owners; concentration of non-dedicated parking facilities at the perimeter of neighbourhoods, to create a traffic-free interior and place public transport (if located centrally) at an accessibility advantage to the private car; prior identification of households or employees not owning cars and their exemption from mandatory parking provision; and outright suspension of parking provision requirements in the planning scheme, implying the targeting of residential development exclusively for households without cars, with potentially beneficial effects on housing affordability and open space quality, particularly within settlements of higher density. Disincentives against car ownership through lower parking provision are often supplemented by mobility services, which facilitate lifestyles with low car use and provide opportunities to reduce car ownership. Membership in a car sharing organisation provides access to a pool of vehicles of different sizes within the neighbourhood, distributed across the city (Wagner & Shaheen, 1998). All vehicle acquisition, maintenance, insurance and operation costs rest with the car sharing organisation, relieving users from most of the responsibilities implied in private car ownership. Similar schemes are also conceivable, and practised, for sharing bicycles, bicycle trailers and other non-motorised vehicles. Other mobility services include the provision of discounted or free periodical public transit tickets or discount rail passes with the purchase/lease of a housing unit or through a neighbourhood association.

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Both total mileage travelled and the modal share of trips in cars increase with distance between the place of residence and the city centre. Inner urban areas generally offer more opportunities within walking and cycling range and feature better public transport service, but pose various constraints to unhindered car use (road congestion and limited parking), while in suburban areas this situation is reversed. Consequently, inner urban residents enjoy better conditions for non-motorised mobility and thus have a choice what modes to use for many trips, while suburban residents effectively depend on motorised modes for most of their travel needs.

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CONCLUSION The goal of the European Transport Policy is to establish a sustainable transport system that meets society‘s economic, social and environmental needs and is conducive to an inclusive society and a fully integrated and competitive Europe. The ongoing trends and future challenges point to the need for satisfying a rising demand for ‗accessibility‘ in a context of growing sustainability concerns. The most immediate priorities appear to be the better integration of the different modes of transport as a way to improve the overall efficiency of the system and the acceleration of the development and deployment of innovative technologies — within an approach that always keeps the transport users and workers, with their needs and rights, at the centre of policymaking (European Commission, 2009). Modern institutions for constructing, maintaining and operating transport systems evolved as a consequence of the rapid growth in demand for mobility that accompanied the industrial revolution. Thus they traditionally focused on mobility and efficiency objectives. Later as the systems became bigger and more complex to operate safety became an important goal. By the mid-20th century in Europe, transport investments and operational decisions were motivated and dominated by these objectives. During the 1960s, environmental quality and equity became important social goals. These objectives subsequently found their way into transport policy. More recently, national competitiveness, economic development and technological leadership have been added to the policy agenda in general and thus also to the transport policy agenda. This broadening of objectives has expanded the range of relevant actors in transport policy and operations. As a consequence, the traditional transport institutional framework is being forced to

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accommodate a wider than traditional range of objectives and interests at the same time that there is rapid change in transport technology. Addressing the sustainability of transport systems is an important activity as evidenced by a growing number of initiatives around the world to define and measure sustainability in transport planning and infrastructure provision. Frameworks based on important causal relationships between infrastructure and the broader environment, infrastructure impacts on the economy, environment, and social well-being and the relative influence of agencies over causal factors, are largely being used to develop and determine indicator systems for measuring sustainability in transport systems (Joen & Amekudzi, 2005). Process-based approaches involve community representatives and other stakeholders in planning and present opportunities to educate the public and influence collective behaviours. These frameworks can be used collectively to help policy makers refine their visions as well as to develop policies, planning procedures, and measurement and monitoring systems for achieving sustainable transport systems. Transport provides access to many of people‘s freedoms — the freedom to work and live in different parts of the world, the freedom to enjoy different products and services, and the freedom to trade and to establish personal contacts. Demand for these freedoms will probably increase in the more multicultural, heterogeneous society of the future, with deeper links to other regions of the world. Access to goods and services will have to be ensured for an ageing society that is likely to demand greater transport safety, security and comfort, at a time in which the growth of traffic and the tensions of the urban environment risk to work in the opposite direction. Therefore an improvement of the overall quality of transport, including personal security, the reduction of accidents and of health hazards, the protection of passengers‘ rights and the accessibility of remote regions, must remain a high priority of transport policy. Road safety will remain an issue of concern to ensure that the number of deaths on European roads is reduced. Working conditions must also be improved for transport workers, particularly as regards risks to health and safety. There is growing urgency for the transport sector to mitigate its negative impact on the environment. The respond to the goals of the EU SDS and the aim to reduce transport‘s environmental impacts involve progress towards a number of environmental policy objectives. Lowering consumption of nonrenewable resources is essential for all aspects of transport systems and their use. The undesired environmental consequences of transport activity will require further action in particular on noise, air pollutant emissions and

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greenhouse gas emissions. EU legislation sets requirements in many of these areas but these will require assessment and updating in the future. Besides, policy-makers are facing demands to meet the changing mobility needs of citizens in ways which are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. Cities need efficient transport systems to support their economy and the welfare of their inhabitants. Around 85% of the EU‘s GDP is generated in cities. Urban areas face today the challenge of making transport sustainable in environmental (CO2, air pollution, noise) and competitiveness (congestion) terms while at the same time addressing social concerns. These range from the need to respond to health problems and demographic trends, fostering economic and social cohesion to taking into account the needs of persons with reduced mobility, families and children (DG-TREN, 2009) In order to contribute to the economic development the transport policy of the EU is directed towards sustainable development of transport. Achievement of this goal is a precondition for sustainable and balanced longterm economic growth. Sustainability demands a broader look at priorities for all modes, to find the best balance between the needs of the economy, society and the environment. With regard to this the main ambitions of the EU‘s transport policy are for transport that contributes to the economic success of the union by enabling more people to travel in a way that minimizes the environmental impact; transport that is flexible enough to adapt and respond to social changes; transport that is easy and accessible to use. Delivering a sustainable transport is the most positive statement about the growth and development of transport. Passengers want transport services that are reliable and represent value for money, transport that is comfortable, accessible and easy to use. The public as a whole wants transport that contributes to economic growth while meeting the environmental challenges ahead. The European transport system can only meet these goals if it has the sufficient infrastructure to carry the freights and the passengers who want to use it. Addressing the sustainability of transport systems is an important activity as evidenced by a growing number of initiatives around the world to define and measure sustainability in transport planning and infrastructure provision. Frameworks based on important causal relationships between infrastructure and the broader environment, infrastructure impacts on the economy, environment, and social well-being; and the relative influence of agencies over causal factors, are largely being used to develop and determine indicator systems for measuring sustainability in transport systems (Joen & Amekudzi,

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2005). Process-based approaches involve community representatives and other stakeholders in planning and present opportunities to educate the public and influence collective behaviours. These frameworks can be used collectively to help policy makers refine their visions as well as develop policies, planning procedures, and measurement and monitoring systems for achieving sustainable transport systems.

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REFERENCES Apel, D., Lehmbrock, M., Pharoah, T., Thiemann-Linden, J. (1997). Kompakt, mobil, urban: Stadtentwicklungskonzepte zur Verkehrsvermeidung im internationalen Vergleich. Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik (difu), Berlin, Germany Barron, L. and Gauntlett, E. (2002). Housing and Sustainable Communities Indicator Project: Stage 1 Report - Model of Social Sustainability. Western Australian Council of Social Service (WACOSS). Barton, H. (2000). Sustainable Communities. The Potential for EcoNeighbourhoods. London, UK. Black, W. and Nijkamp, P. (2002). Pathway to Sustainable transport and Basic Themes. In: Black, W. and Nijkamp (eds.). Social Change and Sustainable Transport. Indiana University Press, pp. xi-xiii. Carmona, M., Heath, T., Oc, T., Tiesdell, S. (2003). Public Places – Urban Spaces. The Dimensions of Urban Design. Oxford, UK. Chen, M. et al. (2007). Assessing an economic dimension of sustainable transport policy: an overview. Deliverable 3.1, REFIT (Refinement and test of Sustainability indicators and tools with regard to European Transport policies) project. Netherlands. http://www.tmleuven. be/project/refit/d3-1.pdf Council of the European Union (2006). Renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy, COM (10117/2006), Brussels. Obtained through the Internet: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri =COM:2009:0400:FIN:EN:PDF. Department for Transport (2007). Delivering a Sustainable Railway. London. Department for Transport. Towards a Sustainable Transport System: Supporting Economic Growth in a Low-Carbon World. London. European Commission (2001). White Paper: European transport policy for 2010: time to decide, Brussels.

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European Commission (2002). Sustainable Surface Transport: research technological development and integration 2002-2006, Brussels. Obtained through the internet: http://www.managenergy.net/index es/I412.htm. European Commission (2003). Road Safety Action Programme (2003-2010). Brussels European Commission (2007). Green Paper: Towards a new culture for urban mobility. COM (2007) 551 final. Brussels. Obtained through the Internet: http://www.wttc.org/. European Commission (2008). Demography report 2008: Meeting social needs in an ageing society. SEC(2008) 2911. Brussels. European Commission (2009). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Strategic goals and recommendations for the EU’s maritime transport policy until 2018. Brussels. Obtained through the Internet http://eur-lex.europa.eu /LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0008:FIN:EN:PDF European Commission (2010a). Rail Safety. In: Summaries of legislation: Rail Transport. Brussels. European Commission (2010b). Aviation safety: Occurrence reporting in civil aviation. In: Summaries of legislation: Air Transport. Brussels. European Commission (2010c). Maritime safety: Erika II. In: Summaries of legislation: Waterborne Transport. Brussels. European Commission, DG-TREN (2006). Keep Europe Moving: Sustainable Mobility for our continent. Brussels. Obtained through the Internet http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/818&for mat=HTML&aged=1&language=en&guiLanguage=en. European Commission, DG-TREN, 2007. Logistics: Keeping freight moving. Brussels. Obtained through the Internet: http://ec.eurropa.eu/transport/lo gistics/freight_logistics_action_plan/doc/memo/memo_intro_fret_en.pdf European Commission, DG-TREN, 2008. Greening Transport Package. Brussels. Obtained through the Internet: http://europa.eu/rapid/pre ssReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1119&format=HTML&aged=0&l anguage=en&guiLanguage=en European Commission, DG-TREN, 2008. Trans-European Networks. http://ec.europa.eu/ten/index_en.html

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European Commission, DG-TREN, 2009a. A Sustainable Future for Transport. Brussels. Obtained through the Internet: http://ec.europa.eu /transport/publications/doc/2009_future_of_transport_en.pdf European Commission, DG-TREN, 2009b. Action Plan on urban mobility. Brussels. Obtained through the Internet: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUr iServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0490:FIN:EN:PDF European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC) (2007). The competitive route to sustainability and safety. Brussels. http://ec.europa.eu/research/transport/transport_modes/road_en.cfm European Space Agency (2010). Galileo technology developments. ESA. EUROSTAT (2009). Panorama of Transport. European Commission. EUROSTAT (2008). Population and Social Conditions, Statistics in Focus No 72/2008. Brussels. EUROSTAT (2010). Sustainable development indicators: Sustainable Transport. Luxembourg. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal /page/portal/sdi/indicators/theme7 Gudmundsson, H. (2004). Sustainable Transport and Performance Indicators,. In:Hester, R. Et al. (eds). Transport and the Environment. Thomas Graham House, UK, pp. 35-62. Housely, A. and Atkins, St. (2007). Transport and Social Sustainability. Transport Practitioners Meeting, Manchester. Jahn, T., Wehling, P. (1999). Das mehrdimensionale Mobilitätskonzept. Ein theoretischer Rahmen für die stadtökologische Mobilitätsforschung. In Friedrichs J, Hollaender K (1999, Eds) Stadtökologische Forschung. Theorien und Anwendungen. Berlin, Germany Jeon, C. and Amekudzi, A. (2005). Addressing Sustainability in Transportation. Journal of Infratsructure System, volume 11, issue 1, pp. 31-50. Korzhenevich, A et al. (2007). Assessing transport policy impacts on spatial distribution of economic activity and (un)employment with the CGEurope model. Deliverable 3.2, REFIT (Refinement and test of Sustainability indicators and tools with regard to European Transport policies) project. Netherlands. http://www.tmleuven.be/project/refit/d32.pdf Laube, F. (1998). Optimising Urban Passenger Transport. PhD Thesis, Murdoch University, Perth (WA), Australia Litman, T. (2008). Sustainable Transportation Indicators: A Recommended Research Program For Developing Sustainable Transportation

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Indicators and Data. Transportation Research Board. Washington D.C. 11 – 15 January 2008. Maibach. M. et al. (2008). Handbook on estimation of external costs in the transport sector. IMPACT Project - Internalisation Measures and Policies for All external Cost of Transport. Delft, CE. Martino, A. et al. (2006). Outline of policy priorities and sustainability criteria and targets. Deliverable 1.1, REFIT (Refinement and test of Sustainability indicators and tools with regard to European Transport policies) project. Netherlands. http://refit.bouw.tno.nl/files/d1-1.pdf Mees, P. (2000). A Very Public Solution. Transport in the Dispersed City. Melbourne (VIC), Australia. Munasinghe, M. (1993). Environmental Economics and Sustainable Development. World Bank Environmental Paper Number 3, World Bank, Environmentally Sustainable Development Department, Washington, D.C. Newman, P. and Kenworthy, J. (1999). Sustainability and Cities – Overcom ing Automobile Dependence. Washington (DC), USA. Official Journal of the European Union (2004). Directive 2004/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on safety on the Community's railways and amending Council Directive 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings and Directive 2001/14/EC on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and safety certification (Railway Safety Directive) Partridge, E. (2005). Social Sustainability: A Useful Theoretical Fram ework? Paper presented at the Australasian Political Science Association Annual Conference. Quinet, E. and Vickerman, R. (2004). Principles of Transport Economics. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham. st

Rudlin, D. and Falk, N. (1999). Building the 21 Century Home. The Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood. Oxford, UK. Scheurer, J. (2005). Sustainable Urban Transport. Draft-paper presented on Washington Research Forum. Tönnes, M. (1997). Weniger Kosten - mehr Wohnen. Die ökonomischen Vorteile autofreier Wohnquartiere. In Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung NRW (ILS, 1997, Ed) Planung und Realisierung autoarmer Stadtquartiere. Anforderungen - Konzepte Chancen der Umsetzung. Dortmund, Germany.

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Wagner, C. and Shaheen, S. (1998). Car Sharing and Mobility Management: Facing New Challenges with Technology and Innovative Business Planning. World Transport Policy and Practice, Vol 4, No 2. World Bank (2008). Sustainable Transport: Priorities for Policy Reform, Online]. Available from World Wide Web: http://iris37.worldbank. org/domdoc/PRD/Other/PRDDContainer.nsf/

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Chapter 2

TRANSIT SERVICE QUALITY EVALUATION FOR A SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM Laura Eboli* and Gabriella Mazzulla†

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University of Calabria, Department of Land Use Planning P. Bucci, cubo 46/B, 87036 Rende (CS), Italy

ABSTRACT Transit service quality is a subject that has aroused considerable interest both in academic research and in public and private service sectors. Specifically in public transport, service quality is a matter of the greatest importance because an improvement of quality levels can attract further users. An increase of public transport use with a concurrent reduction of the use of private car could sort out many problems, like traffic congestion, air and noise pollution, and energy consumption. For these reasons, the measurement of transit performance has been, and will continue to be, an important concern for allocating resources among competing transit agencies. Scientific research is ever more oriented towards the establishment of appropriate transit performance measures and indicators. Specific measures defining transit performance include efficiency, effectiveness, and service quality. * †

e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]

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Laura Eboli and Gabriella Mazzulla Service quality can be evaluated by considering customer perceptions and expectations, or by a range of simple disaggregate performance measures which can be used for measuring the ability of the transit agency to offer services that meet customer expectations. Both passenger perceptions and measures provided by transit agencies are fundamental for evaluating the performance of a transit service. Passengers‘ perceptions can be analysed in many different ways, including methods of statistical analysis for determining the impact of the attributes on the global service quality and customer satisfaction, and mathematical models which allow the relationship among variables to be explored, and passengers‘ choice behaviour to be simulated. There are also some procedures and methods for calculating performance indicators based on data providing from measurements on the field or by transit agencies, which provide a more objective measure of service quality. The chapter aims to an as comprehensive as possible interpretative review of the different methods for measuring transit service quality, by differing between methods based on the use of performance data and methods based on the use of passengers‘ perceptions, and by describing the state of the research about this subject.

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INTRODUCTION Mobility demand of people living in urban and metropolitan areas is continuously growing because of the desire to participate in increasingly varied activities motivated by physiological, psychological and economic needs. Interdependencies among activities entail complex travel choices involving the generation of trip-chains and travel patterns. In order to satisfy this ever-changing mobility demand, people tend to use individual motorized transport modes. Transportation use in general has consequences on safety, congestion, fuel consumption, vehicle emissions, and access (Richardson, 2004). The increase of environmental externalities has been expedited by the continuing trend of modal shift in favour of the private car, which is the most detrimental form of motorized transport; the impacts have to be reduced in order to make the transport sector more environmentally sustainable (Rienstra and Vleugel, 1995). According to Goldman and Gorham (2006) the first emergent strategy deploys creative new technologies to provide competitive alternatives to the private automobile; these ‗new mobility‘ strategies encourage new and more efficient ways of interacting with the city

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by providing customers with more flexible, convenient and integrated travel options. Modal substitution represents hence an important strategy of demand management for the achievement of a sustainable transportation; this can be accomplished by providing better modal options (Deakin, 2001), such as transit systems characterized by high quality levels. Transit service quality is an aspect markedly influencing travel user choices. Improving service quality is important in order to convenience the current users and to attract new users. With the aim to guarantee better transit services, all the actors involved in the public transport business should assure well-organized transit systems and allow people‘s need for mobility to be satisfied under safe and comfortable conditions, and transit agencies must provide methods for measuring and monitoring their performances. Service quality can be evaluated through disaggregate performance measures based on data provided by the transit agencies or measurements on the field, or by considering customer judgements. Both these kinds of measures are important for evaluating the performance of a transit service. The objective of this research work is to provide an interpretative review of the different methods adopted for measuring transit service quality; there are methods based on the use of disaggregate performance measures and methods based on the use of passengers‘ judgements. The chapter is organized as follows. The next section aims to provide a summary of the various transit performance measures. Then, we provide a description of the main service aspects characterizing a transit service, by referring particularly to bus services. After the above mentioned sections, we attempts to provide a compendium of the methods adopted for measuring service quality based on measurements on the field or provided by the transit agencies, and we also provide a literature review of the studies based on this kind of service quality measures. In the same way, we then provide a compendium of the methods adopted for measuring service quality by analysing customer perceptions, together with a literature review of the most important and recent studies aimed to transit service quality measures by highlighting the peculiarities and innovations of the various research works. Afterwards, we therefore propose a brief treatment of recent studies attempting to measure transit service quality by considering both passengers‘ perceptions and the more objective measures provided by the agencies. We finally conclude with a general discussion of the research work.

