Transport integration - an impossible dream?

Transport Integration and an Integrated Transport Policy have been widely espoused for many years, yet remain an ambiguous and ill-defined concept. After featuring strongly in the 1998 Transport Policy White Paper, recently transport integration has received less emphasis. However it appears it is set for a return under the new Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis.This paper explores the meaning of Integrated Transport. It concludes that there is no point in attempting to identify a single definition, but that there are overlapping layers of meaning, with higher levels incorporating lower, or narrower, understandings of the term Integrated Transport. This exploration of meanings of integration is a development of initial work (Potter and Skinner 2000) and is important as the alternative meanings lead to different transport policy responses. These meanings include: - Locational Integration: being able to easily change between transport modes (using Interchanges) - this is about services connecting in space - Timetabling Integration: Services at an interchange connect in time. - Ticketing Integration: Not needing to purchase a new ticket for each leg of a journey - Information Integration: Not needing to enquire at different places for each stage of a trip - or that different independent sources are easily connected - Service Design Integration: That the legal, administrative and governance structures permit/encouraging integration - Travel Generation Integration: Integrating the planning of transport with the generators of travel (particularly integration with land use planning) Furthermore, there are inherent tensions which make transport integration difficult to achieve. Only limited progress has been achieved in the UK since the 1998 White Paper, and even in Germany, with their strong transport policy structures, integration has failed (Schöller-Schwedes, 2009). This exploration of meanings will also explore the tensions involved as there is a danger of the UK chasing again a flawed concept

The new Dutch timetable: The OR revolution

In December 2006, Netherlands Railways introduced a completely new timetable. Its objective was to facilitate the growth of passenger and freight transport on a highly utilized railway network, and improve the robustness of the timetable resulting in less train delays in the operation. Further adjusting the existing timetable constructed in 1970 was not option anymore, because further growth would then require significant investments in the rail infrastructure. Constructing a railway timetable from scratch for about 5,500 daily trains was a complex problem. To support this process, we generated several timetables using sophisticated operations research techniques, and finally selected and implemented one of these timetables. Furthermore, because rolling-stock and crew costs are principal components of the cost of a passenger railway operator, we used innovative operations research tools to devise efficient schedules for these two resources. The new resource schedules and the increased number of passengers resulted in an additional annual profit of 40 million euros ($60 million) of which about 10 million euros were created by additional revenues. We expect this to increase to 70 million euros ($105 million) annually in the coming years. However, the benefits of the new timetable for the Dutch society as a whole are much greater: more trains are transporting more passengers on the same railway infrastructure, and these trains are arriving and departing on schedule more than they ever have in the past. In addition, the rail transport system will be able to handle future transportation demand growth and thus allow cities to remain accessible. Therefore, people can switch from car transport to rail transport, which will reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

Regulating privatized rail transport

Traditionally, transport regulation has been viewed as an exercise in second-best optimization, acknowledging the existence of huge information problems. Then the rail industry was deeply restructured worldwide to halt erosion of the sector's share of transportation markets. Restructuring took different forms in different countries, ranging from simple reorganization measures to extreme restructuring -with the private sector increasingly participating in the sector and with the provision of infrastructure separated from the provision of services. The authors argue that regulation of the rail industry cannot remain unaffected by these changes. New regulatory scenarios and issues have emerged. For example, contracts have to be defined for private participation and quality surveillance instruments must be defined. Traditional price controls have to be adapted to, and mechanisms designed to manage and plan infrastructure investments in, the new environment. Restructuring has brought new problems, too. Where licenses have been used, for example, several concessionaires have been unable to meet the objectives spelled out in the concession contract. Contracts should be flexible enough to take account of novel situations that may affect company performance. And yet, for the system to be credible, there cannot be systematic, unjustified deviations from the franchise objectives. Regulation of the sector should be simple and flexible, with license contracts designed to include the private sector and with industry organization adapted to local circumstances. Regulation should be governed by principles that foster competition and market mechanisms, wherever possible. At the same time, it should provide a stable legal and institutional framework for economic activity. Otherwise, regulators should refrain from intervening in the market-unless the goal of economic efficiency (subject to the socially demanded levelof equity) is in jeopardy.Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Decentralization,Enterprise Development&Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Railways Transport,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Water and Industry,Public Sector Economics&Finance

Identification of Timetable Attractiveness Parameters by an International Literature Review

Timetable attractiveness is influenced by a set of key parameters which are described in this article. Regarding the superior structure of the timetable, the trend in Europe goes towards periodic regular interval timetables. Regular departures and focus on optimal transfer possi- bilities make these timetables attractive. The travel time in the timetable depends on charac- teristics of the infrastructure and rolling stock, heterogeneity of the planned train traffic and the necessary number of transfers on the passenger’s journey. Planned interdependencies be- tween trains, such as transfers and heterogeneous traffic, add complexity to the timetable. The risk of spreading initial delays to other trains and parts of the network increases with the level of timetable complexity

Identification of Timetable Attractiveness Parameters by an International Literature Review

Timetable attractiveness is influenced by a set of key parameters which are described in this article. Regarding the superior structure of the timetable, the trend in Europe goes towards periodic regular interval timetables. Regular departures and focus on optimal transfer possi- bilities make these timetables attractive. The travel time in the timetable depends on charac- teristics of the infrastructure and rolling stock, heterogeneity of the planned train traffic and the necessary number of transfers on the passenger’s journey. Planned interdependencies be- tween trains, such as transfers and heterogeneous traffic, add complexity to the timetable. The risk of spreading initial delays to other trains and parts of the network increases with the level of timetable complexity

A short-turning policy for the management of demand disruptions in rapid transit systems

Rapid transit systems timetables are commonly designed to accommodate passenger demand in sections with the highest passenger load. However, disruptions frequently arise due to an increase in the demand, infrastructure incidences or as a consequence of fleet size reductions. All these circumstances give rise to unsupplied demand at certain stations, which generates passenger overloads in the available vehicles. The design of strategies that guarantee reasonable user waiting time with small increases of operation costs is now an important research topic. This paper proposes a tactical approach to determine optimal policies for dealing with such situations. Concretely, a short-turning strategy is analysed, where some vehicles perform short cycles in order to increase the frequency among certain stations of the lines and to equilibrate the train occupancy level. Turn-back points should be located and service offset should be determined with the objective of diminishing the passenger waiting time while preserving certain level of quality of service. Computational results and analysis for a real case study are provided.Junta de Andalucía P09-TEP-5022Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) 39682-1

European