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TRANSIT PERFORMANCE MEASURES The measurement of transit performance has been, and will continue to be, an important concern for allocating resources among competing transit agencies. Performance measurement is fundamental for assessing management performance of the transit service in relation to community expectations, for assessing management problems regarding costs of the service, and as a monitoring tool for improving the service (Transportation Research Board, 1994). In addition, the measure of performance allows the behaviour of organizations to be compared over time or/and across space (De Borger et al., 2002). A transit performance measure is defined as a quantitative or qualitative factor used to evaluate a particular aspect of a transit service (Transportation Research Board, 2003b). Each performance measure has its own series of indicators. Indeed, scientific research is ever more oriented towards the establishment of appropriate transit performance measures and indicators. Fielding (1987) explores the concept of performance indicators to monitor performance, asserting that ―these indicators may not capture every activity of an agency, but they do indicate progress in key areas‖. In fact, specific measures defining transit performance include efficiency, effectiveness, impact, productivity, and service quality. There is an extensive literature (Fielding et al., 1985) on measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of transit services. Efficiency can be considered as the production of the realized service compared to the invested resources, while effectiveness can be defined as the correspondence of the service to the goal achievement. In addition, efficiency is the relationship of inputs to the produced service (e.g., vehicle kilometres), while effectiveness is the relationship of inputs to the consumed service (e.g., passenger kilometres) (Hensher, 2007). What is important and vital in the performance and delivery of a transit service depends significantly upon perspective (Transportation Research Board, 2003a). As an example, traditional cost efficiency indicators (e.g., operating expense per vehicle revenue kilometre and/or hour) and cost-effectiveness indicators (e.g., operating expense per passenger kilometre and/or passenger trip) can be considered as performance measures from the transit agency perspective, while they are not linked to customer-oriented and community issues, which are fundamental perspectives (Transportation Research Board, 2003a). Service quality can be considered as the overall measured or perceived transit performance from the passenger‘s point of view (Transportation Research Board, 2003b). It should be added that many researchers consider the

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customer‘s point of view the most relevant for evaluating transit performance; as an example, Berry et al. (1990) pointed out that ―customers are the sole judge of service quality. Passengers evaluate services in many ways that may not be systematically associated with the amount of use of the service, because the measures of efficiency and effectiveness, as aggregate indicators of total output, implicitly assume homogeneity of service quality (Hensher, 2007). Transit service quality can be measured by a range of simple disaggregate performance measures which can be used for measuring the ability of a transit agency to offer services that meet customer expectations (Transportation Research Board, 1999). These performance measures are quantitative measures expressed as a numerical value, which provides no information by itself about how ―good‖ or ―bad‖ a specific result is, and for this reason it must be compared with a fixed standard or past performance. These objective measures can be derived from different sources of data. A number of performance measures can be calculated from information an agency would normally have on hand for other purposes (schedule data, system maps, service design standards, accident and incident records, financial data, fleet data, complaint records, and so on). Moreover, alternative data can be national transit database, information provided by other transit agencies, data collected by Automated Vehicle Locators (AVL), manual data collection provided by operators, trained checkers or field supervisors. A particular form of manual data collection can be represented by the Passenger Environment Surveys (PES), which generally assess qualitative elements which are difficult to measure by any other way. In fact, PES use a ―secret shopper‖ technique, according to which mystery riders travel through the transit system and rate a variety of trip attributes in order to provide a quantitative evaluation of factors that passengers would think of qualitatively (Transportation Research Board, 2003a). In this way the objective indicators are generally compared with standards, which can be represented by annual averages, baselines, trend analyses, self-identified values, typical industry standards (Transportation Research Board, 2003a). Alternatively, the performance indicators can be expressed in a format that provides built-in interpretation. An example of such formats is represented by Levels of Service (LoS) developed for evaluating transit service quality analogously to those developed by the Highway Capacity Manual (Transportation Research Board, 2003b). Another format is represented by ratios, which are developed by dividing one individual measure by another; they facilitate comparisons between routes, areas, or agencies. Finally, index measures are adopted when

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service quality aspects involve a number of different factors; these indexes combine results from several other performance measures in an equation to produce a single output measure (Transportation Research Board, 2003a). Service quality can be also evaluated on the basis of transit user judgements. These judgements, which can be considered a subjective measure of service quality, generally derive from the well-known Customer Satisfaction Surveys (CSS), which help transit operators to identify which service quality factors are considered the most important by their customers. Indeed, CSS can also be used to help prioritize future quality of service improvement initiatives, measure the degree of success of past initiatives, and track changes in service quality over time (Transportation Research Board, 2003b). Customer judgements can be expressed in terms of expectations, which represent what customers expect of the service, and perceptions, which represent what customers receive from the service (Parasuraman et al., 1985). Parasuraman et al. (1994) stated that the use of expectation ratings yields richer data for management than perception ratings alone. While perceptions are usually measured by satisfaction ratings, there are varying interpretations of expectations, and this lead to a number of measurement problems. Teas (1993) stated that expectations can be interpreted as predictions of service, as an ideal standard, or as attribute importance. Smith (1995) contends that a number of researchers have directly substituted importance measures for expectations, although there is no theoretical basis for this (Landrum and Prybutok, 2004). Importance ratings differ from the expectation ones; Smith found that importance ratings were rated lower than expectations. However, from Smith‘s point of view, measuring which service attributes are important to customers may be more meaningful to managers than measuring customer service expectations. Results from Landrum and Prybutok‘s study indicate that comparing service performance against what customers consider important may be just as useful to managers as comparing performance against what customers expect. Perhaps, because of the variety of ways that expectations can be interpreted, importance ratings may offer less confusion. Results of the study indicate that importance and expectations are not the same construct. Also, calculating service quality as a difference score with importance is subject to the same reliability and validity problems as calculating a difference score with expectations. According to the CSS, users express their judgments about the services according to a pre-defined scale of measure. The kinds of scale of

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measurement most frequently used are the Likert, verbal and the numerical scale (Hill et al. 2003). The points on the Likert scale are described by means of words, typically statements indicating the level of agreement/disagreement (for example the lowest level is ―Strongly disagree‖ and the highest level is ―Strongly agree‖). The verbal scale is analogous to the Likert one, because the points are described by means of words, but the kind of words is different. In fact, as an example, the points are described through simple concepts such as ―quite dissatisfied‖, ―neither satisfied nor dissatisfied‖, ―very satisfied‖, and so on. The numerical scale is the simplest to analyse. In order to measure customer satisfaction, different values can be used, from 1 to 3, from 1 to 5, from 1 to 7, from 1 to 9, etc. Sometimes the adopted scale has an even number of levels, for example the traditional numeric scholastic scale composed of points from 1 to 10. Traditionally, CSS have been carried out by three main methods: face-toface surveys where the interviewer conducts a personal interview by asking questions of the respondent; telephone surveys where an interviewer conducts a survey by contacting respondents by telephone; and mail surveys where questionnaires are mailed to sampled individuals who complete and return them by mail. Face-to-face and telephone surveys are intervieweradministered methods whereas mail surveys are self-administered (Biemer and Lyberg, 2003). In addition, there are new technologies developed in the last decade for communicating and interfacing with respondents in their homes, at work, and during travel (Nicholls et al., 1997). Each method has advantages and disadvantages and its selection is often complex and depends on the objective of the survey, its characteristics, design and methodological issues and the financial resources available (Biemer and Lyberg, 2003). In a recent work proposed by the authors a comparison between face-to-face and web-survey interviews was made in reference to transit passenger perceptions (Eboli and Mazzulla, forthcoming). Both these different kinds of transit performance measures support transit agencies for monitoring, evaluating, and implementing improvements in service. For this purpose transit agencies might be interested in collecting a wide array of information, but the cost of collecting and analyzing a large amount of transit performance and service quality data presents a constraint to transit agencies. As a result, data collection and analysis activities should be concentrated on those aspects of transit service that are crucial and that more accurately reflect the needs of customers and potential customers. The objective is to match the most important perceptions to specific aspects of

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transit service and to identify one or more corresponding service performance indicators (Transportation Research Board, 1999).

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FACTORS AFFECTING TRANSIT SERVICE QUALITY Transit service quality depends on the quality levels of the different aspects characterizing the service. The aspects generally describing transit services can be distinguished into characteristics that more properly describe the service (e.g. frequency of runs), and characteristics depending more on customer tastes and less easily measurable (e.g. comfort). There are many research studies in the literature in which transit service aspects have been analysed and the user perceptions have been investigated. One of the most relevant and investigated transit service aspects is reliability. Turnquist and Blume (1980) define transit service reliability as ―the ability of the transit system to adhere to schedule or maintain regular headways and a consistent travel time‖. Strathman et al. (1999), Kimpel (2001) and Beirao and Sarsfield-Cabral (2007) agree that reliability is mostly related to schedule adherence. Unreliable service results in additional travel and waiting time for passengers (Wilson et al., 1992; Strathman et al., 2003). Service unreliability can lead to loss of passengers, while improvements in reliability can lead to attraction of more passengers (El-Geneidy et al., 2007). A study proposed by Eboli and Mazzulla (2010a) confirmed that service reliability is one of the most important service aspect for the users. Research studies conducted in the seventies have already shown that arriving on time at destination is often seen by travellers as more important than minimizing elapsed travel time (Nash and Hille, 1968; Hartgen and Tanner, 1970). The study of Wachs (1976) found that reliability or variance in travel time is an important component of attitude toward transportation modes, and also revealed that time spent in waiting, walking, transferring modes, or parking a vehicle is consistently viewed by travellers as more onerous than time spent on board. As an example, the time spent in walking for reaching the bus stop defines the level of accessibility to the transit service. Therefore, a transit stop must be located within walking distance, and the pedestrian environment in the area should not discourage walking (Transportation Research Board, 2003). However, Hu and Jen (2010) found that the distance one has to walk from home to the bus stop is not a major issue for the bus passengers.

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Service frequency is another important factor in one‘s decision to use transit. The more frequent the service, the shorter the waiting time when a bus or train is missed, and the greater the flexibility that customers have in selecting travel times (Transportation Research Board, 2003). Tyrinopoulos and Antoniou (2008) found that service frequency is the most important attribute across transit operators. Also, in Eboli and Mazzulla (2008b) service frequency resulted to be the attribute with the highest weight on overall transit service quality measures. There is extensive literature supporting the thesis that costs affect the mode choice behaviour of travellers (DiJohn et al., 2008). On the other hand, many studies of attitudes toward transportation system alternatives found that the monetary travel cost does not constitute a salient factor in modal-choice decisions (e.g. Wallin and Wright, 1974). Beirao and Sarsfield-Cabral (2007), who conducted a qualitative study in a European context, stated that public transport is generally perceived as cheaper than car and monetary cost does not appear as a key factor for changing to public transport, with the exception of the users with low income, who consider travel cost very important. Also the comfort during the journey is important for transit users. Comfort means having soft and clean seats, climate control, not many people on board, low levels of noise and vibrations, no nasty odours. These many factors are differently evaluated across different groups of users. Beirao and Sarsfield-Cabral (2007) found that habitual public transport users consider the new vehicles with air-conditioning and lower floor as ―very good and very comfortable‖, but the overcrowding on board at peak hours is considered a problem. On the other hand, car users and occasional public transport users usually see buses as uncomfortable, overcrowded, smelly and airless. Another service aspect affecting transit service quality is represented by information. Passengers need to know how to use transit service, where the access is located, where to get off in the proximity of their destination, whether any transfers are required, and when transit services are scheduled to depart and arrive. Without this information, potential passengers will not be able to use transit service (Transportation Research Board, 2003).

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Table 1. Main service quality aspects for bus systems Service Quality Aspect

Description

Service performance

Basic coverage of the service by geography, time, and mode

Service reliability

Ability of the transit system to adhere scheduling

Comfort

Physical comfort regarding vehicles and ambient conditions

Cleanliness

Physical condition of vehicles and facilities

Safety

Degree of safety from crime or accidents and the feeling of security resulting from that and other psychological factors

Fare

Characteristics regarding the monetary cost of journey by bus

Information

Availability of information pertinent to the planning and execution of a journey

Customer care

Elements needed to make the journey easier and more pleasant

Environmental impacts

Effects on the environment resulting from transit in terms of pollution, infrastructure and natural resources

Determinants path, number of bus stops and distance between bus stops, location of the bus stops, service frequency, daily service time, travel time, need for transfers punctuality of runs that come on time, regularity of runs that come on schedule, wait time when transferring availability of seating on board, smoothness of the bus ride, comfort of the seats, degree of crowding on bus, comfortable temperatures on bus, availability of handrails/grab bars, availability of shelter, benches and illumination at stops cleanliness of the bus interior, cleanliness of the bus exterior, buses clean of graffiti, cleanliness of seating, shelters clean of graffiti safety from crime while riding, safety from crimes at bus stops, safety related to the behaviour of other persons, safety related to the bus operation, safety from accidents cost of a one-way ride, cost of a transfer, availability of discounted fares (e.g. students), availability of volume discounts (e.g. monthly passes), cost of parking at bus stops availability of schedule/maps and announcements on bus, availability of schedule/maps at bus stops, availability of printed schedules, availability of information by telephone or internet courtesy/helpfulness of ticket agents, courtesy/knowledge of conductors/drivers, personnel appearance, ease of purchasing tickets, ease of paying fare emissions, noise, visual pollution, vibration, dust and dirt, odour, waste, effect of vibrations on road, capacity demand, disruption, energy, space

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Passenger information includes information during the trip, information at stops, and pre-trip information (Nathanail, 2008). Beirao and SarsfieldCabral (2007) found that several respondents think that the bus system is difficult to use and information is difficult to obtain; among bus users the main problem occurred when the bus company changed timetables or routes and did not provide enough information to users.Safety during a journey may be considered a not very relevant aspect in the modal choice decision; in fact the probability of being involved in an accident or of becoming the victim of a crime is not explicitly considered as part of the choice mechanism. However, when explicitly queried about the importance of safety, this factor is given an extremely high rating of importance (Solomon et al., 1968). These findings are confirmed by Iseki and Taylor (2008) on their study about safety and security at stops, and by Eboli and Mazzulla (2010a) who explicitly investigated safety and security on board. Another aspect characterizing transit services consists of passenger amenities, which are those elements provided at a bus stop or station to enhance comfort, convenience, and security. Amenities include shelters, benches, vending machines, trash receptacles, lighting, phone booths, and so on. The effects that particular amenities have on transit passenger are not well known. Some researchers have argued that the term ―amenities‖ implies something extra and not necessarily required (Transportation Research Board, 2003). Iseki and Taylor (2008) found that stop and station-area amenities were ranked as least important by the users. There are also other transit service aspects that are not much investigated, such as personnel appearance and helpfulness, environmental protection, and customer services. The various studies about transit service quality have shown that users have different perceptions of the service aspects and of the factors affecting each aspect. These perceptions can be heterogeneous because of the qualitative nature of the aspects, the different attitudes of the users towards the use of transit services, the user social background. Starting from the various studies regarding quality determinants in public transportation we propose a report of the aspects mainly characterizing bus services shown in table 1. Interested readers may refer to reports published by the Transportation Research Board (1999, 2003b).

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MEASURES BASED ON TRANSIT PERFORMANCE

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Methods and Procedures The level of quality of each of the aspects described in the previous section can be calculated as a quantitative measure by indicators based on measurement registered on the field or provided by the transit agencies. Each aspect can be analysed in different ways obviously depending on its nature and peculiarities. The Transportation Research Board, through the Transit Cooperative Research Program, developed interesting researches about service quality measures, summarized in some reports in which the different transit service aspects are widely and fully described (Transportation Research Board, 1999; Transportation Research Board, 2003a; Transportation Research Board 2003b). In these reports five categories of service quality measures are defined: availability in terms of passengers‘ ease of access and use of transit service, service monitoring, travel time, safety and security in terms of real and perceived chances of being involved in an accident or being the victim of a crime while using transit, and maintenance and construction. For each service quality aspect some examples of objective measures are suggested. These measures can be considered as indicators of service quality, which is evaluated by comparing the value of the indicator with a standard value or the average value registered in the previous time period. Alternatively, a LoS can be defined, as well as in the case of the evaluation of the quality levels of the road traffic flow (Transportation Research Board, 1965). The concept of LoS as a mesure of transit service quality was introduced in the Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual (Transportation Research Board, 2003b). LoS are measured on a scale varying from the ―A‖ level (which means high quality) to the ―F‖ level (low quality). In the following some example of objective measures are suggested by referring to the classification of the service aspects reported in table 1. Concerning the aspect linked to service performance, as mentioned in table 1, the attributes (or determinants) belonging to this category are represented by characteristics of the route in terms of path, number of bus stops and distance between bus stops, location of the bus stops, and characteristics of the service, like service frequency and daily service time. As an example, the indicator regarding line path can be evaluated on the basis of the travel speed of the runs observed during the survey period; the

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values of travel speed can be easily provided by the agency: an operator can register the travel times of a sample of runs. The attribute ―number of bus stops and distance between bus stops‖ can be analysed on the basis of the stop spacing, which is the average distance between transit stops. The indicator of the bus stop location can be calculated on the basis of the walking distance to transit; walking times from home to the access bus stop of a sample of users may be registered. Service frequency, which measures how often transit service is provided, is easily calculated as average value of the number of runs scheduled for each hour of the day or can be calculated also in terms of the average headway, which is the inverse of the average frequency. The daily service time indicates how long service is provided during a day; the indicator is simply calculated as the number of hours during the day when transit service is provided along a route, a segment of a route, or between two locations. As described in table 1, service reliability is considered as the ability of the transit system to adhere schedule, as well as the ability of the transit vehicles to depart or arrive on time. Essentially, the reliability of runs that come on schedule is generally evaluated on the basis of the runs removed from the daily schedule. The indicator can be calculated as the ratio of the number of runs executed in a period of data gathering to the number of runs scheduled for the same period. The number of runs can be registered in different days of the same time period by a transit operator. The punctuality of runs that come on time is generally evaluated by considering the percentage of transit vehicles departing or arriving at a location on time. The indicator can be calculated as the ratio of the number of runs that come on time to the number of total runs. The number of runs on time may be surveyed by a transit operator in different days of the same time period. As suggested by the TCRP Report 100 (Transportation Research Board, 2003a), the runs up to 1 minute early and up to 5 minutes late can be considered ontime. Comfort and cleanliness are purely qualitative service aspects, which can be related to the vehicles or to the stops. Comfort on board can be a function of many aspects such as bus crowding, air conditioning, cleanliness of bus interior and exterior. In addition, comfort at bus stops is a function of the amenities provided at the stops. As an example, the indicator regarding bus crowding can be calculated on the basis of the number of passengers per run and the number of offered seats per run; data regarding passenger loading can be collected by a manual operator on a sample of runs. Bus crowding can be evaluated also in terms of passenger load which is based on two measures, as

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suggested in the TCRP Report 100 (Transportation Research Board, 2003a): load factor (passengers per seat), when all passengers can sit, and standing passenger area, when some passengers must stand or when a vehicle is designed to accommodate more standees than seated passengers. The indicator linked to air conditioning on bus can be calculated on the basis of the percentage of vehicles with functioning climate control systems. Specifically, the indicator can be calculated as the ratio of the number of buses with the functioning air conditioning system to the total number of buses used for the line. A trained checker may verify the functioning of the air conditioning in different days of the same time period. The indicator of the aspect linked to the availability of shelter and benches at bus stop, being a more qualitative aspect, can be evaluated on the basis of a score assigned to each stop of the line. As an example, the minimum value could be assigned to the stops without any kind of furniture; the maximum value to the stops with shelter and benches. The final indicator could be calculated as the average value of the scores assigned to all the line stops. The indicator regarding cleanliness of bus interior, seats and windows or cleanliness of bus exterior can be calculated on the basis of the frequency of interior cleaning and exterior washing, respectively. The service aspect regarding the level of information provided to the users is generally evaluated by considering the availability of information on board and at bus stops. As an example, the indicator of the aspect linked to the availability of schedule/maps on bus, and announcements can be calculated as the ratio of the number of vehicles with functioning information device on board to the total number of vehicles sampled in a certain time period. A trained checker may verify the functioning of the information devices on different days during the same time period. In addition, the indicator the aspect linked to the availability of schedule/maps at bus stops can be evaluated on the basis of a score assigned to each stop of the line, analogously to the aspect concerning facilities at bus stops. The aspect concerning safety refers to the possibility of being involved in a road accident as well as the possibility of becoming the victim of a crime. The service aspects linked to safety and security are generally evaluated by considering safety on board, and security on board and at bus stops. As an example, the indicator of the aspect linked to vehicle reliability, safety and competence of drivers can be calculated on the basis of the number of road accidents verified during the last year. Analogously, the indicators concerning the aspects linked to security against crimes on bus and security

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against crimes at bus stops can be calculated on the basis of the number of complaints registered during the last year. The service aspect named ―customer care‖ in table 1 includes personnel behaviour, which is determined by personnel appearance and helpfulness. Personnel appearance can be evaluated by means of trained checkers who verified if personnel use the uniform. The indicator can be calculated as the ratio of the number of uniformed staff to the total staff number. The check on personnel is generally executed in different days of the same time period. Personnel helpfulness, which is a very subjective aspect, should be evaluated by means of a mystery rider who verified the behaviour of the personnel and assigned a score to each personnel unit. The service aspect regarding environmental impacts could be evaluated by considering the use of ecological vehicles, and calculated as the ratio of the number of vehicles in keeping with the regulation to the total number of vehicles of a bus line.

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Literature Review In the literature there are some examples of research studies about the objective performance measures. A study of Bertini and El-Geneidy (2003) describes how an archived database of Bus Dispatch System data can be used to generate performance measures that should be prepared by transit agencies in order to measure their own performance and help them to increase their service standards and effectiveness to the population. Here the authors recommend a series of measures related to transit accessibility, mobility and economic development. Many studies regarding performance measures adopted for planning and management of the transit networks are based on a less recent report published by the Transportation Research Board in the occasion of the redaction of the National Cooperative Transit Research & Development Program (Levinson, 1991). Another report of the Transportation Research Board emphasizes the importance of adopting advanced technologies for improving safety, efficiency and quality of the services offered by the public transport agencies (Transportation Research Board, 1997). Particularly, the report focuses on the Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) systems by examining the main aspects linked to implementation, management and maintenance of these systems on the bus lines.

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Nakanishi (1997) proposes an analysis of two specific performance indicators of bus services: punctuality and regularity of the runs. The indicators were analyzed on the occasion of a programme compiled by the New York City Transit (NYCT) aimed at defining customer-oriented performance indicators. Nocera (2010) proposes a tool for evaluating the performance of both private car and transit services. In the work threshold values of some parameters for six levels of service were identified. Among the parameters analysed there are the travel times, transfer number, service coverage, travel costs, etc. The threshold values were obtained by interviewing a group of national professors of transportation engineering.

MEASURES BASED ON PASSENGERS‟ PERCEPTIONS

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Methods and Models There are different tools for measuring service quality according to the different types of data collected by CSS and the scale of measurement adopted for capturing customer judgements. Specifically, passengers‘ perceptions can be analysed in many different ways, which can be grouped into two categories. The first one includes techniques of statistical analysis for determining the impact of the attributes on global service quality and customer satisfaction, based on the statements of a sample of passengers. The second category includes mathematical models. There are non-behavioural models, like linear or logistic regression models and structural equation models, which are descriptive models in which no hypothesis on user behaviour is advanced and allow the relationship among variables to be explored, and behavioural models, like discrete choice models, which try to reproduce the workings of the user mind making their choices allowing passengers‘ choice behaviour to be simulated. Particularly, the different techniques can be distinguished in two subcategories: the techniques developed in the marketing research aimed to measure customer satisfaction, such as the Critical Incident Technique, the Problem Detection System, the Customer Satisfaction Survey, the model of Kano, the SERVQUAL method; the techniques of statistical analysis particularly convenient for analysing data collected from CSS. Examples of these techniques are quadrant and gap analysis, bivariate correlation, factorial

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analysis, cluster analysis, and conjoint analysis. Various authors have introduced some indexes for measuring overall satisfaction and service quality. As an example, Eboli and Mazzulla (2009a) proposed an index based on customer perspective, named Heterogeneous Customer Satisfaction Index (HCSI) and inspired by the idea at the basis of the traditional Customer Satisfaction Index, which is an indicator calculated by considering at the same time perceptions and expectations of the users; HCSI takes into account the heterogeneity among the user judgements about the different service aspects. For a more detailed discussion of these techniques one should refer to Akan (1995), Berger et al. (1993), Cuomo (2000), Eboli and Mazzulla (2008a), Hartikainen et al. (2004), Hill (2000, 2003), Kano et al. (1984), and Parasuraman et al. (1988). Regarding the non-behavioural models, the dependent variable is represented by global customer satisfaction and the independent variables are the service quality attributes. By means of these models the weights of every attributes on global customer satisfaction can be calculated. Specifically, structural equation models permit the exploration of the relationship between global customer satisfaction and service quality attributes. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is useful to researchers as a multivariate technique combining regression, factor analysis and analysis of variance in order to estimate interrelated dependence relationships simultaneously. A generic structural equation model is divided into two sub-models: the first one, named ―latent variable sub-model‖, describes the relationship between endogenous and exogenous latent variables; the second one, named ―measurement sub-model‖, describes the relationship between latent and observed variables. Specifically, the latent variables represent the unobserved and unmeasured factors; the observed variables represent the service quality indicators used for measuring customer satisfaction in public transport. SEM was adopted in several fields of research and generalized by Joreskog and Wiley (Joreskog, 1973; Wiley, 1973). An alternative approach for capturing customer judgements in terms of expectations and perceptions, or importance and satisfaction ratings, is based on the use of conjoint analysis indirectly capturing which service attributes are important and satisfactory to customers. These types of data are usefully analysed through discrete choice models based on the Random Utility Theory (RUT), according to which users are rational decision-makers who make their choice by maximizing their utility. The utility is modelled as a random variable in order to reflect the uncertainty in the choice; more specifically,

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the utility is composed of a deterministic part (systematic utility), and a stochastic part (error term) capturing the uncertainty. Although over the last few decades discrete choice models have been widely used for simulating the choice among different transport modes, more recently ―within mode‖ models have been proposed, in which the alternatives relate to a single transport mode, usually public transport mode. Prioni and Hensher (2000) first proposed a methodology for measuring transit service quality through the choice-based conjoint analysis. Interviewed passengers were asked to make a choice between two or more transit services, each of which defined by a series of service attributes, varying on predefined levels. The attributes represent service aspects varying on levels predefined by the analyst during the experimental design; attributes and levels define services which can be often unavailable (or hypothetical) for the passengers at the moment of the interview. The respondents usually have some difficulties in making a choice between hypothetical services, because they do not have a clear perception about some attributes and levels defining the choice alternatives; in order to compensate for this disadvantage, each respondent is asked to describe his/her habitually used service and to make a choice between the habitual service and two or more hypothetical services. By choosing his/her more attractive service the user indirectly expresses a judgement of importance about the service aspects; on the other hand, user perceptions are expressed through the description of his/her habitual service. The most known discrete choice models are Logit models, based on the hypothesis that the errors in the utility function are distributed according to the type I extreme-value (EV1) distribution. Multinomial Logit (MNL) is the model with the simplest structure inside the Logit family. There are three fundamental hypotheses that underlie the MNL formulation. The first one is that the random components of the utilities of the alternatives are independent and identically distributed (IID). The second one is that the MNL model maintains homogeneity in responsiveness to the attributes of the alternatives across individuals. Finally, the third hypothesis is that the error variance-covariance structure of the alternatives is identical across individuals (Bhat, 2003). In the last few years, by relaxing the hypotheses of the MNL model, more complex model formulations have been derived, such as Mixed Logit (ML) models. ML models have more recently been used in order to consider the heterogeneity among users and permit the differences in user perceptions and responses to be considered. ML models spread at the end of the nineties (McFadden and Train, 1997; Bhat, 1998; Train, 1998) as a consequence of

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the development of specific software for their calibration. ML models can be formulated according to two different structures: ―error component structure‖ and ―random coefficients structure‖ (named in the literature also as Random Parameter Logit, RPL). In the first structure some hypotheses of correlation between alternatives are made; in the second one some hypotheses of unobserved heterogeneity among users as regards observed variables are made (Bhat, 2003). RPL has the standard form of an MNL model except that one or more parameters can be considered as random parameters, with the standard deviation estimated together with the mean. The layering of selected random parameters can take a number of predefined functional forms, such as normal, triangular, uniform and log-normal (Hensher, 2001). More recently, non-parametric formulations have been introduced; as an example, B-spline formulation has been proposed by Bastin et al. (2007). On the inside of discrete choice models, also Probit model overcomes most of the drawbacks of the Logit model and its generalizations; it is based on the hypothesis that residuals are distributed according to a Multivariate Normal (MVN) random variable with zero mean and general variances and covariances. For a more exhaustive discussion about Logit and Probit models one could refer to Domencich and McFadden (1975), Ben-Akiva and Lerman (1985), Ortuzar and Willumsen (1994), Train (2003), Hensher et al. (2007).

Literature Review In the literature, there is an amount of studies regarding user perceptions about the different transit service aspects or performance measurement by indicators; whereas few studies deal with the topic of transit service quality by considering both subjective and objective measures of transit performance. In the following, some examples of the most recent studies regarding the subjective measures are briefly described. Some studies propose qualitative or quantitative analyses based on simple statistical techniques. An example of qualitative study is the work proposed by Stradling et al. (2007) who examined what bus users disliked and liked about travelling by bus in Edinburgh, Scotland, to characterise the urban bus journey experience and the dimensions of bus service acceptability. A postal survey was addressed to a sample of households, and bus users were asked to consider 68

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items, and indicate which were, for them, ‗Things that I dislike or things that discourage me from using the bus‘. The binary data proved suitable for principal components analysis. The study provides qualitative results because respondents also provided write-in responses to a number of questions concerning their travel including ‗What do you like and dislike about travelling by bus?‘. These responses provided both corroborations and extensions of the factor structure. The two parts of this study reveal the importance of affective aspects to the acceptability of the urban bus journey experience. Beirao and Sarsfield-Cabral (2007) present the results of a qualitative study of public transport users and car drivers in order to obtain a deeper understanding of travellers‘ attitudes towards transport and to explore perceptions of public transport service quality. The study is based on 24 indepth interviews with the general public, including regular and occasional users of public transport and car users. This qualitative study has highlighted some key factors influencing mode choice and the main influences that affect it positively and negatively, and the need to investigate the motivations and barriers to public transport use. The key findings indicate that in order to increase public transport usage, the service should be designed in a way that accommodates the levels of service required by customers and by doing so attract potential users. Most of the studies about transit service quality are based on quantitative analyses of transit user perceptions expressed in terms of rating on the main service aspects through Likert (1932), verbal, or numerical scales of judgement. Rating data have been analysed and interpreted by using the most common statistical techniques and many different mathematical models. Many studies were inspired by the ServQual method, which is the best known and most widely applied technique for measuring service quality in market research (Parasuraman et al., 1985); this method utilizes 22 indicators to measure perceived quality of five dimensions: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. As an example, in the field of transportation research, Hu and Jen (2006) proposed a study attempting to modify Parasuraman et al.‘s technique and construct a procedure for the public transportation industry. The study discussed dimensions and scale to measure the service quality of mass transit in Taipei. Passengers expressed their perception about the service; all answers were given on a Likert sevenpoint scale. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis was employed to assess the stability of the dimensional structure adopted for measuring service quality.

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Cunningham et al. (1997) developed a multi-step, multi-method approach to measure customer perceptions of service quality on the transportation system in Colorado. The study included a quantitative telephone survey, a qualitative critical incident technique (Bitner et al., 1985), and a focus group approach. In the telephone survey each user expressed his judgement about transportation services, like bus and rail, carpooling and so on. The overall satisfaction and other service aspects were analysed in terms of rate according to a five-point Likert scale ranging from ―strongly disagree‖ to ―strongly agree‖. The authors state that quantitative and qualitative research techniques should be used in combination for a more accurate picture of customer perceptions and evaluations of service quality. Friman (2004) examined whether quality improvements have effects on satisfaction with public transport services and frequency of perceived negative critical incidents. Respondents evaluated Swedish transit services by checking a nine-point scale ranging from ―very dissatisfied‖ to ―very satisfied‖. The most important finding of the study is that the satisfaction people experience when using public transport services is influenced by quality improvements only to a limited extent; this result was proved by analysing satisfaction ratings in different time lags and does not confirm previous research showing that quality improvements raise customer satisfaction. The studies above mentioned only analyse the user judgement expressed in terms of satisfaction ratings. Other studies analyse both satisfaction and importance user judgements. In Eboli and Mazzulla (2006) the judgements expressed about a urban bus service by a sample of users, in terms of importance and satisfaction rates on a scale from 1 to 10, were analysed. From the analysis it emerges that users express importance rates higher than 7 on the average, and therefore consider important all the service aspects. This tendency is confirmed from the analysis of suburban and extra-urban bus services (Eboli and Mazzulla, 2007a, 2009b). The aspects linked to safety are considered the most important for the users. By analysing satisfaction rates, it emerges that the most critical aspects are linked to the facilities at bus stops for both urban and extra-urban services, and to the information to the users for suburban services. Tyrinopoulos and Antoniou (2008) propose a methodology in which importance and satisfaction rates are separately used. The methodology consists in the application of two different statistical methods for analyzing the variability of the users‘ behaviour and their level of satisfaction from the

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use of diverse transit systems: factor analysis and ordered logit modelling. This methodology is applied to five different transit systems in Greece and develops recommendations for public transport operators and policy makers that will enable them to better understand the behaviour of the transit users and the key factors affecting their choices. Survey respondents were asked to rate 23 selected attributes according to two criteria: how important the particular attribute is to them with respect to public transit service (importance) and how they would rank the public transit service in question with respect to that attribute (satisfaction). The data collected from the first set of questions were used as input for the factor analysis, while the second set of data was used as input for the ordered logit models. The objective of the factor analysis is to try to discern and recognize the underlying unobserved factors that the respondents perceive. Iseki and Taylor (2008) examined transit users‘ perceptions of the quality of service and infrastructure at bus stops and train stations around metropolitan Los Angeles. In this study an importance-satisfaction analysis was effected to examine which stop and station attributes matter most to transit users‘ experience. Satisfaction rates were expressed by a four-point Likert scale, while importance rates were expressed according to a four-point verbal scale from ―very important‖ to ―not important‖. Ordered logistic regression models were proposed for measuring the influence of 16 stop/station attributes on users‘ overall satisfaction with their wait/walk/transfer experience. Other studies adopt more advanced statistical techniques like path analysis, latent variable and structural equation models. Some examples are reported in Joewono and Kubota (2007), Stuart et al. (2000), Eboli and Mazzulla (2007b). Joewono and Kubota (2007) examine the condition of private paratransit in Indonesia from the user‘s point of view in order to balance the judgment from other stakeholders. In this article, citizen perception was expressed by user participation in rating the mode‘s condition, including user expectations and loyalty. This research employs the path analysis and binomial regression method to reveal and explore the data. Path analysis was employed to reveal the relationship among variables, including testing the hypothesis concerning the existence of user loyalty. The path analysis also examines the predictive power of several variables on overall satisfaction with paratransit. The analysis using the binomial logistic regression is able to distinguish the loyal users by exploring their characteristics.

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In Stuart et al. (2000) a transit service in New York was analysed. Users expressed a judgement in terms of rates according to a numerical scale from 1 to 10 about some service aspects and the overall service. A structural equation model was developed for describing the relationship among the service aspects; through this model the strength of the relationships can be quantified and compared with one another in terms of both direct and indirect effects. In Eboli and Mazzulla (2007b) a structural equation model is formulated in order to explore the impact of the relationship between global customer satisfaction and transit service quality aspects. A sample of habitual users was asked about 16 service attributes; users expressed a rate of satisfaction on each attribute on a scale from 1 to 10. The proposed model identifies service quality attributes to improve, with the aim of offering bus services characterized by higher levels of quality. Nurul Habib et al. (2009) develop a multinomial logit model combined with latent variable models for capturing unobserved latent variables in defining perceptions and attitudes. The paper presents a critical investigation of reasons for using transit expressed as a function of peoples‘ perception and attitude towards transit service quality and attributes. This paper also shows how non-research oriented survey data can be used to unravel many behavioural details and policy relevance. The authors focus only on transit users in order to find influential factors. The respondents are required to scale their satisfaction along a scale from 1 to 5. In addition to other questions, the respondents were asked to identify the main reason of using transit over any other modes of transportation. The challenge characterizing this work is to model the reason of choosing transit as a function of perceptions or attitudes, which we do not observe. However, by exploiting the scaling of transit service by the respondents, a latent variable model can be used to connect the relationship between the reason of choosing transit over other modes of transportation and variables defining the perception or attitude towards transit service. Differently from the studies on service quality based on the analysis of rating data, other research are based on user perceptions expressed in terms of choice. Choice data have been collected from experiments based on Stated Preferences (SP) techniques. In Prioni and Hensher (2000) and Hensher and Prioni (2002) an SP experiment was proposed to the passengers of some private bus operators in New South Wales (Australia). In this experiment the interviewed users made a choice between some alternative services characterized by some service quality attributes, varying on three levels. The

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choice data were used to calibrate an MNL model. By the model estimation the importance of each service attributes on overall service quality was evaluated. The utility of each choice alternative represents a Service Quality Index (SQI). The same SP data were used for calibrating ML models proposed in Hensher (2001) in order to explore observed and unobserved heterogeneity among users. A Nested Logit model was proposed in Hensher et al. (2003) for comparing the service quality levels within and between the bus operators. In Eboli and Mazzulla (2008b) an SP experiment was proposed to the passengers of an urban bus service in Cosenza (South of Italy). The paper introduces an empirical procedure for optimizing the SP experiment which permits the identification of the choice alternatives defining the experiment for simulating the choices of a user sample. The collected choice data were used for the calibration of MNL models. In Eboli and Mazzulla (2008c) ML models were proposed in order to investigate on the heterogeneity across individuals in their perception about service quality. In Marcucci and Gatta (2007) SP methods and choice-based conjoint analysis were used for passengers‘ evaluation of a transit service in some geographical areas of the Marche (central Italy). These data were used to calibrate a Nested Logit model for considering the differences of the geographical segments, and to calculate an index of service quality. Eboli and Mazzulla (2010a) propose a methodology for capturing the transit passenger‘s point of view by based on discrete choice logit models calibrated by using data collected by a survey in which a Stated Preferences experiment was proposed to a sample of passengers, and some judgements were expressed by them about their transit services, in terms of perceptions and expectations. The methodology is based on the conjoint use of both rating and choice options. More recently, heterogeneity of transit users in perceiving service quality has been investigated through an ML model with a non-parametric distribution of the coefficients (Cirillo et al., forthcoming). The nonparametric distribution allows the asymmetry in user perception heterogeneity to be considered. In dell‘Olio et al. (2010a) a distinction between the quality of service desired and perceived by users of a public transport system is made. The desired quality is different from the perceived quality because it does not represent the daily experiences of the users, but rather what they desire or expect from their public transport system. The authors propose a methodology goes through several stages, such as the use of focus groups to

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choose the most important variables for the users, the design and use of unlabelled stated preferences surveys and the calibration of discrete choice Logit models. The analysis is carried out with different categories of users and potential users. The main results of the research indicate that the public transport variables that users most valued are waiting time, cleanliness and comfort. Variables such as driver kindness, bus occupancy and journey time are generally given less weight. For potential users the more important variables when defining expected quality from public transport are waiting time, journey time and above all, level of occupancy. In addition, dell‘Olio et al. (2010b) propose ordered probit models for evaluate how bus users perceive the quality of their public transport service according to the available information. The study is based on a comparison between an overall evaluation of service quality before and after making passengers reflect on the importance of certain fundamental system variables which they may not have previously considered. The authors show that the perception of quality change with the category of user and that there tends to be more criticism towards variations in overall quality until the users are stimulated into thinking more deeply about other influential variables.

PROSPECTS OF RESEARCH In spite of the importance of both the kinds of service quality measure treated in this research work, in the literature there are few studies in which the measure of service quality is based on both traveller satisfaction and transit performance measures. Examples are reported in Tyrinopoulos and Aifadopoulou (2008), Nathanail (2008), and Eboli and Mazzulla (2010b). Tyrinopoulos and Aifadopoulou (2008) propose a methodology for the quality control of passenger services in the public transport business. Essentially the work provides an overview of the methodology developed by the Hellenic Institute of Transport to assess the levels of quality and performance of public transport services. Here 39 indicators are analysed, classified in the following seven categories: safety-comfort-cleanliness; information-communication with the passengers; accessibility; terminals and stop points performance; lines performance; general elements of the public transport system; compound indicators based on the results of the indicators of the previous categories. Among the compound indicators, a customer satisfaction measure is considered in order to take into account customer perceptions. In fact, the authors suggest using factor analysis and

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multinomial logistic regression for investigating the influence of the operational performance indicators of the transportation system on customer satisfaction. Nathanail (2008) presents a framework developed for assisting railway operators into monitoring and controlling the quality of services provided to their passengers. This framework is based on the estimation of 22 indicators, grouped under six criteria (itinerary accuracy, system safety, cleanness, passenger comfort, servicing, and passenger information). The valuation of the indicators is achieved through the analysis of quantitative, as well as qualitative parameters obtained either from statistical sources maintained by the railway operator, or data gathered from a questionnaire survey addressed to passengers, in which the service quality aspects are judged according to a scale from 1 to 10. In the work both objective indicators and subjective judgments of the passengers are analysed; in order to estimate an overall performance index, the objective and subjective indicators are scaled according to the same scale and combined through a multicriteria analysis. As far as the authors‘ know, there are no studies in which subjective and objective measures of transit performance are jointly analysed and combined in a single output measure. Linking transit riders‘ perspectives to objective disaggregate measures of transit performance is very important in order to allow the agency both to evaluate its service and to define realistic and measurable goals for service improvements (Transportation Research Board, 1999). Clearly, the consideration of passengers‘ perceptions alone can lead to many biases especially when users‘ judgements are too heterogeneous; in addition, subjective measures are based on transit users‘ opinions, while nonusers‘ perceptions are not considered. On the other hand, a specific objective indicator could be not appropriate for evaluating a transit service aspect, or could describe not exhaustively a transit service aspect characterized by various factors. In this perspective, in a work proposed by Eboli and Mazzulla (2010b) an original methodology for measuring transit service quality is introduced. The methodology is based on the use of both passenger perceptions and transit agency performance measures of the main aspects characterizing a transit service. The combination of these two types of measure of service quality is due to the need of providing a measurement tool of the transit performances as reliable as possible. The proposed procedure is applied to a real case study represented by a suburban bus line; a series of subjective and objective indicators are calculated on the basis of users‘ perception about the service and measures provided by the transit agency. The formulation at the

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basis of the procedure entails that when the variance of the objective /subjective indicator is close or equal to 0 the new indicator tends to or coincides just with the objective/subjective indicator.

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CONCLUSION The analysed methodologies provide different service quality measures for evaluating a transit service. The approaches based on users‘ perceptions are based on the use of data collected from CSS. These approaches give the opportunity of investigating on the passenger‘s point of view, who is the actual service user. However, the disadvantages of these approaches are linked to the extreme subjectiveness of users‘ opinions about the services, and to the impossibility of taking into account also the view of people who do not habitually use transit services. For this reason it is very important to consider also more objective measures for evaluating service quality. The objective indicators are calculated on the basis of the information provided by the transit agency offering the analysed bus services and some information collected from data gathering on the field. These approaches have the advantage of giving clearer and less biased information. There are also some disadvantages linked to the difficulty of objectively measuring some aspects which are more qualitative (e.g. comfort, personnel behaviour) and to the risk of using not appropriate ranges of variation for the definition of the LoS. We retain that there is not a method which can provide itself a comprehensive measure of service quality, but interesting remarks could be provided by combining the two kinds of measure analysed in the work. Further researches could be oriented towards a development of service quality measures mixing subjective and objective indicators, which takes into account both passenger perceptions about the service and performance measures.

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Chapter 3

BUILDING A WORLD CLASS TRANSPORT SYSTEM AND COMMUTING AFFORDABILITY FOR POOR WORKERS IN THE NEW TOWNS OF SINGAPORE AND HONG KONG Joseph Cho-Yam Lau* Copyright © 2011. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

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1. INTRODUCTION This paper investigates the dynamic interactions among the social, economic and land-use development factors that influence the accessibility of the poor employed residents of distant new towns in Hong Kong and Singapore, both densely populated former British colonies. The Southeast island city state of Singapore has a population of about 4.8 million, and is 710 square kilometers in size. Singapore gained its independence from Britain in 1965. In the early independence years, it faced a high rate of unemployment, a lack of natural resources and hinterland, and political threats from Malaysia (Lee, 2000). To revive the economy, the People‘s Action Party government adopted a developmental state policy, whereby the government became the dominant force within society to push through socioeconomic and land-use developments that would achieve economic growth *

E-mail address: [email protected]

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and turn Singapore into an Asian financial center. Hong Kong is located in the southern part of China, has a population of approximately 7 million and an area of about 1000 square kilometers. Hong Kong had been a British colony for 155 years before being handed back to China in 1997. Under the agreed policy of ―One country two systems,‖ it became a special administrative region (SAR), now known as the HKSAR, and is to maintain its free enterprise-based economy for at least 50 years from the handover. In spite of the political changes it has undergone since 1997, the HKSAR has managed to maintain its position as one of the world‘s major banking and financial centers. Suburbanization and transport planning were very similar in Hong Kong and Singapore in the early stages of their development. In the 1970s, to address the high population density and traffic congestion in urban areas, both cities implemented a public housing-led new town program to decentralize the population from urban areas to the new towns and built a fast and efficient public transport system to link the new towns with employment locations in the central business districts. In the 1990s, the two cities diverged to a certain extent with regard to land-use development, which had an effect on their new town projects. The Singaporean government maintained a stable political environment that allowed it greater control over land-use development. Suburbanization planning followed the policies it had outlined in Concept Plans, and some new towns were developed into regional centers. In addition, radial and circumferential railway networks were built to link these regional centers (Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority [SURA], 1991). The government thereby transformed a crowded city into a garden city, not only attracting foreign investors and facilitating economic growth, but also improving the living environment in the new towns (SURA, 1991). Hong Kong witnessed a number of radical changes in government policy following its handover to China. In 1997, the government adopted a policy of building 85,000 new residential buildings each year (Hong Kong Information Service Department, 1998). Although this policy was scrapped a few years later, it was in place long enough to create a number of social and commuting problems for some of the remote new towns. For example, between 1999 and 2005, an average of 21% of total housing production in Hong Kong was in Tin Shui Wai, a remote new town. A large number of relatively low-income groups moved into this remote area in a relatively short period of time (Law et al., 2009). This paper investigates the impact of suburbanization and transport provisions on the accessibility of poor workers by focusing on one

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remote new town in each of the cities under research: Tin Shui Wai in Hong Kong and Sengkang in Singapore. The concept of social exclusion is employed to facilitate an understanding of the multiple dimensions of the socio-economic and land-use variables that exclude the poor workers in these two new towns from the labor market. Public transport is the major transport mode in both Singapore and Hong Kong because of their high population densities and mixed land-use development. Public transport services account for 52% and 90% of daily motorized trips in Singapore and Hong Kong, respectively (Hong Kong Transport Department [HKTD], 2003; Singapore Department of Statistics [SDS], 2005a). This study argues that the provision of world-class public transport systems alone is insufficient to address the accessibility problems of the poor employed residents of remote new towns. There are several socioeconomic and land-use variables that urban transport planners must also consider to improve the accessibility of these workers and enhance their quality of life. In Singapore, for example, the high cost of living (e.g., housing, food and transport) results in household budget constraints for many low-income workers, making it difficult for them to afford public transport. In Hong Kong, the high concentration of poverty and inadequate transport mode choice faced by the residents of new towns results in very few business activities in their neighborhoods, high levels of unemployment and the exclusion of employed residents from social network support. The poor workers in both cities display little demand for long-distance commuting even though their governments have built world-class public transport systems (Han, 2010; Hong Kong Transport and Housing Bureau, 2008). The remainder of the paper is structured in the following way. In Section 2, the author discusses new town development and the related public transport provisions in Singapore and Hong Kong. The third section then investigates the concepts of social exclusion and the access barriers to employment for the low-income residents of the two remote new towns under study. These barriers include spatial mismatch, an inadequate number of jobs in the new towns, economic restructuring, and socio-economic and land-use policies. The next section introduces the background of these towns‘ development and presents the results of travel time route tests. The paper then proceeds to a presentation of the results of interviews and a questionnaire survey querying the influence of public transport provisions, spatial mismatch, an inadequate social support network and the high cost of living on the poor in Tin Shui Wai new town in Hong Kong and Sengkang new town in Singapore. The final two sections discuss the study‘s results,

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make recommendations for improvements in accessibility and draw conclusions based on the findings presented herein.

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2. NEW TOWN DEVELOPMENT AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT PROVISIONS In the 1970s, the traffic congestion, numerous dilapidated buildings and increasing population in urban areas led the decision-makers of Singapore and Hong Kong to implement large-scale public housing-led new town programs and to clear the urban slums for economic development. Many of the new towns were developed in suburban areas, and a significant percentage of the urban population relocated to them. Many poor workers chose to move to the new towns because of the high land prices in urban areas. In the early years of the new towns in Hong Kong, many industries moved their factories to mainland China because of its lower production costs, with the result that these towns failed to achieve self-sufficiency, and their employed residents had to travel long distances to the central business districts still located in urban areas (Figure 4). In Singapore, most industry was relocated to the Jurong district in the West Region, and the Central Region was developed into a financial and business center. Residential new towns were developed in the North, North-East and East Regions (Figure 6). Workers in the remote new towns thus had to spend a long time traveling from their homes to their places of employment, and the suburbanization process resulted in a spatial mismatch between jobs and housing. To improve the mobility of workers in the new towns, the governments of both cities built world-class public transport systems to link these towns with employment opportunities in the central business districts (Han, 2010; Hong Kong Transport and Housing Bureau, 2008). In Hong Kong, the government allows the mass transit railway (MTR) operator, the MTR Corporation Ltd., to develop properties above its stations to fund the costs of building the mass railway infrastructure. In Singapore, the government sells land along the mass transit railway network through tenders or auction and then uses the revenue to fund the construction of infrastructure (e.g., tunnels and stations) and rolling stock and operating systems (e.g., trains and signaling systems). Passenger fares then cover the operating costs of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system and public buses (Phang, 2007; Lam and Toan, 2006). Both cities depend on the revenue from land sales and property

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developments along their mass railway networks to build fast and efficient public transport systems.

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3. SOCIAL EXCLUSION AND ACCESS BARRIERS TO EMPLOYMENT Social exclusion is defined as a multi-dimensional process by which social, economic and/or land-use systems create barriers that exclude a person or a group of people from participating fully or partially in their society and achieving a decent standard of living (Stanely and VellaBrodrick, 2009). This definition stresses the process rather than the state, which indicates that urban transport planners should carry out investigations of social exclusion to determine the forces acting to exclude certain individuals or groups (Hodgson and Turner, 2003). This study focuses on the combination, and mutually reinforcing process, of the socio-economic and land-use development factors in Hong Kong and Singapore that have created access barriers for poor workers living in new towns and excluded them from full participation in the labor market during the process of suburbanization. The major factors found to contribute to the social exclusion of these workers include a spatial mismatch between housing and jobs, inadequate job opportunities, a lack of affordable public transport, government policies and economic restructuring.

3.1. Spatial Mismatch The spatial mismatch hypothesis was first developed in the United States, where many cities underwent suburbanization in the 1950s and 1960s, with the result that both high-income workers and jobs moved to suburban areas and low-income workers remained in the inner cities. The latter were thus forced to travel long distances to pursue employment opportunities in the suburban areas (Weber and Sultana, 2008; Kain, 1968). In Hong Kong and Singapore, in contrast, the suburbanization process of the 1970s and 1980s witnessed many low-income workers moving to the new towns, with most professionals and job opportunities remaining in the central business districts. The resulting spatial mismatch between jobs and housing meant that the poor residents of the new towns experienced problems accessing

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employment. For example, in 2007 roughly half (48.9%) of the working residents of Singapore lived in the North, North East and East Regions, whereas the Central Region accounted for about two-thirds of office floor space (SURA, 2007). In Hong Kong, 28.5% of the working population (about 957,000 persons) lived in new towns in 2006, and the workers living in these towns and seeking employment in urban areas accounted for 12% of the total working population. In other words, nearly 42.1% of the employed residents of the new towns had to commute long distances, mainly on public transport, everyday (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department [HKCSD], 2007b). Studies on spatial mismatch indicate that the poor residents of remote new towns are unwilling to look for distant jobs because the commuting costs are too high relative to the wages offered (Weber and Sultana, 2008; Gobillon, Selod and Zenou, 2007). They are more likely than high-income workers to choose employment opportunities close to home. Long-distance work trips are especially difficult for working single parents, who must balance the costs of traveling to and from low-wages jobs with the need to make trips that serve their children and other household needs. Lowincome workers also experience difficulties in finding jobs in distant areas because their weak social networks are insufficient to provide them with job information. New immigrants find it particularly difficult to rely on personal connections to refer them to job opportunities because many of their neighbors are themselves unemployed. Furthermore, current public transport planning in Hong Kong and Singapore focuses on workers commuting from the new towns to locations in the central business areas (e.g., the MTR and MRT networks in Hong Kong and Singapore, respectively, have a radial structure).

3.2. Inadequate Job Opportunities in the New Towns Few of the remote new towns in either city has achieved self-sufficiency, and there is thus an insufficient number of jobs for their residents. The public housing-led new town programs led to large concentrations of low-income households, which has led to a lack of spending power in the new towns, as well as to economic decline and insufficient job opportunities. The ratio of jobs to employed residents (J/ER) (Cervero, 1996) in these towns gives an indication of the imbalance that exists. In 2006, for example, although there were 102,000 employed residents in Tin Shui Wai, only 11,220 of them worked locally, for a J/ER ratio of 0.11 (HKCSD, 2007b, 2007c). This ratio

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indicates that about 90% of Tin Shui Wai‘s employed residents were obliged to seek employment outside the neighborhood, which meant long commutes in terms of both time and distance. A study on the Tampines Regional Center (TRC) in the East Region of Singapore found the majority of employees in the TRC (59.9%) to also live in the East Region. Nevertheless, a relatively large percentage (40.1%) of its workforce had to commute from other regions, with 14.2% of them traveling for more than an hour to reach their places of employment. Thus, similar to the situation in Hong Kong, many of Singapore‘s new towns are unable to provide an adequate number of jobs for their residents (Loo, Lai and Chin, 2001). Those who are unable to spend such a long time commuting, such as single parents, must either find parttime jobs nearby or become unemployed.

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3.3. The Affordability of Public Transport Transport affordability is measured by a household‘s ―ability to make necessary journeys to work, school, health and other social services, and make visits to other family members or urgent other journeys without having to curtail other essential activities‖ (Carruthers et al., 2005, p. 1). Operationally, we can assess poor households‘ ability to afford public transport by the percentage of their monthly household budget that is required to pay for monthly work and school trips (Serebrisky et al., 2009). The Hong Kong and Singaporean governments have attempted to improve the affordability of public transport for low-income commuters by subsidizing the supply side, that is, by funding the public transport infrastructure and subsidizing fares for poor workers. However, some studies have suggested that it would be more effective to subsidize the demand side, that is, by providing monetary assistance to low-income workers, thereby easing their household budget constraints, rendering public transport more affordable and increasing demand for long-distance commutes (Serebrisky et al., 2009; Carruthers et al., 2005). For example, the Singaporean government could boost demand for public transport among the poor by subsidizing food and housing.

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3.4. Economic Restructuring The economic restructuring that has taken place in both Hong Kong and Singapore has led to low incomes for many of the poorly educated and unskilled workers living in their new towns. These incomes are generally insufficient to enable them to afford the public transport fares required to pursue employment opportunities in distant locales. This economic restructuring has witnessed a trend towards professionalization, accompanied by growth in advanced producer services and an associated expansion in the number of professional and managerial elites. The consequence has been the emergence of structural unemployment due to the mismatch between job vacancies and skill levels. Many unskilled and poorly educated workers are trapped in low-wage jobs, and there is a widening gap between their incomes and those of professionals in both Hong Kong and Singapore. Between 1996 and 2006, for example, the Gini coefficient for Hong Kong increased from 0.518 to 0.533, and the average monthly household income decreased from US$2,245 to US$2,210. In the same period, the proportion of ―working poor‖ households (those earning roughly two-thirds of the average household monthly income of US$1,290) increased from 18.2% to 27.9% (HKCSD, 2007a). In Singapore, the Gini coefficient of employed households rose from 0.44 in 2000 to 0.481 in 2008. In the same year, median monthly gross wages were highest for managers (S$6,400 [US$4,700]) and lowest for cleaners and laborers (S$975 [US$717]), meaning the former earned more than six times more than the latter (SDS, 2009b, 2009c).

Figure 1. A Commercial Centre is Developed above MRT Kowloon Station at Tsim Sha Tsui District in Kowloon.

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3.5. Government Policies and Access to Jobs In addition to the aforementioned structural changes to the economy, a number of government land-use and transport policies have also contributed to the poor‘s inability to afford public transport. In Hong Kong, for example, to pursue the aim of optimizing the utilization and financial viability of the railway transport system, government transport planners have suggested concentrating property development along railway lines (HKTD, 1999). As a result, many prime sites with high land values are being developed above MTR stations, particularly in urban areas (Figure 1). Most of the working poor, who cannot afford to rent the private flats located above MTR stations, are obliged to live in less accessible neighborhoods, such as the relatively remote Tin Shui Wai new town, meaning they are unable to afford the daily fares required to access employment, most of which is located in the central business district (Lau, 2010). Studies on the quality of life in Singapore indicate that the high price of consumer goods, including transport, and low incomes are among the aspects of life with which Singaporeans are most dissatisfied (Ibrahim and Chung, 2003; Foo, 2000). The government‘s housing policy is the main factor contributing to the high cost of living. To give every citizen a stake in the country and its future, the government helps Singaporeans to buy their own homes (Lee, 2000). It enforces domestic savings through the Central Provident Fund (CPF), to which low-income employees had to contribute 15% of their wages in 2010 (Singapore CPF Board, 2010). A large proportion of the CPF is used by workers to buy flats built by the Singapore Housing and Development Board (SHDB). In Fernvale Palms, one of the housing estates in Sengkang new town, for example, a family with a monthly household income of S$2,000 [US$1,470] could buy a three-room HDB unit priced at S$145,000 [US$107,000] in 2009, resulting in a monthly mortgage payment of about S$440 [US$323], or 22% of their monthly income. This amount could be paid in full using their monthly CPF contributions (SHDB, 2009). Around 87% of those in the lowest 20% income group owned their HDB flats in 2005, and owner-occupied HDB households accounted for 80% of all households in Singapore in the same year (SDS, 2005b). Accordingly, a great deal of Singaporeans‘ savings and wealth is locked up in their flats, thus reducing their ability to afford public transport. Accordingly, given that a large proportion of their CPF contributions have been used to buy an HDB flat, many of the elderly find that they do not have a sufficient amount left to

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maintain their quality of life upon retirement (Reisman, 2007; Ibrahim and Chung, 2003; Foo, 2000). Singapore also faces a lack of natural resources and the hinterland necessary to provide food and water to its citizens. Thus, most food is imported, and the rising global demand for food has led to rising food costs in Singapore (Singapore Ministry of Finance, 2008). In 2008, poor workers spent more than half (51.8%) of their household incomes on food and housing (SDS, 2009a). Metz (2008) found that average travel times hold constant across populations and over time; in other words, the commuters in a given locale tend to reach their workplaces within an average length of time that remains consistent over time. The implication of this finding is that lowincome workers in distant new towns, who are in any case unable to afford long-distance public transport fares, will tend to seek employment nearby to keep their commuting time constant. The Singaporean government‘s policy for helping low-income workers in the new towns to cope with the rising cost of living focuses on helping them to find a job (Singapore Ministry of Finance, 2008). However, a household expenditure survey carried out in the city state in 2007/08 found that, at 48.2%, housing and food accounted for the largest share of monthly household expenditure. The high cost of living thus constitutes the major access barrier to employment for the poor who are unable to afford long-distance public transport trips to the areas where most job opportunities exist (SDS, 2009a).

4. STUDY METHODS As noted, one distant new town in each of the two cities under study was selected for further investigation of employment accessibility problems: Tin Shui Wai, which is located in the Northwest New Territories of Hong Kong, and Sengkang, which is located in the North-East Region of Singapore. Interviews, a questionnaire survey and a route test were carried out from July to September, 2008 in Tin Shui Wai new town. A team of social workers helped the author to arrange in-depth interviews, 10 of which were conducted successfully, and carry out the survey, which produced 21 completed questionnaires. Ten Singaporeans, seven of them men, were interviewed in Sengkang new town in August and December of 2009, with a route test conducted during the same period. The interviews were held at public transport interchanges and in the shopping complexes next to the public

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transport hubs of the Sengkang town center. All of the interviewees were low-income workers who had been resident in Singapore for many years.

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4.1. Tin Shui Wai New Town in Hong Kong The Hong Kong government first announced plans to build Tin Shui Wai new town in 1987. It intially housed 140,000 people and was constructed on nine square kilometers of reclaimed fishponds and wetlands in the Northwest New Territories (Figure 4). By 2006, it had a population of about 268,000. The government has, over the years, spent a great deal of money on the West Rail and Light Rail projects (Figure 3), with the aim of resolving the spatial mismatch problem by reducing the travel time Tin Shui Wai residents require to reach their workplaces (HKTD, 1999). The poverty and unemployment rates in this new town have recently attracted substantial public concern due to numerous incidents of domestic violence, mental illness and suicide, which have been reported in the media. Some of the literature and official reports suggest that the failure of Hong Kong‘s new towns to achieve selfsufficiency and the spatial mismatch between housing and jobs are the main causes of the poverty and unemployment their residents face (Hong Kong Legislative Council, 2008; Hong Kong Social Welfare Department, 2004). However, as employment has been suburbanized to a certain extent, with more jobs available in the sub-centers of the New Territories, long commutes due to this spatial mismatch cannot be the sole barrier to employment access for the residents of Tin Shui Wai. As noted previously, a high concentration of poverty, inadequate provision of public transport services and social isolation also contribute to unemployment and accessibility issues for these residents. Tin Shui Wai is divided into three districts, Tin Shui Wai South, Tin Shui Wai North and Kingswood Villas. The latter comprises private housing estates, whereas the former two are primarily made up of public house estates. Tin Shui Wai North is the poorest district, with most of its resident members of disadvantaged groups characterized by high levels of divorce and low incomes or new immigrants (Figure 2). In 2006, for example, 55.2% of the residents of Tin Yuet Estate in Tin Shui Wai North earned less than two-thirds of the average monthly income in Hong Kong (that is, most residents earned just HK$6,500 [US$836] per month). Nearly a tenth (8.9%) of the residents of Tin Yuet Estate were new immigrants in 2006, and 16.6% belonged to divorced families. On the Tin Yiu Estate in Tin Shui Wai South,

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more than 41% were low-income workers, and 19.2% belonged to divorced families (Figure 2 ) (HKCSD, 2007a, 2007d). Such poverty restricts residents‘ ability to pursue distant employment opportunities, as even public transport is unaffordable, let alone faster transport modes, such as private cars and taxis.

Source: HKCSD (2007a, 2007d) Figure 2. Distribution of Low-Income, New Immigrant Residents, and Divorced Households in Three Ragions of Tin Shui Wai.

Public transport is vital to allow the residents of Tin Shui Wai to gain access to employment (HKTD, 2003). Due to the government transport policy prioritizing railways, with the exception of the Light Rail (Figure 3), other modes of public transport are restricted from providing local services within Tin Shui Wai (HKTD, 1999). In addition, because public buses are not allowed to compete with the railways, they can only transport Tin Shui Wai residents to locations that the railway networks do not cover. The rail service

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to Tin Shui Wai was augmented by the West Rail Line in 2003. This heavy rail service operates on a 30-km twin-track railway that provides a connection for people commuting between Tin Shui Wai and the urban areas of Hong Kong (Hong Kong Legislative Council, 2007).

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Figure 3. Light Rail in Tin Shui Wai North.

Source: Modified from Hong Kong Lands Department (2007). Figure 4. Isochronal Map to Show Employment Access in Tin Shui Wai, Hong Kong.

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West Rail, whose main shareholder is the government, offers concessionary fares to the residents of remote new towns, with the loss in operating costs covered by property developments above railway stations (Hong Kong Legislative Council, 2007). In 2006, the Light Rail and West Rail accounted for only 31% of work trips from Tin Shui Wai to other districts, whereas public buses accounted for 44.1% of such trips. Less than 2% drove to work (HKCSD, 2007b, 2007c). To improve low-income workers‘ access to job opportunities in other districts, the government provides cross-district transport subsidies for those residing in the remote new towns, including Tin Shui Wai.

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4.2. Travel Time Route Test in Tin Shui Wai As noted, the author carried out a route test to investigate the average amount of time the residents of Tin Shui Wai new town spend traveling to their places of employment, including the time spent walking to the station and that spent transferring between different modes of transport (Figure 4). According to the isochronic measures depicted in this figure, workers in Tin Shui Wai can reach workplaces in the nearby Yuen Long district within the 20-minute contour line and can reach the Tuen Mun and Tsuen Wan employment centers within 40 minutes by rail. Those who are employed in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Kowloon (one of the central business districts of Hong Kong) have about a 60-minute commute, whereas those whose employment is near Admiralty Station on Hong Kong Island or in Shatin new town spend 80 minutes traveling to work. Although rail-based modes are faster than public buses, they result in similar total travel times because of the time railway passengers have to spend on transfers.

4.3. Sengkang New Town in Singapore Sengkang is a relatively new satellite town located in the northeastern part of Singapore. Originally a fishing village, its development into a new town began in 1997, with about 42,570 HDB flats completed by 2009. Sengkang is home to a population of about 161,000 persons, an estimated 53,000 of whom are employed (SDS, 2009d, 2001). In 2000, the average monthly income in Singapore was S$3,114 [US$2284]. Low-income earners, that is, those earning less than two-thirds of that amount, accounted for

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41.5% of the total population of Sengkang that year (SDS, 2001). Based on the affordability index suggested by Carruthers, Dick and Saurkar (2005), the author estimated the percentage of these poorer residents‘ household incomes accounted for by transport costs, assuming 60 trips per month, of which 30 are work trips to the central business district and 30 are school trips to nearby districts. Using the fare tables displayed in MRT stations and a public transport guidebook for Singapore (Mighty Minds, 2009), it was estimated that low-income households that take the bus alone spend about 7% of their monthly household income on work and school trips, whereas those who take the bus and the MRT network spend 9.3%. The 2.3% difference between the two modes represents a significant amount of money for poor households. It is thus concluded that most low-income workers in Sengkang new town will choose to take the bus to work and school rather than the bus and the MRT, a conclusion supported by the results of an earlier study of Singapore‘s new towns (Loo, Lai and Chin, 2001). In 2005, about 52.3% of Singapore‘s workforce commuted to work by public transport, 21% by bus alone and 25.1% by bus and the MRT. Fortyfour percent of workers with a monthly household income of S$8,000 (US$5,870) or more drove to work, compared with just 4.8% of those with a monthly income of less than S$2,000 (US$1,467). The average travel time for those taking public transport was 42 minutes, 38 minutes for those traveling by public bus alone and 51 minutes for those traveling by bus and MRT (SDS, 2005a). As Sengkang is a distant new town, residents who wish to take up highly paid jobs and industrial jobs in the central business district and the West Region, respectively, face a long commute by feeder bus or Light Rapid Transit (LRT) and the MRT network (Figure 5). The MRT North-East line, which opened in 2003, links Sengkang new town to the central business district. In view of Sengkang‘s dispersed housing estates, government transport planners adopted a hub-and-spoke network structure. The MRT is complemented by the LRT system, which operates as a feeder service to carry residents from their homes in various housing estates to the MRT hub station in the town center (Figure 5), where they transfer to a public bus or the MRT to travel to work in the central business district or the Jurong industrial district in the West Region. The advent of the North-East line saw an approximately 13% increase in Sengkang residents‘ level of access to industrial opportunities, although the level remains low among those facing the greatest access barriers (Zhu and Liu, 2004). In an effort to render public transit affordable for the general public, as previously noted, the Singaporean government funds the public transport infrastructure in its

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entirety. In addition, public buses are exempt from the electronic road pricing charges that apply in the central business district (Lam and Toan, 2006). The MRT North-East line, Light Rail and most bus services in Sengkang new town are operated by Singapore Bus Services (SBS) Transit Ltd., a publicly listed company run in accordance with business principles, although the government requires it to provide bus services to commuters within a reasonable walking distance of about 400 meters (Lam and Toan, 2006).

Figure 5. Light Rapid Transit System in Sengkang New Town, Singapore.

4.4. Travel Time Route Test in Sengkang New Town To investigate the accessibility of employment opportunities for the residents of Sengkang new town, the author conducted a route test that included bus, LRT and MRT routes and took into account the time taken to walk to the station and that taken to transfer between modes (Figure 6). According to the isochronic measures shown in Figure 6, these residents can reach workplaces in the nearby Hougang and Serangoon districts and Defu industrial estate within the 20-minute contour. The Seletar, Kallang and Yio Chu Kan districts are a 25-minute commute by rail or bus. Those whose jobs

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are in the Dhoby Ghaut or Kai Bukit industrial estates or in Tampines spend about 30 minutes traveling to work, whereas those employed in the Ang Mo Kio, Queenstown (Red Hill), City Hall or Bedok districts have a commute of between 30 and 45 minutes. Those who obtain industrial jobs in the Jurong industrial district in the West Region will spend more than an hour reaching their places of employment. These route test results are consistent with the findings of other studies on Singapore‘s new towns (Zhu and Liu, 2004; Loo, Lai and Chin, 2001). They also indicate that the MRT North-East Line provides Sengkang residents with a good level of access to such central business districts as Dhoby Ghaut and City Hall, whereas the radial structure of the MRT network hinders its service efficiency. For example, a commuter starting out in Sengkang new town who tries to take the MRT to Bedok new town in the East Region will spend 35 to 40 minutes traveling, including transfers, even though the aerial distance between the two is only about three kilometers. If there were an MRT train that ran in a straight line, then the commute between Sengkang and Bedok would be only about 10 minutes (Figure 6).

Source: modified from Google Map (2010). Figure 6. Isochronal Map to Show Employment Access in Sengkang New Town, Singapore.

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5. INTERVIEW/SURVEY RESULTS IN TIN SHUI WAI AND SENGKANG NEW TOWNS The results of the interviews and surveys carried out in Tin Shui Wai and Sengkang new towns are here divided into four sections: the provision of public transport services, the influence of the spatial mismatch on the accessibility of jobs, the influence of the inadequate social support network on the ability to obtain job information and the influence of the high cost of living on the affordability of public transport. Based on the findings of the investigation reported in the preceding sections of this study, the interviews in Tin Shui Wai focused on public transport policy, unemployment, poverty and an inadequate social network, whereas those in Sengkang focused on the high cost of living and the affordability of public transport.

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5.1. Public Transport Service The interview and survey questionnaire results for Tin Shui Wai reveal that 19.6% of respondents walk to work, 55.7% take a public bus, 17.2% take either the Light Rail or the West Rail, and 7.5% take private coaches. Thus, about 73% of the respondents commute to work by public transport. Of the 31 interviewees/questionnaire respondents in the Tin Shui Wai study, more than 31% work in Tin Shui Wai, and their average travel time is 28.5 minutes; 31% had found employment in nearby new towns and had an average commute of 42 minutes; and nearly 29% had secured employment in urban areas, which it took them 1 hour and 28 minutes, on average, to reach. Many of the respondents said their lack of freedom with regard to the transport mode choice represented one of their most serious employment access barriers, noting that it was unreasonable for the Light Rail to monopolize public transport services in the town. Furthermore, the frequency and capacity of the Light Rail services failed to meet the high level of demand during peak commuting hours, resulting in many passengers being forced to wait in crowded stations. In sum, the interview and survey findings indicate that the poor public transport policies in Tin Shui Wai hinder many poor residents from finding well-paid employment. The interview findings in Sengkang reveal that 80% of the interviewees take public transport to their places of employment, and 20% ride a bicycle or walk. Their average commute is 35 minutes. Most of the interviewees

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(60%) said they require less than 30 minutes to get to work and feel that they have an adequate degree of transport mode choice. They also expressed satisfaction with public transport fares, frequency and speed. The proximity of employment and low incomes appear to be contributing factors to the respondents‘ reported commuting times, which are shorter than the Singaporean average. The implication is that they are reluctant to take up employment opportunities in distant locales because they want to save money on transport, an assumption that is in line with the results of the aforementioned Sengkang route test. Some of the interviewees said that they tended to take buses to work because the fares are cheaper than those for combined bus and MRT trips. In addition, buses provide a door-to-door service, meaning they can walk to work in about 10 minutes after disembarking. The advent of the LRT was reported to have improved interviewees‘ access to employment and provided them with a cheaper and more convenient feeder service. In sum, they felt that Sengkang offered an adequate public transport that facilitated their access to job opportunities.

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5.2. Spatial Mismatch Problems The spatial mismatch between jobs and housing obliges many of the residents of Tin Shui Wai new town to travel long distances on public transport. Most of the interviewees and survey respondents reported that the main employment access barriers they face are transfers in the middle of their work trips, high transport fares and long travel times. Even though the West Rail offers a concessionary monthly pass, passengers have to spend a significant amount of time waiting for trains and transferring between transport modes during peak hours. Public buses provide a denser route network than the West Rail, and bus stations were often reported to be in proximity to respondents‘ workplaces, which indicates that the mismatch between housing and employment prevented some of the respondents from seeking employment within Tin Shui Wai. All of the interviewees in Sengkang new town had chosen low-wage jobs near the neighborhoods in which they resided because they could not afford long-distance transport fares. Some of them said that employers in the central business district would not hire them in any case, as they tended to choose the young and highly educated. The spatial mismatch also hindered some working mothers from pursuing job opportunities in urban areas. For example, one female interviewee, who was mentally handicapped, said that

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she had been unemployed since graduating from middle school. This interviewee reported that there is a lack of social welfare services in Sengkang to offer job training to the mentally handicapped. The lack of adequate public amenities in Sengkang is thus another factor excluding some poor workers from employment.

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5.3. Inadequate Social Networks Of the 31 Tin Shui Wai interviewees/survey respondents, about 62% said they had secured their current job by means of their social network, thus highlighting the importance of such networks in the job search. One respondent reported that when he had become unemployed during the economic downturn in 1997, he received no support from his friends and relatives, as they all still lived in urban areas, and his spatial segregation meant he had lost contact with them. He finally managed to find a job in Tuen Mun to which he commuted by Light Rail. Some of the respondents noted that many of their neighbors are new immigrants from mainland China, some of whom are forced to rely on welfare services and remain unemployed because they have young children to take care of. An inadequate social support network and isolation hinder new immigrants and poor workers from pursuing long-distance employment opportunities. Some of the interview respondents in Sengkang new town said that they rarely have the opportunity to travel long distances to meet friends and relatives in other regions because of their poverty. For example, one unemployed elderly respondent said that he had worked as a hawker in Singapore, but his CPF benefits were inadequate to meet his daily expenses after retirement, as the amount he was able to contribute had been relatively little. To attain a better quality of life, he said he hoped to find a job in a food court in his neighborhood, but had been unsuccessful to date despite trying for a long time. Furthermore, he said he was seldom able to travel to meet friends who might be able to provide job information because he could not afford the fares. Some respondents complained that the government plays a limited role in the direct provision of social security. In sum, Sengkang residents‘ inadequate social support network and poverty contribute to their accessibility problems and hinder them from obtaining information about jobs in distant locations, thereby contributing to unemployment.

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5.4 High Cost of Living and Affordability of Public Transport The poverty of most residents in Tin Shui Wai new town results in a low level of spending in the commercial and retail businesses that exit there. Many of these businesses are unable to realize a profit because of the poor demand for consumer goods. As a result, some retail shops have raised their prices, which were found to be significantly higher than those in other districts, prompting many residents to travel to other districts to buy basic consumer goods such as food. However, few of the respondents expressed the view that the cost of living in Tin Shui Wai was a major factor in their ability to afford public transport. Many essential goods, such as food and water, are imported to Hong Kong from the mainland and are low in price. In fact, the author‘s lunches in Tin Shui Wai cost half as much as comparable meals in Sengkang. All of the interviewees in Sengkang new town reported household budget constraints that made it difficult for them to meet their families‘ basic needs. For example, one female respondent who said she earns S$1,600 (US$1,175) per month as a supervisor of cleaning staff has to contribute 12% (about S$200 [US$147]) of her income to the CPF. She spends S$72 on buses to and from work and S$260 on lunches, which leaves her with only S$1,068 per month for her child‘s education, food, medical expenses, the mortgage payment and all other basic household needs. Her income is clearly insufficient to cover all of these expenses without cutting certain expenditures. The result is that she has tended to seek nearby jobs to save on transport expenses. Some of the respondents said that many low-income workers, who also tend to have low levels of education, earn less than S$1,000 per month, which is only about one-third of the average monthly income in Singapore. One of the respondents said she felt medical costs in Singapore were too high for low-income workers. In the case of a serious illness that required hospitalization, the costs were so high that they would not be covered by CPF benefits. All of the interviewees also mentioned the high cost of food in Singapore because of the lack of a hinterland for agricultural production. Lunches are particularly expensive for low-income workers, they reported. Thus, the high cost of living in terms of housing, food and medical expenses constitutes a heavy financial burden for many of the low-income employed residents of Sengkang new town in Singapore, thus seriously weakening their ability to pay for long-distance travel.

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6. DISCUSSION The results of the route tests, questionnaire survey and interviews all confirm that the accessibility of poor workers in the remote new towns of Hong Kong and Singapore are influenced by the dynamic interactions among social, economic and land-use development factors. They also support the author‘s argument that a world-class public transport system alone cannot ensure the accessibility of employment for low-income workers. For example, such social factors as a high concentration of poverty, a lack of transport mode choices and social isolation were found to have a negative influence on Tin Shui Wai residents‘ access to employment. In Sengkang new town, the main factor dampening demand for long-distance travel among low-income resident is the high cost of living. It is recommended that the governments of both Hong Kong and Singapore consider implementing policy changes that would improve access to employment opportunities for the workers of Sengkang and Tin Shui Wai. For example, although both governments subsidize their efficient and effective public transport systems to make transport more affordable for the poorest members of society, those subsidies are aimed at operations and infrastructure and are thus insufficiently pro-poor. Government policymakers should change their focus from the supply to the demand side by increasing poor workers‘ demand for public transport through direct subsidies. In Singapore, for example, the government could subsidize lowincome workers‘ ownership of their HDB flats by reducing their mandatory CPF contributions, thereby enabling those who reside in remote new towns to afford long-distance transport fares. In Hong Kong, the government could implement a minimum wage to ensure that poor workers earn an income that is adequate to meet their basic needs, including public transport. The interview results indicate that many low-income workers in Tin Shui Wai and Sengkang new towns benefit little from the two cities‘ world-class public transport systems. Most said they were unable to afford the fares because of the negative influence of social and economic variables. For example, the high concentration of poverty in Tin Shui Wai, which resulted from rapid suburbanization, has given rise to economic decline and a high rate of unemployment. In fact, the same phenomena were seen previously in the older new towns, such as Tuen Mun and Yuen Long, and yet the government repeated its mistakes in Tin Shui Wai. The results of this study suggest that the government should pay closer attention to the problems inherent in high concentrations of poverty, which result from resettling a

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large number of low-income households in the same area, in future new town planning. Finally, the results of this study indicate that the government decisionmakers of both cities seldom provide the residents or stakeholders of remote new towns with opportunities to air their views on new town policies during the policy-formulating stages. For example, the Hong Kong government has refused to make any adjustments to its policy of allowing the Light Rail to monopolize public transport services in Tin Shui Wai despite receiving numerous complaints from residents and legislators. Similarly, many studies and government reports have indicated that the high cost of living in Singapore weakens the ability of poor workers to afford public transport, but the government has taken no active measures to ease their burden. Clearly, poor workers‘ quality of life is not the top priority for either government when it comes to transport and land-use policies. Access to employment is an essential ingredient in the poor‘s ability to maintain a decent standard of living, and it is thus important that both governments provide the poor with opportunities to participate in land-use, social and transport policy formulations.

CONCLUSION Unlike the suburbanization of cities in the United States, which was initiated by the middle class and wealthy moving away from the inner cities, suburbanization in Hong Kong and Singapore was mainly governmentinitiated with the aim of decentralizing the population and freeing up land in urban areas for economic and property development. This has meant that new town planning has been entirely in the hands of government decision-makers who have formulated the policies that have guided everything from population structures and public amenities to transport provisions and the quality of public housing flats. These policies directly affect the accessibility of poor workers in the new towns. The Singaporean and Hong Kong governments have resettled the low-income population in remote new towns, such as Sengkang and Tin Shui Wai, which boast large flats, a green living environment and links to employment opportunities via an efficient public transport system, but a good physical environment and good public transport alone are insufficient to allow the poor residents of these towns to achieve employment and sustain a good quality of life. As the results of this study have shown, low-income workers in Tin Shui Wai are hindered by a number

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of accessibility problems, such as a lack of sufficient transport mode choice, an inadequate social support network for obtaining information on jobs opportunities in distant locales, and the inability to afford the public transport fares required for long-distance work trips. As a result, many of them are excluded from the labor market and depend on social security. These accessibility problems can in fact be partly attributed to the government‘s suburbanization policies, which prioritize property development in urban areas over poor workers‘ quality of life. In Singapore, nearly all of the new towns feature a green and pleasant environment, but the author observed few low-income residents appearing to find happiness in that environment. Instead, these residents, including those in Sengkang new town, worry about being able to meet their daily expenses, including public transport. In addition, some of the interviewees who were above the age of 60 reported that they still have to work hard because most of their CPF contributions had been allocated to buying their flats, leaving them insufficient funds to support themselves after retirement. The Singaporean government should consider taking an active role in social security provision, perhaps by providing direct subsidies to help the poor to buy homes and food, thereby leaving them with adequate income to spend commuting to work. Both Hong Kong and Singapore have become global financial and business hubs, and neither faces the political and even survival threats they experienced in the 1950s. It is thus time that their decision-makers place economic growth and new town poor workers‘ accessibility on an equal footing as far as urban transport and suburbanization policy formulations are concerned.

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Han, S.S. (2010), Managing motorization in sustainable transport planning: the Singapore experience, Journal of Transport Geography, 18, pp.314321. Hodgson, F.C. and Turner, J. (2003), Participation not consumption: the need for new participatory practices to address transport and social exclusion, Transport Policy, 10, pp.265-272. Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department (2007a), 2006 Population ByCensus: Thematic Report on Household Income Distribution in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department (2007b), 2006 Population ByCensus- Summary Results, Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department (2007c), Hong Kong 2006 Population By-Census: Main Tables, Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department (2007d), Basic Tables for Constituency Areas: New Territories, pp.243-259, Hong Kong Government Hong Kong Information Service Department (1998), Hong Kong Annual Report 1998, Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Lands Department (2007), Map of Hong Kong Special Administration Region, HM200CL series, Edition 29, Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Legislative Council (2007), Official Record of Proceedings: Rail Merger Bill, page 7727, 6th June, Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Legislative Council (2008), Progress Report on the Government‘s Efforts in Strengthening Support for Tin Shui Wai, LC paper No. CB (2)721/07-08(3), Hong Kong. Hong Kong Social Welfare Department (2004), Report of Review Panel on Family Service in Tin Shui Wai, Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Transport and Housing Bureau (2008), Highway and Railway Network of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Transport Department (1999), Third Comprehensive Transport Study: Technical Report – Appendices Volume 1, Wilbur Smith Associates Limited, Hong Kong Government. Hong Kong Transport Department (2003), Travel Characteristics Survey 2002: Final Report, Hong Kong SAR. Ibrahim, M.F. and Chung, S.W. (2003), Quality of life of residents living near industrial estates in Singapore, Social Indicator Research, 61, pp.203-225.

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Kain J.F. (1968), Housing segregation, Negro employment, and metropolitan decentralization, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 82, pp.175-197. Lam, S.H. and Toan, T.D. (2006), Land transport policy and public transport in Singapore, Transportation, 33, pp.171-188. Lau, J.C.Y. (2010), The influence of suburbanization on the access to employment of workers in the new towns: A case study of Tin Shui Wai, Hong Kong, Habitat International, 34, pp.38–45 Law, C.K., Wong, Y.C., Chui, E., Lee, K.M., Pong, Y.Y., Yu, R. and Lee, V. (2009), A Study on Tin Shui Wai New Town, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Lee, K.Y. (2000), From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 19652000, New York: Harper Collins Publisher. Loo, L.S., Lai C. M., Chin K. H. L. (2001), Integrating land use and transport planning to reduce work-related travel: a case study of Tampines Regional Centre in Singapore, Habitat International, 25 , pp.399-414. Metz D. (2008), The myth of travel time saving, Transport Reviews, 28(3), pp.321-336. Mighty Minds (2009) Singapore Bus Guide and Bus Stop Directory-with MRT/LRT Maps and Fares, Singapore. Phang, S.Y. (2007), Urban rail transit PPPs: survey and risk assessment of recent strategies, Transport Policy, 14, pp.214-231. Reisman, D. (2007), Housing and superannuation: social security in Singapore, International Journal of Social Economics, 34 (3), pp. 159187. Serebrisky, T., Gŏmez-Lobo, A., Estupiňăn, N., and Munňoz-Raskin, R. (2009) Affordability and subsidies in public urban transport: what do we mean, what can be done? Transport Reviews, 29, pp.715-739. Singapore Central Provident Fund Board (2010), CPF Contribution Calculator for Singapore Citizen, Singapore Government Press. Singapore Department of Statistics (2001), Singapore Census of Population 2000: Statistical Release 4: Geographic Distribution and Travel-Resident Working Persons-Table 15, Singapore Government. Singapore Department of Statistics (2005a) General Household Survey 2005Statistical Release 2: Transport, Overseas Travel, Households and Household Characteristics, Singapore Government. Singapore Department of Statistics (2005b), Home Ownership and Equity of HDB Households 2003, Singapore Government. Singapore Department of Statistics (2009a), Report on the Household Expenditure Survey, 2007-2008, Singapore Government.

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Singapore Department of Statistics (2009b) Year Book of Statistics Singapore 2009, Singapore: Singapore Government Press. Singapore Department of Statistics (2009c) Key Household Income Trends: 2008, Singapore Government. Singapore Department of Statistics (2009d), Geographic distribution of the Singapore resident population, Singapore Government. Singapore Housing and Development Board (2009), HDB Launches 2 New Build-to-Order Projects in Sengkang and Jurong West, Press Release, 16th October, Singapore Government. Singapore Ministry of Finance (2008), Budget Statement 2008, Creating a Top Quality Economy, Building a Resilient Community, Singapore Government. Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority (1991) Living the Next Lap: Towards a Tropical City of Excellence, Singapore Government. Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority (2007), URA To Temporarily Disallow Conversion of Office Use in the Central Area to Other Uses, News Releases, May 21, Singapore Government. Stanely, J and Vella-Brodrick, D. (2009), The usefulness of social exclusion to inform social policy in transport, Transport Policy, 16, pp.90-95. Weber J. and Sultana, S. (2008), Employment sprawl, race and the journey to work in Birmingham, Alabama, Southeastern Geographer, 48(1), pp.5374. Zhu, X. and Liu, S. (2004) Analysis of the impact of the MRT system on accessibility in Singapore using an integrated GIS tool, Journal of Transport Geography, 12, pp.89-101.

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Chapter 4

URBAN STRUCTURE AND TRANSPORT María Jesús González González1 and Francisco Javier Gutierrez González2 1

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Department of Geography and Geology, University of León (Spain) 2 Architect, Spain

ABSTRACT When analysing the sustainability of an urban area, it is essential to know what relationship there is between the city and transport, as the latter is a determining factor in local sustainability. Transport overcomes the physical barrier of distance in a city, and this is its main function…Transport should be taken into account from the earliest stages of designing new urban developments, as well as the compactness and rationality of the location of uses.

Keywords: urban structure, transport, sustainable.

INTRODUCTION The aim is to reflect on the sustainable mobility-urbanism binomial. On mobility factors such as the economical, environmental or social ones. On strategies for integrating urban planning and mobility policies in order to

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achieve greater social cohesion and improve the quality of life as well as to obtain a more sustainable and balanced model of urban development. The non-consideration of the mobility-urbanism binomial in urban policies over the last few years in our cities has produced a fragmentary and fragmented vision of them and this has meant the end of considering the city as a whole, in many cases converting the General Programmes of Urban Planning into documents of very limited intentions as regards ―building a city‖ (Ascher, 2004). Urban planning is sometimes no more than a mere system for checking the load capacity of territories and for land owners to take over rights and duties; at times the only purpose is to guarantee greater ease of management for the different interests at stake (Vegara and Rivas, 2004). For example, in Spain with the change in State legislation, Ley de Suelo 8/2007 (Land Law), and the introduction of a strong correction factor in the construction sector due to the change in the economic situation, it seems that this culture is beginning to change, demonstrating that land is a limited, nonrenewable resource which must be used in a responsible way (AGE, 2006). In this situation, many voices have been raised to report the pernicious effects of the ―brutal developmentalism‖ that we have suffered in our country over the last few years, (particularly in coastal regions and large cities), and above all of the fragmented, disperse model with low planning density used by many of our planners, who have moved away from the urban culture of ―Mediterranean compactness‖ which our cities have made such good use of until well into the 20th century. One of the pernicious effects of this process is that mobility, the needs of urban public transport, has not been taken into consideration when designing these new developments, which on many occasions are ―unsustainable‖ from this viewpoint, or barely integrated into the urban network on others, and always lacking in density and conditions which would allow appropriate accessibility for public transport at a reasonable price (Ruano, 2000). Another effect of this process is that public transport funding in our cities is battling against the ever more unequal potential of private vehicles, producing more and more urban congestion in many cases. Therefore, the importance of ―integrating‖ ―mobility‖ into urban planning must be underlined from the moment the General Plans are drafted. It is necessary to advance and determine appropriate integration of mobility and urban planning policies capable of halting increasing dependence on private vehicles, encouraging the use of public transport and avoiding loss of urban spaces, in order to get back to citizens ―meeting‖ as occurred in

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traditional public spaces in cities, and the energy saving that prevents negative effects on the environment, the economy and society as a whole.

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1. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRANSPORT AND THE CITY When analysing the sustainability of an urban area, it is essential to know what relationship there is between the city and transport, as the latter is a determining factor in local sustainability. Transport overcomes the physical barrier of distance in a city, and this is its main function. Different factors affect this relationship. The first is based on the concept of congruence put forward by Offner (1992), which refers to coherence between territorial dynamics and transport. Economic and social growth is not possible if political powers do not develop infrastructures adequately. This relationship is reciprocal as infrastructures serve no purpose in areas where there is no possibility of or desire for financial investment in promoting social development. Another factor to consider is the time dimension of relationships between social agents and the transport system. According to Miralles (2001), there are three dimensions: Durée: this refers to actions carried out on the system that citizens notice immediately. Dasein: this is a period of time corresponding to a life cycle and refers to transformations that occur as a result of changes in habits, customs and procedures. Longue Durée: this is a time dimension that lasts for generations and refers to standard behaviour. It refers to political decisions concerning infrastructure that last for generations because of their cost and social and economic impact. The time dimension of the relationship between transport and the city is vital, particularly when making political decisions that affect the daily lives of citizens and the economic development of the city, which, in turn, are influenced by cultural changes and changes in citizens‘ habits. There is also a spatial dimension to the relationship between transport and the city, which is more evident than the previous one as it is implicit in

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the definition of transport as a means of overcoming disintegration occurring in the city. In this respect, transport should be used to reduce the importance of distance within the city and to link different functional areas such as work, housing or leisure. It is also a way of overcoming social and territorial inequality inherent to the system (Vittadini, 1991a). Thus, an adequate territorial policy that develops affordable means of transport for all citizens, which are efficient because they provide access to all functional spaces in a city without any area being privileged or deprived results in all citizens being equal, providing them with better access to their places of work or to the services offered by the city (González González, 2000). Finally, when analysing the relationship between the city and transport, it is necessary to mention the social dimension. In order to classify different actions concerning infrastructure coherently, we must not forget that they are developed within a context and are the result of the influence of different social agents produced at a specific time in a specific place. The development of transport policies is influenced on three levels; the economic one, which in our case adheres to the principles of capitalist production; political power which is responsible for drawing up laws and regulations that govern different social actions, and which must take one of the basic principles, sustainable growth and the welfare state (Campos Venuti, 1983), into account. These laws must guarantee growth within limits to ensure resources for future generations, always based on the principle of equal opportunities for everyone. Another level closely linked to the previous two is civil society, which encompasses different social and cultural relationships. The non-consideration of the mobility-urbanism binomial in urban policies over the last few years in our cities has produced a fragmented vision of them and this has meant the end of considering the city as a whole, in many cases converting the General Programmes of Urban Planning into documents of very limited intentions as regards ―building a city‖. Very often, urban planning is no more than a mere system of sounding territories, the only aim of which on occasions is to guarantee easier management. For example, in Spain with the change in State legislation, Ley de Suelo 8/2007 (Land Law), and the introduction of a strong correction factor in the construction sector due to the change in the economic situation, it seems that the indiscriminate culture we have suffered in our country in recent years is beginning to change, above all the fragmented, disperse model with low planning density used by many of our planners, managers and those in public office as well as private agents who have moved away from the urban culture

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of compactness that our cities have made such good use of, highlighting that land is a non-renewable resource to be used in a responsible way.

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2. THE CONCEPT OF URBAN MOBILITY Daily mobility is defined as the total number of individual journeys. The relationship between mobility and urban sustainability lies in what motivates citizens to move around the city, current preferences for chosen means of transport, reasons for choosing a particular mode of transport, as well as an analysis of the types of journeys made by citizens in the city, indicating where these journeys start and end. It indicates the predominant type of transport in the city, what distances it aims to cut, thus shedding light on why these journeys are made, and also movement flows in the city. These questions lead us to wonder what kind of city is the ideal for transport to be sustainable, and what is the most suitable type transport to cater for citizens‘ needs without harming the environment. The different factors influencing urban mobility and thus urban sustainability need to be explained. The layout of activities and services in modern urban spaces is characterised by the differentiated and fragmented location of urban functions and consequently by the spatial and temporal separation between different daily activities. Mobility enables activities located in urban territory to be used differently and thus determines citizens‘ lives and contributes to organizing the structure of a city. It also causes inequality because not everybody has access to means of transport, or to a wider range of human activities. Within this context, transport policies are a key tool for social insertion or, on the other hand, exclusion (Coutras, 1996). As stated by Vittadini (1991a), transport policies directed towards organizing mobility must be adapted to the most diverse individual characteristics: income, age, intellectual capacity, gender, etc..., but also to different spatial and temporal rhythms in the city. A high possibility of movement guarantees the functional and productive efficacy of the urban territorial mechanism. It is known as the mobilityurbanism binomy, where urban structure and mobility are inseparable dimensions of the city, one defined in space and the other in time. The main aim of public urban transport is to provide the city with the means to cater for citizens‘ needs with regard to access to work, services and business. Public transport must be of the highest possible quality, with

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services running frequently enough to ensure continuity, with a complex structure that reaches all parts of the city so that there are no isolated nuclei. The importance of achieving a good public transport system is based mainly on environmental awareness, which has started to become evident in recent decades, promoting sustainable growth. The main problems faced by the public transport system in cities are:

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Overlapping lines. Services not running frequently enough, varying between 20-40 minutes, and up to one hour on many lines. The system sometimes has a radial configuration and is affected by congestion problems. Little consideration is given to certain neighbourhoods and connections in the system are bad. Excessive travelling times because the routes are not direct. A better public transport service would not only produce a higher number of journeys than in private vehicles, it would also channel trips that do not currently exist: induced journeys that could account for between 10 and 15% of those made on public transport (Hanson and Mei-Po, 2008). The following measures would have to be applied to achieve a more efficient public transport system: More frequent routes to more areas. Elimination of unnecessary rings, and a study of where stops should be located. Improving aspects of regulations in bus termini. Increasing the network of platforms exclusive to buses, and preference at crossroad traffic lights. The creation of special shuttles (e.g. park and ride facilities, bus termini and train stations), etc. All aspects of collective urban transport can be improved to encourage people to use it more often.

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3. TRANSPORT ENERGY CONSUMPTION In the European Union, the average amount of energy used in transport was around 32.10% in 2005, which is 18% less than in our country. Over 65% of imported oil is consumed by transport, more than 37 million tonnes, which is the equivalent to the total millions of tonnes of petrol and diesel oil used in 2007 (COM, 2007). Different studies compare energy consumption and the pollluting effect. It is accepted that a mean of 2.5 kg CO2 is emitted per litre of unused diesel. These data should be analysed bearing in mind that Spain does not comply with the Kyoto Protocol against climatic change by a total of 101 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. To be precise, the quota permitted for Spain in 2007 was just over 170 millions of tonnes of emissions, and Spain exceeded this figure by 101 million tonnes. Whereas France, Sweden Germany and the United Kingdom have positive values, other member countries have more or less negative ones. Spain has some of the worst results. The countries with the best results have strong policies on sustainable mobility (OECD, 2002). Transport also causes pollution in cities. Traffic emissions, apart from harming the climate, have a particularly bad effect on people‘s health. The figures for consumption shown in table 1 refer to energy usage by each person per kilometre per journey in the city. Table 1. Modes of transport and energy usage in cities (millions of jouls/person/km) 2005 Mode

Production/vehicle

Fuel

Total

Bicycle

0.5

0.3

0.8

Tram

0.7

1.4

2.1

Bus

0.7

2.1

2.8

Suburban trains

0.9

1.9

2.8

Petrol-fuelled car

1.4

3.0

4.4

Diesel-fuelled car

1.4

3.3

4.7

SOURCE: UITP .International Association of Public Transport.

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With regard to the absence of polluting emissions, it should be taken into account that trams do not consume fossil fuels and therefore do not cause direct pollution, and that new technologies and fuels make buses a much more sustainable means of transport than cars. In the same way, the improvement in atmospheric quality in urban areas where a platform reserved for public transport has been introduced is noteworthy, if we consider that a tram is the equivalent of 3 or 4 buses, which in turn are equivalent to 10 or 20 cars. So, travelling by bus contributes to reducing gases that cause the greenhouse effect and air pollution (Guerrero García, 2002). We need to use energy more efficiently as far as transport is concerned, opting for cleaner modes and public transport, thus reducing our dependency on energy, and polluting emissions. Nevertheless, we can see how, although reserved platforms for public transport exist, badly designed thoroughfares can prevent the desired effects from being achieved.

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4. A NEW MODEL OF INTEGRATED PUBLIC TRANSPORT Road safety can be improved and a large number of accidents prevented by fomenting public transport given that it is between 10 and 20 times safer per km and passenger than a private vehicle. Bus lanes and especially trams with reserved platforms are measures that would enable public spaces to be better used as 180 cars are equivalent to one tram. Also, energy consumption per passenger is reduced (to noticeably less than a bus, and infinitely less than a private vehicle). Not only does public transport have a direct impact on improving mobility, it also foments economic development (Ascher, 2.004) because it reduces the cost of hours of production lost through traffic congestion and participates in promoting the modern city by providing better and faster access to all its services. It also largely contributes to reducing pollution, noise, traffic congestion and makes the car less of a necessity, the result being a city that offers its inhabitants a better quality of life (Bergmann, 2008). In cities where trams are in use, for example in Spain, France, Germany, Ireland and Italy, almost 50% of the passengers had never used public transport before, including buses (U.I.T.P., 2007).

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It is therefore necessary to improve mobility and provide a new joint strategy for mobility and urban planning (Canzler and Kaufmann, 2008), as it is evident that our needs for urban and interurban mobility are increasing. Urban design in consolidated cities and new developments must be oriented towards the following objectives:

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1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

Avoiding accidents: Improving road safety. Making better use of urban space. Quality public spaces. Improving mobility. Opting for public transport. Saving energy: Moving together is more efficient: cheaper. Improving mobility to increase the number of users.

There are cities in Europe (particularly Germany, France and Italy) and other continents where buses, trams, bicycles and pedestrians coexist, even in the old part. In this case, cars become a residual factor, not a dominating one (Hanson. and Mei-Po, 2008). One of the most important aspects of cities today with regard to mobility is that it affects road safety, that is, the safety of people on thoroughfares (INFRAS/IWW, 2004). More than half of accident victims in urban areas are pedestrians and cyclists and there is a direct relationship between the number of motorised journeys and victims. Thus, noticeably fewer accidents occur in cities where public transport is more commonly used, which is 10 to 20 times safer than travelling by car. These aspects cannot be overlooked when considering current urban design, as the safety of our citizens, especially the elderly and children, needs to be improved (INFRAS/IWW, 2004). A good parking policy must be implemented. This is essential to the successful management of mobility. The concentration of a large number of spaces for rotation parking in the city centre is inappropriate because it causes congestion in adjacent systems that cannot take on the increased volume of traffic produced by the new infrastructure. Creating more parking spaces than the existing system can support simply causes further congestion. A combination of measures, always giving priority to residential parking, with either public or private underground rotation parking, will increase the capacity of roads as more space is made available at ground level, and fewer rotation parking spaces are needed on roads. All of these measures are necessary to provide cities with a good supply of public transport. This can

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be achieved mainly with greater "speed" and "reliability", (Saleh and Sammer, 2009). One factor that has a decisive effect on improving speed and reliability in public transport is the creation of reserved platforms, or spaces for these, on urban roads. Good connections between modes of transport such as buses, trams and bicycles, or accessible pedestrian routes, taking centres of business, leisure, work, and basic services for the population into account, is essential. In this respect, the quality of the service improves if users have adequate multimodal information before setting out on a journey (pamphlets, information offices, etc), during the journey (real time information at stops) and after the journey (customer service). Public transport can be considered a tool of social cohesion and accessibility for everyone only as long as people with reduced mobility are catered for (Ingold and Vergunst, 2008). A good public transport system, besides being rapid, reliable and frequent, should also cater for mobility demands, accessing centres of leisure, business, work and basic services such as education and health, and of course, important transport infrastructure including airports and high speedy railway lines. A well-integrated public transport system will undoubtedly contribute to the economic and social development of the city. There is not a single city with a good level of business, tourism and leisure that does not have an important and efficient public transport system, bringing it wealth and ―urban intelligence‖ (Vegara and de las Rivas, 2004). Nevertheless, we face two different situations when deciding on a method for urban design that will favour sustainable mobility in our cities. We must consider that the strategy followed in a consolidated city cannot always be applied to new developments as pre-existing aspects can seriously affect the proposals to be adopted. One of the harmful effects of this process is that mobility and the requirements of public urban transport have not been taken into consideration when designing new developments, which on many occasions are ―unsustainable‖ from this perspective, hardly integrated in the urban network on others, and always lacking sufficient density and conditions to be accessed by public transport at a reasonable cost (Vittadini, 1991b). Another effect of this process is that as a result of what has previously been stated, funding public transport in our cities is fighting a losing battle against the potential of private vehicles and the urban congestion that they cause.

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5. MOBILITY AND THE ECONOMIC FACTOR The economic factor is therefore a great impediment when extending policies to support public transport. In the case of Spain, as well as causes in common with other countries, is compounded by the financial weakness of local administration, which is usually responsible for paying the cost of public transport in cities via contracts for providing services or granting public works, when large investments are made in new infrastructure such as light metro rail systems, urban trams, guided buses or buses with platforms. Funding the construction and operation of public transport is generally based on a combination of:

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ticket sales other commercial income (publicity, renting out premises, etc.) specific compensation for reduced price tickets and social/regional obligations; any other type of remuneration requested from public organisms to reach the required levels of service, generally by investment in state infrastructure, or by granting consortiums of transportation management. Generally, income from ticket sales does not cover the funding (and much less, investment in) of public transport. The cost of public transport covered by ticket sales can vary considerably depending on the situation. The same can be said of expenses charged to operating companies which, for example, depend on whether the operating company is the owner of the infrastructure or not, how it deals with depreciation, assignation of financial costs, or whether a charge is made for using property (for example, bus stations). Thus, the need for and method of public financing varies considerably, medium-sized and small cities being most dependent on the support of institutions. The fact that external financial help must be obtained to cover the difference between income from ticket sales and operating costs does not mean that the company is not efficient or viable, it is simply reflects that the levels of services and tariffs have been established taking into account a policy with specific objectives. So, financing offered to public transport by governments, local authorities and other organisms, including the private

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sector depends on economic, social and environmental aspects (Ohnmacht, 2009). Possible alternatives to direct financing by users can be subdivided into three main sections: The polluter pays principle. The German model: those who cause an environmental problem must offer the community compensation to cover the cost. This compensation can then be used to finance alternative less polluting forms of transport. For example, income from the special tax imposed on petroleum products ("Mineralölsteuer") is used to finance public transport, or eco-taxes on the use and ownership of vehicles and parking tariffs (if used to finance public transport). The German line of action directly taxes fuel consumption. Beneficiaries pay: those who benefit from a service contribute to paying for it. For example, businessmen and retailers benefit from public transport services which enable them to access wider labour and retail markets. The French transport tax ("Versement Transport") is applied to businesses with more than nine employees. They have to contribute to investment and operation costs in public transport (in the Paris area, they also reimburse their employees with half of the cost of a season ticket on public transport). The French government, by introducing the tax on transport (―Versement Transport (VT)) passed on the responsibility of collecting payment for transport (VT) to the authorities organising urban transport in provinces with over 300,000 inhabitants (law 73-640 of 11th July, 1973), then reducing the minimum population to 10,000 inhabitants (Law 2000-1208 of 13th December, 2000). VT correlates in general terms with the concept of urban transport perimeters and the authority responsible for organising urban transport. It is applied to public or private natural persons or legal entities, except for recognised non-profit-making foundations and associations, involved in activities of a social nature and having more than 9 employees. The taxable base used to calculate the VT is the total of remunerations subject to national insurance contributions. One exception to this are funds for disabled employees which are nontaxable. The authority responsible for organising transport can reimburse company owners who demonstrate that they guarantee permanent lodgings in the area where their employees work or that

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they pay the entire cost of transport of their entire workforce (Bonnet and Desieux, 2000). In the case of France, the Constitutional Council decided that payment of transport was a tax, which could also be applied in our country. In France it is the responsibility of the URSSAF (the union responsible for collecting social security and family allowance contributions). In Spain, it could be the responsibility of the Treasury department of the Social Security, which could transfer funds to municipalities and organisms and authorities in charge of supra-municipal transport. It could also be applied to companies with more than 9 employees that may have to contribute to funding public transport, in villages and/or municipalities, and also supra-municipal organisations for the management of transport, authorised by the corresponding autonomous region, with more than 20,000 inhabitants. Non-profit- making foundations and associations which perform a service to the public and society would be exempt from paying this tax. Public administrations would have to pay the corresponding amount, under the same conditions as private enterprises. However, special compensation rules could be implemented for those involved. All countries tend to have their own subsidies and specific funds. In practise, public transport can be financed by a combination of mechanisms. Likewise, it may only be possible to "make good use of" advantages for third parties via tax measures (as is the case of the "Versement Transport"). Road tariff plans could include as many elements of the "Polluters pay" principle as the ―Beneficiaries pay" principle. Vehicles that cause congestion problems pay a tax for using roads. The also benefit from using less congested roads. Income from road taxes could be a growing source of income for funding transport. They also have the advantage of ―encouraging‖ people to use public transport more often, thus increasing income through ticket sales. A clear example of a city that has opted for this system is London. The use of cross-subsidies from other sectors to support public transport is not as common as it used to be (except for Germany). They mainly come from internal transfer of profits obtained in other public services such as electricity, gas and water, in places where only one Urban Public Services organism (Stadwerke) exists, which is responsible for running these services, as well as public transport. However, cross-subsidies are frequent within public transport networks. In fact, they could be fundamental to maintaining an integrated system. Income from taxes and ―commercial‖ cross-subsidies

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are essential parts of the public transport system, and of the functioning of many important industries. Public transport operators should be able to maintain their activities and benefit from other profitable ones such as tourist transport, publicity, real estate, etc. Contributions made by businesses can included the "Versement Transport", contributing to the payment of employees‘ season tickets (in France, Belgium and other places) and the development of plans for sustainable tourism, in which companies also sponsor aspects such as improving services, publicity campaigns and greater access to public transport. Financial help from the private sector can mostly likely be obtained in exchange for another service, for example, publicity at stops or services, or by extending a route to go to business premises or a retailer‘s establishment. In other words, energy must be used more efficiently in transport, opting for cleaner modes of travelling and for public transport, thus reducing our dependence on energy in this country, and also pollution emissions (EEC, 1992,1993, 2001). The following recommendations can be taken into account for public transport to reach its full potential for making travelling easier, for the improvement of the urban environment and avoiding social exclusion: In most cases, the need for public funding should be clearly recognised. Thus, public transport should not be considered as an inefficient activity. The full potential of this type of transport should be acknowledged when encouraging mobility, the functioning of urban economies, urban environment and the fight against social exclusion (González González, 2002). Public transport should be funded so that these objectives can be achieved. Funding is not in fact a subsidy, but payment for services rendered to the community. However, it cannot be maintained as the principle and practically only financial backer for local companies. Payment should be enough to cover all higher expenses incurred by supplying these services that cannot be covered by ticket sales. It should also include enough remuneration to act as an incentive to those providing services and facilitate adequate investment. All possible sources of funding should be taken into account. Sources of funding that discourage the use of private vehicles should be recommended, for example, congestion taxes. Due to their relative stability, specific taxes such as the "Versement Transport" should be encouraged.

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Measures should be taken to guarantee that money obtained from external funding produces the highest possible value. These measures include: o -Contractualizing/formalizing the relationship between operators and the authorities. o -Conditions that encourage operators and enable contracts to be adjusted so that they adapt to changes in costs that cannot be controlled by the operator. o -Measures (such as comparative evaluations) to show that money invested is showing a profit. o -Measures that prevent discrimination in the use of public transport, with regard to groups of people with specific mobility problems, different disabilities, groups at risk of being socially excluded for different reasons such as income or similar. Improved access to public transport implies social cohesion. Legislation must cover the three basic aspects of mobility, which are funding, the environment and social aspects. The aim is to achieve sustainable transport that guarantees citizens maximum accessibility with minimum mobility. A multimodal integral transportation system that makes accessibility available to everyone. A system that takes into account environmental repercussions on a local level, with regard to air and noise pollution, land occupation, fragmentation of territory, and on a global level, with regard to using up natural resources, biodiversity, etc. (González González et al, 2005) Integration between urban planning and mobility policies is absolutely essential, accepting as a general principle that spatial planning in cities should cater for the design of public transport and anything concerning mobility when making decisions about urban planning. For this, the perspective of mobility must be taken into account when planning urban land uses and land-use intensity in urban classification and qualification (González González, 2002). A framework is therefore necessary from the perspective of state legislation in which general plans and mobility plans can specify measures to be included for generating urbanism oriented towards public transport and sustainable mobility (Daniels and Wame, 1983). The General Urban Ordination Plan (PGOU) must define the existing and foreseen mobility model, as a determinación estructurante of general ordination, of public and private modes of transport; the impact of new land

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developments on transport must be estimated in the Plan, so that the necessary measures for achieving a sustainable model of transport can be included. Table 2 shows the emissions of different modes of transport and the amount of energy consumed by each one. Table 2. Emissions and energy consumption of different travel modes

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CO2 emissions of different travel modes

Energy consumption of different travel modes

Only CO2 emitted from breathing

Pedestrian

Minimal food is the fuel

Only CO 2 emitted from breathing

Cycles

Minimal food is the fuel

100 grams of CO 2 emitted

Motocycle

1,370 KJ per passenger KM

180 grams of CO 2 emitted

Car

2,580 KJ per passenger KM

48 grams of CO 2 emitted

Bus

680 KJ per passenger KM

61 grams of CO 2 emitted

Underground

1,020 KJ per passenger KM

179 grams of CO 2 emitted

Train

1,270 KJ per passenger KM

180 grams of CO 2 emitted

Plain

2,140 KJ per passenger KM

Source: Whitelegg, J. Transport for a sustainable future. The case of Europe.

The PGOU must also justify the proposed land-use model, and its suitability for minimizing the need for new motorised journeys, paying special attention to the location of activities and land uses, and also future needs of travelling and accessibility. When planning the road system, the PGOU must take into consideration an adequate transport system and its relationship with the project. The road network must have hierarchical structuring, with different degrees of permeability of thoroughfares to guarantee that it caters for the volume of transport that will use the new roads, foreseen in the plans. (González and Lázaro, 2010). Partial plans, detailed studies and urbanisation and re-urbanisation projects will define the public transport system, with stops and their location, equipment and road signs, necessary reserved areas, and depots and garages when required. In all cases, the PGOU will define the minimum conditions of

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distance, access, etc. Partial plans for urbanisable land, detailed studies of non-consolidated urban land and urbanisation and re-urbanisation projects for consolidated urban land will prevent a higher number of parking spaces from being created on new road networks, justifying the area reserved for parking with the load capacity of the road section. The traffic load capacity for these roads will be calculated, and the maximum parking area will be deducted. With these decisions on general and detailed ordination in the PGOU (General Urban Ordination Plan) and in development plans such as Partial Plans, Special Plans and Detailed Studies, mobility is ―included‖ from the very moment decisions are made on ordination, and the result will be a much more pleasant city for pedestrians, more accessible for everyone, less congested and less polluted. Both the General Urban Ordination Plan (PGOU) and development plans will take access to the public transport system into consideration when designing new areas, especially predominantly residential ones. In this sense, no main access point to collectively used buildings should be outside a radius of more than 400 metres from a node or stop in the public transport system (Whitelegg, 1993). The PGOU must make accessibility to public means of transport a design factor. This approach is being used in the «Fastrack» Project in Dartfort and Gravesend in the county of Kent, Thameside (England). Besides this new perspective in implementing public modes of transport, the most significant aspect of the proposal is that public transport needs are considered a priori, even before tackling detailed ordination. The General Urban Ordination Plan (PGOU) will orient ordination towards helping to reduce congestion and the use of private vehicles, taking into account that public space is limited and therefore its use should be penalised, giving priority to transport systems, also according to this parameter. Thus, at least 50% of the surface of roads planned in new developments or those for which re-urbanisation or urban qualification is planned, should be assigned to public transport, bicycles and pedestrians (Crawford, 2000).

6. URBAN SPACE AND DIFFERENT MODES OF TRANSPORT The integration of planning and mobility is also based on the joint analysis of the concepts of «density», «location» and «accessibility to public transport». In this way, the most dense urban developments are prioritised in

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corridors of tube-train-tram-bus, with stops every 800 m, and urban «nodes» of density are defined by rings, or isochrones of 100 m, 200 m and 400 m from the stops (Whitelegg, 1993). The Fasttrack case could be tested in plans creating zones, A (100 m radius), B (100-200 m radius) and C (200-400 m radius), with densities in numbers of dwellings (viv.) and buildable m2 per square metre of land in A ( 80-100 dwellings per hectare and other uses, 1.25 m2/m2), B (60-80 dwellings per hectare and other uses 1.00 m2/m2) and C (30-50 dwellings per hectare with 0.5 m2/m2). Taking into account that, for example, in Spanish urbanistic legislation, general systems (SS GG) are assigned according to the number of inhabitants and local systems (SSLL) depending on the building density, or in other words, SS GG depending on the number of dwellings and SSLL depending on the m2/m2 of coefficient of buildability or by coefficient per 100 m2 built, this compact rule of urban design could easily be applied in development plans. Table 3 is an example of how density rings can be articulated, and the application of uses on land. ―R‖ delimits the maximum distance covered by already existing or recently developed transport system.

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Table 3. An example of how density rings can be articulated, and application of uses to the territory ZONE A R up to 100 m ZONE B R between 100 and 200 m ZONE C

Predominantly residential use Predominantly residential use

80-100 dwellings/hectare 125 m2/m2 buildable land 60-80 dwellings/hectare 100 m2/m2 buildable land

Predominantly residential use

0.50 m2/m2 buildable land

R between 200 and 400 m

This principle should be included as a binding rule of design for partial plans and detailed studies, as well as for the interior reform of consolidated urban land. Local public buildings should be maintained in zones A, and/or B, and private ones in zones A, B, and/or C, and central public buildings should be given preferential positions from the perspective of accessibility

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for public transport, though due to their special characteristics, they would have to be studied in detail by the PGOU. The decisions will contribute to obtaining a sufficiently dense model that makes the demand for public transport sustainable at a reasonable cost. In other words, the idea is that the public transport system is not designed a posteriori, after town planning has been approved, but as an aspect of urban design when decisions are being made and this is the only way of obtaining tangible results. We should also remember that the instruments of planning, management and building projects are not generally the same, and neither do they have the same capacity in or effect on territory. We should therefore bear in mind the function and category of thoroughfares and public spaces before and after acting, and the environmental, social, economic and urbanistic impact of the action, starting from the analysis of the current scenario and paying particular attention to the analysis of existing traffic and the volume of traffic in the future. It is therefore necessary to anticipate the possible impacts of each action on existing and future mobility, taking the sphere of the development in question and the sphere of influence into account (Hanson and Mei-Po, 2008). Aspects related to mobility can be assessed by the PGOU, via a study of transport, in the environmental assessment of new developments. The Plan can indicate the need to analyse the environmental effect of the planning instruments. The possible impacts of each action on existing and future mobility will be assessed, taking into consideration both the sphere of development and the sphere of influence into consideration. Urban structure, which in the past gave priority to residential use, must now decide on an adequate combination of residential, commercial, leisure and non-residential uses to avoid excessive dependency on transport, especially private vehicles ( Ohnmacht, 2009). Similarly, planning is the best way to assess the load capacity of the territory, and the possibility of supporting a smaller or greater parking load on roads, and to orient parking and gaining access to buildings by vehicles, in areas of concentration and especially in places where there are permanent stops (Saleh and Sammer, 2009). The existing and planned mobility model must be defined, as a way of determining the structure of the general planning of public and private transport modes; the impact of new foreseen land development on transport must be assessed, so that the necessary measures for a sustainable model of

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transport (Canzler and Kaufmann, 2008) can be included in the general ordination. When planning a road network, the necessary transport system and its relationship with the plans should be taken into account. Thus, the proposed model of uses and its suitability in the general plan should be justified and the need to make new motorised trips should be minimised (Bergmann, 2008). This should be done by suitable hierarchical structuring, with different degrees of permeability of thoroughfares to guarantee that it caters for the volume of transport that will use the new roads, foreseen in the plans. To achieve this, discontinuous growth and low population density must be avoided (Freudendal-Pesersen, 2009). A sufficiently dense model is thus obtained making the demand for public transport sustainable at a reasonable cost. In other words, the idea is that the public transport system is not designed a posteriori, after town planning has been approved but is considered as an aspect of urban design when decisions are being made and this is the only way of obtaining tangible results. Intermodality, the need for transport systems to complement each other, new bus stations, or other means of transport and the need for park and ride facilities, must be analysed. The following recommendations should be followed with regard to the design of new platforms (platforms reserved for public transport): the reserved area should have a band with a minimum width of (7.0) metres for two-way traffic; the conditions permitting, each direction should in turn be divided into a minimum width of three metres fifty (3.50). The movement of merchandise should also be considered, giving priority to areas of loading and unloading to avoid road congestion. Currently, existing transport systems need to be taken into account when any important action is carried out in cities. As for road design, rules of accessibility must be considered, as well as the necessary space for public transport, pedestrians, cycle lanes and specific measures of design in crossovers and intersections. Corridors following the previously-indicated rules should be created, which favour the accessibility and profitability of public transport (Guerrero García, 2002). So, we can see that in any important action carried out in the city, plans or projects that do not take existing transport systems and future needs into consideration cannot be approved.

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Regarding the design of main roads, the necessary space will be reserved for public transport, pedestrians and bicycles, analysing the impact of traffic, elements linked to the transport system, specific measures of design in intersections and crossovers. All of these aspects, which are linked to the design of thoroughfares and their use by pedestrians, will cater for accessibility regulations in the design and location of street furniture and road signs. Urban design must consider the movement of merchandise in our cities, as it is necessary and beneficial for small businesses, so loading and unloading areas are given priority over parking systems on roads, favouring the exchange of goods with fewer inconveniences for other users and avoiding the road congestion that currently occurs. Plans must justify the continuity of a system that is complementary to the space required by road vehicles and sufficiently well connected to spaces for pedestrians and bicycles, in areas covered by public transport systems.

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CONCLUSION If we want the new mobility model to work it should be based on a suitable ―combination‖ that guarantees a balance between the different travel modes, trams, buses, bicycles, pedestrians, cars, which can only be obtained by an integrating and integrated public transport system, with improved frequency and reliability, without forgetting that coordination with parking restriction policies in the city centre is necessary. A new intensive rotation parking system in the city centre and parking spaces on a rotational basis at ground level should be adjusted to the capacity of the road network in each case. As far as actions in new developments are concerned, this paper has drawn an outline of formulae that planners can put into practice. They mainly consider transport from the principle of urban design, and the compactness and rationality of the location of uses. We can be sure that success in mobility policies does not depend on one factor alone, but on an adequate and balanced combination of urban planning, restricted car use and parking, and on promoting public transport. Investment in public transport alone cannot reduce vehicular traffic, but it is necessary to break the vicious circle of the car. It is also necessary to integrate the urban transport plan, parking policy and a good supply of rapid reliable transport in the planning process.

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Any action that is important for the town or city cannot be approved if it does not take into consideration existing transport systems and their future needs in new urban developments. With regard to the design of the road network, the necessary space will be reserved on main roads for public transport, pedestrians and bicylces. The impact of road traffic, elements linked to the road network, specific measures when designing crossovers and intersections, and other necessary measures for avoiding traffic congestion will be analysed. All of these plans must take into account specific aspects associated with the design of roads such as how pedestrians use these roads, taking laws of accessibility into account in the design and location of urban furniture and road signs. They must also cater for bicycles, guaranteeing a safe system for daily use and not only for leisure. The necessary space for pedestrians, bicycles, platforms reserved for public transport, parking, high capacity private vehicles, can be integrated in a thoroughfare in a stretch of only 40 m. Development plans must justify the continuity of a network that complements the space required for road traffic, connecting with space for pedestrians and bicycles. The problem caused by traffic congestion in our cities does not only affect the environment, it also has a considerable effect on the economy, as well as a determinant social factor that goes against cohesion. Meanwhile we can see that strategies for saving energy and commitment to public transport put into effect by different administrations so far have not been very effective, and they have not managed to change the negative tendency with regard to dependency on energy and therefore on the economy, producing increased air pollution (climate change), competition between our companies and cities, traffic congestion and the quality of life of our citizens. It is also clear that we must opt for quality public transport, as in France, Germany or England. However, one of the problems is funding, which at the moment is the responsibility of local administrations (as many urban public transport systems are not profitable), and almost exclusively, users, hence the importance of public management when using private vehicles in our cities; and the joint consideration of urban design and planning with sustainable mobility policies. The Spanish government urgently needs to take legislative measures concerning the need for a ―mobility law‖ that combines the spheres of urbanism and mobility and provides operators of public transport with realistic stable funding mechanisms, as well as enabling autonomous

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regulations to curb the use of private vehicles and stop urban spaces being used inefficiently. As far as general plans are concerned, the ―fasttrack‖ example is proof that it is possible to work towards an urban design that prioritises mobility when occupying land or extending the city boundaries, providing suitable models for the general and detailed ordination plan. An analysis of the existing transport system and that proposed in the new plan must be obligatory when drawing up the General or Partial Plan, etc. The framework governing the constitution of organisations that manage public transport in urban spheres, especially in small and medium-size cities, must adhered to. Finally, without taking into account the system in large cities, the government must provide sufficient funding for local administrations if these policies are to be effective, and regularize the necessary legal, urbanistic and fiscal framework for small and medium-size municipalities to put policies of sustainable mobility into force. At the moment, the closest, most positive examples of this are France and Germany, where ve strong public investment that supports municipalities in the implementation and improvement of public transport. However, the economic situation in Europe does not favour the adoption of these measures. The economic, environmental, social and competitive cost for our cities will be much greater if we do not act in this field.

SOURCES Statistics EUROPEAN COMISSION GREEN PEACE INE URBAN LAND INSTITUTE (ULI) UITP (International Association of Public Transport)

Web Pages Consulted Web: Washington D.C- ULI- the Urban Land Institut

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M. J. González González and F. J. Gutierrez González Web del MINISTERIO DE INDUSTRIA. GOBIERNO DE ESPAÑA. Boletín Estadístico de Hidrocarburos. Web Urban Land Institute (ULI) Informe Greenpeace febrero 2008 sobre la contaminación en España Web de la UITP, International Association Públic Transport Web del INE. Web del ULI, Urban Land Institute.

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REFERENCES AGE, 2006. Manifiesto por una nueva cultura del territorio.(Last accessed in June 2009 http://age.ieg.csic.es/docs_externos/06-05-manifiestonifiesto_ cultura_territorio.pdf. Ascher F., 2004. Los nuevos principios del Urbanismo. Alianza Editorial, Madrid. Bergmann, S. and Sager, T.(Eds), 2008. The Ethics of Mobilities. Ashgate, London. Bonnet, M., and Desieux D., 2000. Les Territoires de la movilité. París, Presses Universitaires de France. Campos Venuti, G.,1983.Città, Metropoli, tecnologie. La politiche di painificazione territoriale. Franco Angeli, Milán. Canzler, W. and Kaufmann, V. (Eds), 2008. Tracing Mobilities. Ashgate, London Crawford, J.H., 2000. Carfree Cities. Internacional Books, Utrech. Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas (CCE),1992. Libro Verde sobre el Impacto del Transporte en el Medio Ambiente. COM, Bruselas. Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas (CCE), 1993. Libro Blanco: El Futuro desarrollo de la Política Común de Transportes. COM, Bruselas. Comisión de las Comunidades Europeas (CCE), 2001. Libro Blanco del transporte :La política europea de transportes de cara al 2010: La hora de la verdad. CE, DG TREN, Bruselas. Comisión Europea, 2007. Libro Verde “Hacia una nueva cultura de la movilidad urbana. C.OM., Bruselas. Coutras, J.,1996. Crise urbaine et espaces sexués. Pricenton University Press, Princenton. Daniels, P.W. and Wame, A.M, 1.983. Movimiento en ciudades. Transporte y tráfico urbanos. INAP, Madrid.

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Freudencial-Pedersen, M., 2009. Mobility in Daily Life. Ashgate, London. González González, M.J., 2000. Estructura residencial y organización del espacio en la ciudad de León, Boletín de la Asociación de Geógrafos Españoles, A.G.E., 29: 549-557. González González, M.J., 2002. La ciudad sostenible. Planificación y teoría de sistemas, Boletín de la Asociación de Geógrafos Españoles, A.G.E., 33: 93-103. González González, M.J. et al., 2005. El transporte y la vivienda desde una perspectiva sostenible .CERSA, León. Publicación en CD. González González, M.J. y Lázaro de Torres, M.L., 2010. Urban sustainability and density. New urban development. VI CIOT, Madrid (In press). Guerrero García, M.J., 2002. Metodología para la elaboración de una cuenta integrada de costes económicos, sociales y ambientales del transporte. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Madrid. Hanson, S. and Mei-Po, K. (Eds), 2008. Transport. Ashgate, London. INFRAS/IWW, 2004. External costs of transport: accident, environmental and congestion costs of transport in Western Europe. Karlsruhe, Zurich. Ingold, T. and Vergunst, J. L. (Eds.), 2008. Ways of Walking. Ashgate, London. Miralles, C. (2001): Ciudad y transporte, Barcelona, Ariel. OCDE, 2002. Policy Instruments for Achieving Environmentally Sustainable Transport. OCDE. Offner, J.M.,1992. Les effets structurants du transport: mythe politique, mystification scientifique. L’espace Geografique, 3, pp. 233-242. Ohnmacht, T.et al (Eds), 2009. Mobilities and Inequality. Ashgate, London. Ruano, M., 2000. Ecourbanismo. Entornos Urbanos sostenibles. Gustavo Gili, Barcelona. Saleh, W. and Sammer, G. . (Ed.), 2009. Travel Demand Management and Road User Pricing. Ashgate, London. Vegara, A. y de las Rivas, J.L., 2004. Territorios Inteligentes. FEMP/ Fundación Metrópoli, Madrid. Vittadini, M.R.,1991a. Del piano del trafico al ripesamento funzionale della città: il caso del comue de Mirano. Prima rassegna urbanistica regionale, Treviso, pp.55-70.

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Vittadini, M. R.,1991b. La citta accessibile, in Balbo, L. (ed.) Tempo di vita. Studie proposteper cambiarli, Milan, Feltrinelli. Whitelegg, J., 1993. Transport for a sustainable future. The case of Europe.John Wiley and Sons Ltd, London.

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In: Transport Policy Editors: C. Thomsen and E. Green

ISBN 978-1-61209-515-8 © 2011 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 5

POLICY AND MARKET-BASED MECHANISM TOWARD A GREEN AND SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT Ji Han*

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Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8603 Japan

ABSTRACT In the world wide scope after the Kyoto Protocol was signed, a variety of negotiations, mechanisms and policies have been addressed to prevent from the climate change. In this paper, we categorize national transport policies of Germany, Japan and China from the viewpoint of economic, information, regulation and technology. Moreover we evaluate the development and insufficiencies of major international anticlimate-change negotiations and mechanisms in benefitting transport sector. As a result, we find that the selected developed and developing countries have been effectively implementing their own domestic policies guiding to a sustainable transport. However, methodological, financial and institutional barriers of existing mechanisms have hampered transport sector in abating climate change through international coordination. As a proposal for the future mechanism design, we suggest a flexible mechanism that is expected to be workable for transport through the development of policy based CDM, institutional * E-mail: [email protected]

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150 reform, rewarding approaches.

Ji Han co-benefits

and

adoption

of

programmatic

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1. INTRODUCTION Transportation is a major consumer of fossil fuel energy and a significant contributor to climate change. It is also one of the most difficult sources to control. As shown in figure 1, transport sector as a whole accounted for 13.5% of world global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2000. And the share amounted to 23% in 2004. Transport-related CO2 emissions are expected to increase 57% worldwide in 2030 comparing with the level of 2005. The largest share of GHG emissions from the transport sector are still expected to be from developed countries. But in developing countries, where globalization is expanding trade flows and rising income level is amplifying demand for motorized mobility, transport energy use is supposed to be increasing faster than that in developed nations, and projected to grow from 31% in 2002 to 45% of world total transport energy use in 2030. Accordingly, transport-related CO2 emissions from developing countries are poised to soar with the development of economy and motorization, and will be responsible for approximately 80% of the total predicted increase (International Panel on Climate Change 2007, IEA 2008, Bongardt et al. 2009). In the world scope especially after the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997, a variety of negotiations and mechanisms have been developed to prevent from the climate change with focus on different sectors especially the manufacturing industry, such as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Emission Trade Scheme (ETS), and Joint Implementation (JI), etc. However, these mechanisms may not be efficient for transport sector. Transport has not benefitted from the existing Kyoto Protocol instruments that are currently in place. For example, figure 2 shows the project number of CDM. By August of 2009, there are only 2 of total 1774 (0.03%) registered CDM projects are transport projects. While for energy and manufacturing industries, they took an as large share as 60% and 5.7% respectively (UNFCCC, 2010a). Thus it calls for a more constructive role of transport in abating climate change from now on.

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Source: World Resources Institute, Climate Analysis Indicator Tool. Figure 1. World GHG emissions by sector (2000).

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Sectoral Scope

Transport 0.03%

Energy Industry 59.85%

(01) Energy industries (renewable - / non-renewable sources) (02) Energy distribution (03) Energy demand (04) Manufacturing industries (05) Chemical industries (06) Construction (07) Transport (08) Mining/mineral production (09) Metal production (10) Fugitive emissions from fuels (solid, oil and gas) (11) Fugitive emissions from production and consumption of halocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride (12) Solvent use (13) Waste handling and disposal (14) Afforestation and reforestation (15) Agriculture

Registered Projects 1297 0 23 101 59 0 2 22 6 130

22 0 377

6 122

Figure 2. Distribution of registered CDM projects by sectoral scope.

As a proposal for the right way of transport sector towards a green and sustainable future, in this paper, we firstly investigate the developing process of existing anti-climate-change negotiations in the world. Secondly, we look

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insight at national transport policies and market-based mechanisms for mitigating climate change in several developed and developing countries such as Germany, Japan and China. Thirdly, through the evaluation of existing instrument‘s advantages and insufficiencies, we propose a conceptual framework to illustrate how greenhouse gas emission mitigation can be effectively implemented in transport sector.

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2. ANTI-CLIMMATE-CHANGE NEGOTIATION In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was founded at the United Nations conference on environment and development. Its ultimate goal is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. Figure 3 shows the change of GHGs and the development of major international agreements for tackling climate change under the UNFCCC framework. First, the 3rd conference of the parties (COP) concluded with the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which is recognized as the most initiative agreement and an important complement to the convention. It set binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European Commission for reducing GHG emissions. These binding targets amount to an average of 5% against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The Protocol points out that industrialized countries must first and foremost take domestic actions against climate change. But it also allows them to meet their emission reduction commitments abroad through so-called ―market-based mechanisms‖. Second, COP7 meeting took place in 2001 and reached so called ―Marrakech Accords‖, which adopted most of the operational rules and set the stage for developed nations to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Third, COP11, held in 2005, was also the first Meeting of the Parties (MOP) to the Kyoto Protocol since their initial meeting in 1997. It marked the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, and hammered out to extend the life of the Kyoto Protocol beyond its 2012 expiration date and to negotiate deeper cuts in GHGs emission. Fourth, COP13 concluded with the Bali Action Plan in 2007 and adopted an agreement on the action of long-term cooperation and structured negotiation on the post-Kyoto Protocol framework. It brought out the nationally appropriate mitigation actions for developing countries in the context of sustainable development, which must be supported and enabled by

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technology, financing and capacity-building in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner. Fifth, COP15 took place in 2009 however did not achieve a binding agreement for long-term action. ―Copenhagen Accord' was negotiated by approximately 25 parties including USA and China, but it was only noted by the COP as an external document, not negotiated within the UNFCCC process. It marked the end of a crucial year for climate negotiations. These agreements, accords and negotiations stated above have initiated the domestic action and international cooperation on tackling climate change. However, they focused on general instruments and targets rather than tailoring explicit approaches for specific sector. As a result, transport could very limitedly benefit from them. Though the planning on transport sector is now moving ahead, for example, aviation sector which is now excluded from Kyoto Protocol will be added to emissions trading scheme from 2012 in EU. The share of air transport GHG emissions is only 13% of total, the improvement on the land transport is more important. It is vital that the transport sector takes a proactive approach to ensure that sustainable transport is recognized in the climate change negotiations, and that the post 2012 agreement works for transport.

Figure 3. Development of anti-climate-change negotiations since the 1990s.

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3. NATIONAL TRANSPORT POLICY AND MARKET-BASED MECHANISMS Developed countries with commitment under the Kyoto Protocol and developing countries though having no mitigation obligation yet may limit or reduce their fossil fuel consumption and GHG emissions primarily either through domestic measures or by market-based mechanisms. In this section, we take Germany, Japan and China as examples and summarize their major national transport policies from the viewpoint of economic, information, regulation and technology (Table 1). Moreover, we analyze the barriers of existing mechanisms so that modifications and improvements could be made in the future mechanism designing.

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3.1. National Transport Policy Generally, Japan focuses on the information and technology innovation. China tries to improve its public transport system and energy conservation. Germany makes great efforts on public transport system. Specifically, Japan government has laid great emphases on the improvement of road traffic because it contributed to about 80% of total transport CO2 emissions in 2007 (International Transport Forum, 2010). To enhance the vehicle fuel efficiency and to raise the average traffic speed have been considered as two important premises, and supported by a variety of information and technological innovations. In 1998, Top-runner Program was initiated to improve energy efficiency of home/office appliances and passenger automobiles. It takes into account technological potential and set standards based on various parameters, which enable producer flexibility to provide a wide range of product models to meet the market need while at the same time guiding the overall market towards higher energy efficiency. Moreover, ITS (Intelligent Transport System), as an integration of several specifically developed systems such as car navigation system, VICS (Vehicle Information and Communication System), ETC (Electronic Toll Collection), etc., has also been promoted to smooth traffic flow since the 1990s. In China, energy conservation in transportation sector is especially emphasized as an independent chapter in the Law on Energy Conservation since 1998.

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Table 1. Major transport policies in Germany, Japan and China Economic Germany





Japan





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

China





Information

subsidy to public transport petroleum tax



subsidy for lowemission car fuel taxes vehicle taxes



subsidy for public transport fuel tax reform (under planning)







Regulation

regionally integrated timetable and fare structure



traffic flow management through ITS (such as ETC, VICS, etc.) bus location system



open real time traffic data (Beijing) online search of public transport network



land use regulation

Technology  



introduction of public transport priority system



law on energy conservation limitation system for ending number of license plate (Beijing)





introduction of LRT transit oriented development top-runner program IT technology in public transport charging system

improve public transport system, especially rail traffic

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Since the 1990s, more and more intensive transport policies have been implemented in China with the general targets aiming at encouraging the development of light vehicles and public transport, and improving the fuel economy. Recently the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for China‘s transport sector goes further and stresses that GHG emission should be controlled. In EU, Germany is known as one the prime examples for promoting public transport through regionally integrated timetables and fare structures, high level of service with modern, attractive rolling stock. On the other hand, German government has been trying to depress the attractiveness of automobile use through imposing very high taxes on gasoline. In 2008 the USA gasoline taxes constitute 15% of the selling price compared to 60% in Germany. Besides, steeply discounted region-wide monthly and annual public transport tickets also make public transport financially more attractive for passengers.

3.2. Market-based Mechanisms

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As additional means to national transport policies, Kyoto Protocol introduced three market-based mechanisms for carbon market, which are known as ETS, CDM and JI. Emissions Trading Scheme allows countries that have spare emission units - emissions quota permitted but not "used" - to sell the excess capacity to countries that have exceeded their permitted targets. Clean Development Mechanism allows a country with an emissionreduction or emission-limitation commitment under the Kyoto Protocol to implement an emission-reduction project in developing countries. Such projects can earn saleable certified emission reduction credits, each equivalent to one ton of CO2, which can be counted to meeting Kyoto targets. Joint Implementation allows an Annex B Party with an emission reduction commitment under the Kyoto Protocol to earn emission reduction units through GHG reduction or removal projects in another Annex B Party.

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However, the above three Kyoto mechanisms have not succeeded in promoting sustainable transport. As said in the introduction, the registered transport CDM projects are extremely less comparing with other sectors. It could be attributed to a number of barriers such as 1) methodological reason, notably the difficulty in proving baselines and boundaries and the lack of recognition of co-benefits; 2) financial barrier, which includes high transaction costs, monitoring costs and abatement costs, as well as the low carbon price for transport for investors; 3) institutional constraint that transport experts are not adequately represented on the CDM methodology panel. Similarly, when looking at JI mechanism, there is no transport projects have ever been registered under JI (UNFCCC, 2010b), which causes a widespread doubt on the feasibility of applying JI mechanism to transportation. The failure may largely due to the following reasons like 1) competition with CDM projects. Though the track 1 procedure of JI mechanism is considered more flexible than the CDM projects, CDM is still preferred by parties than other options; 2) low awareness of industrial sectors and countries. Some sectors are more interested in asking for subsidies than in participating in market mechanisms. Many host countries neither know that they can implement JI projects in their own countries, nor do they know that sectoral JI has existed under track 2 procedure since 2008. Therefore, if countries are to achieve green and sustainable transport, it is necessary for the existing mechanisms to be significantly modified, or for new mechanisms to be introduced.

4. PROPOSAL OF A FLEXIABLE MECHANISM On the basis of the evaluation of existing mechanisms‘ insufficiencies, we propose a conceptual mechanism to illustrate how greenhouse gas emission mitigation can be effectively implemented in the transport sector. First, two prerequisites for better integration of transport with climate change should be recognized (figure 4). One is to increase awareness of the transport‘s significance in GHG emissions. The other is to find out ways in which to mobilize the required finance to support actions. Funds, crediting mechanisms or a hybrid of these two should be considered.

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increase awareness of the transport’s significance in GHG emissions

Awareness Raise

Better integration of transport with anti-climate -change

find out ways in which to mobilize the required finance to support actions

Financial instrument

funds, crediting mechanisms or a hybrid

Figure 4. Prerequisites for integration of transport with climate change. Adopting programmatic approaches

Developing policy based CDM

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Boundaries at the city level allowing trading between or within cities

A flexible mechanism for transport sector

Programme of activities for transport

Rewarding co-benefits Using a robust accounting mechanism to reward co-benefit

Conducting institutional reform Adding more transport specialists to methodology panel Reforming of the CDM executive board Clearing of backlog

Figure 5. A flexible mechanism for transport sector.

Next, a flexible mechanism based on existing CDM is suggested with special regards to transport sector. Improvements could be made in the following four aspects (figure 5). 1) To develop policy based CDM. It may have boundaries at city level and allow trading between or within cities. 2) To conduct institutional reform. Options like adding more transport specialists into methodology panel, reforming the existing CDM executive board, and clearing of backlog would be effective for the improvement of said constraints of CDM. 3) To reward co-benefits. Adoption of a robust accounting system to reward co-benefit may avoid double-counting and allow

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comparability with other sectors. The detailed ways may include the development of verification methods that are appropriate for both regulated and voluntary sectors, and the approval of projects that can definitely realize co-benefits. 4) To adopt programmatic approaches. Program of activities, which is firstly addressed at COP11 as measures implemented voluntarily by entities to reduce real GHG emissions, could be developed to suit for transport sector.

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CONCLUSION Due to the important role in the context of climate change, mitigation of non-renewable energy use and GHG emissions in transport sector have been paid wide attentions especially in the recent years and near future. This paper tries to investigate the development of existing anti-climate-change negotiations under UNFCCC, and categorize national transport policies of Germany, Japan and China from the aspects of economic, information, regulation and technology. Moreover we evaluate the deficiencies of existing market-based mechanisms so that a flexible mechanism is proposed for transport sector in terms of anti-climate-change. It is found that both developed and developing countries have been implementing their own domestic policies guiding transport towards a low carbon one. More specifically, Germany makes great efforts in enhancing the attractiveness of public transport. Japan endeavors to improve road transport through information and technological innovations. China focuses on energy conservation and promotion of public transport system. While for international co-ordinations in abating climate change, although a number of negotiations and market-based mechanisms have been brought into forth since the 1990s, transport sector has seldom got real benefits. The reasons may due to the several constraints such as methodological insufficiency in proving boundaries and recognizing co-benefits, financial barrier and institutional deficiency. Accordingly, on the recognition of two important prerequisites like raising the awareness of transport role in anti-climatechange framework, and mobilizing the required finance to support actions, in the future negotiations especially concerning transport sector, a flexible mechanism is expected to be workable through development of policy based CDM, institutional reform, rewarding co-benefits and adoption of programmatic approaches.

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Ji Han

REFERENCES

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Bongardt, D., Rudolph, F., Sterk, W. (2009) Transport in developing countries and climate policy: suggestions for a Copenhagen agreement and beyond. Wuppertal Institute for Climate Environment and Energy. International Panel on Climate Change. (2007) IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group III Report "Mitigation of Climate Change". Available on http://www.ipcc.ch/. IEA (2008) World Energy Outlook 2008. Available on http://www.ie a.org/weo/2008.asp. International Transport Forum. (2010) Key Transport and Greenhouse Gas Indicators: Information by Country. Available on http://www.int ernationaltransportforum.org/statistics/CO2/index.html United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2010a) CDM statistics. Available on http://cdm.unfccc.int/Statistics/index.html. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2010b) JI projects. Available on http://ji.unfccc.int/JI_Projects/index.html. World Resources Institute, Climate Analysis Indicator Tool. (2010) World GHG emissions flow chart. Available on http://cait.wri.org/figur es.php?page=/World-FlowChart. World Energy Outlook 2008. Available on http://www.iea.org/weo/2008.asp.

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In: Transport Policy Editors: C. Thomsen and E. Green

ISBN 978-1-61209-515-8 c 2011 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 6

P OLICIES OF R AILWAY I NTEROPERABILITY: I NFLUENCES IN E NERGY C ONSUMPTION

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Ignacio L´opez1,∗, Javier Rodr´ıguez1 , Alberto Garc´ıa2 , ´ Angel Jim´enez1, Pilar Mart´ın2 and Ignacio Gonz´alez2 1 School of Industrial Engineers, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain 2 Spanish Railway Foundation, Santa Isabel, Madrid, Spain

Abstract In this chapter we are going to analyze the potential of running freight trains on high-speed lines in mountainous regions. We shall evaluate the impact of the measure regarding energy consumption and CO 2 emissions, and we shall discuss railway-specific matters related to its possible implementation. European transport policy is focused on a series of objectives as a reaction to a complex scenario of unbalanced modes of transport, heterogeneous railway infrastructures, rolling stock and legislation, inefficient railway transportation services and a drive for reducing energy consumption. These objectives pursue an overall harmonization of the transport sector, by balancing modes and, in the specific case of railways, by harmonizing infrastructure, exploitation systems and legislation. One of the main objectives in this line is to increase the degree of interoperability of the railway network both among the Member States and within them. ∗

E-mail address: [email protected]

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Ignacio L´opez, Javier Rodr´ıguez, Alberto Garc´ıa et al. The measure we are going to analyze here is one of the possible ways of using interoperability for improving freight transport. By shifting freight trains from conventional to high speed lines in mountainous areas they will have to ascend less, they will have to travel shorter distances and waste less energy in overcoming the resistance of curves. As a result, they will save energy, take less time to cover the same distance and possibly allow the operator to offer services which might not be possible today, when freight trains circulate exclusively by conventional lines. However, there exists a need for quantifying the effects of all the potential measures which will derive from European policy, so that technical criteria are made available for designing lower-level policies. The task of correlating figures to this kind of actions is arguably difficult. Any generic measure must, in the end, be deployed over a specific context whose particularities might invalidate it partially or completely. On the other hand, any measure must be studied in generic terms so that it may be applicable to a wide range of scenarios. As a result, a study capable of offering representative conclusions to a variety of specific scenarios of application must combine a sufficient level of generality with a certain degree of accuracy. We shall attempt here to achieve a compromise between both points. For this, we shall study the problem of freight transportation across the Guadarrama mountain range in the centre of Spain, NW of Madrid. This pass divides the Northern from the Southern Plains. We shall consider the real infrastructure but ideal trains, one representative of a light train and one of a dense one. There are four railway lines which cross the range, which we shall denote A, B, C and D, naming them from south to north. The two first were built in the nineteenth century, line C is a high-speed line opened in 2007 and line D is a mid-twentieth century infrastructure. We shall simulate both trains, always the same trains, running on each line on both directions, travelling fully loaded and empty. From this simulation we shall obtain consumption data with and without regenerative braking, which we shall analyze for obtaining further conclusions.

1.

Introduction. The Context of European Transport Policy

By the year 2001, the share of the goods market carried by rail in Europe had fallen to 8.4%, while the share of air and road had been increasing for decades. The problems derived from this situation, congestion and pollution mainly, were rising accordingly. The European Commission issued the White Paper: European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide [1], which was to lay out the

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strategy for transport until 2010. The three basic ideas which were to underlie European transport policy were: • Shifting the balance between modes of transport • Eliminating bottlenecks • Placing the users at the heart of transport policy. Railways were to have a major role in realizing these ideas. The document explicitly proposes revitalising the railways, and railway freight traffic in particular, by integrating rail transport in the internal market, making optimum use of the infrastructure and modernising services. Apart from other targets regarding efficiency and pollutant emissions, it sets a 15% share for railway freight traffic by 2020. Among the major guidelines for progressing towards this scenario were three affecting railway freight traffic directly (p.29):

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Updating the Interoperability Directives to harmonise the technical requirements and provisions on use of all components of the high-speed and conventional railway networks Ensuring quality of rail services and users’ rights. In particular, a directive will be proposed to lay down the terms of compensation in the event of delays or failure to meet service obligations. Creation of a Community structure for safety and interoperability. (. . . ) No railway system can be fully competitive unless all matters relating to the removal of technical barriers to trade in trains and to their interoperability –i.e. their ability to run on any stretch of the network– are resolved first. A series of actions derived from the White Paper which included measures for opening up the markets within Europe, modernising infrastructures and, above all, for increasing interoperability. The measures were not limited to overcoming technical barriers. The White Paper and subsequent documents [2], [3] analyze the difficulties for implementing these actions in reality, which may come from all sides: technical, administrative, regulatory, organizational, etc. In fact, the complex scenario of operators, regulations, administration on one side, and the technical heterogeneities of the European networks and rolling stock, are in many cases inherited from the past and from years of low investment.

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Figure 1. Rail freight traffic in EU15 from 2000 to 2006. Traffic in billions of ton·km. Source: Eurostat. Revitalising railways for freight required a new paradigm. A new concept for transport, the Transeuropean Transport Network (TEN-T), was proposed [4]. Within this framework, freight would be organized in a network of corridors forming the Trans European Rail Freight Network (TERFN), in which freight would have priority either in the form of infrastructure or as time slots [5]. Opposed to the traditional schemes, generally with region or line-oriented management, this stands for corridor-based management, path allocation, statistics, control systems, etc. Assessing interoperability specifically, possibly the most representative measures are the development of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), which unifies, among other aspects, the variety of incompatible signalling systems coexisting within Europe and even within countries, and of the Technical Specification Relating to Telematics Applications Relating to Freight (TAF-TSI), integrating the management of the infrastructure. By the last third of 2008, the European Commission issued a communication which analyzed the quality of rail freight services and the problems still to be overcome [6]. From the rail freight traffic data available at the time (see figure 1), it acknowledges that progress has been made in most of the critical ones pointed out by the White Paper, but that they were not entirely solved. The communication stresses the need to continue with the already ongoing actions

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until their full deployment. It mentions explicitly ERTMS and TSI-TAF, and the TEN-T. The study presented here covers traffic between Madrid and Valladolid, which corresponds to a stretch of the Priority Axis No. 3 of TEN-T [7].

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2.

Infrastructure

We shall study the four lines in the centre of the Iberian peninsula represented in figure 2. The Guadarrama mountain range is oriented in NE direction. It is approximately 80 km long and is the natural division between the northern and the southern plains. Mountains part from 900 m above sea level and the highest peak is 2428 masl. The longitudinal section of the four lines that have been considered for the study can be seen in figure 3. It can be seen that the most demanding part of the way is that travelling above 900 masl. In the old lines, the curve radii may be as short as 300 m or under. Apart from generating extra resistance to the train motion, they lower the speed limit to 80 km/h, exceptionally less. Line A was designed in the mid-nineteenth century minimizing tunnels, viaducts and softening slopes. Line B was built at the end of the nineteenth century, allowing steeper slopes. Line C is the high speed line open in December 2007. It crosses the Guadarrama mountains by two major tunnels, the Mount San Pedro tunnel (8930 m) and the Guadarrama tunnel (28377 m). Line D runs from Madrid to Burgos and its construction was begun in 1928 and concluded, after long and a number of interruptions, in 1963. The line has maximum slopes of 10 mm/m, for which it was necessary to build a large number of tunnels and viaducts for crossing the Guadarrama range. These lines were selected for two reasons. First, so that consumption results could be compared on homogeneous terms. Second, because each line is representative of a different philosophy of railway design, each adapted to a specific technological level. All lines have the same origin in Madrid and cover the same distance in straight line to their destination. The first three lines end in Valladolid. Line D, which travels north to Burgos, is considered only up to the town Bahab´on de Esgueva. All the lines cross the same mountain range at different points, which were decided according to the technology available at the time. The location of the pass of line D, added to technological considerations, was located according to the final destination of the line, Burgos, approximately north of Madrid. This makes that line D, although comparable to the rest in global terms, may have

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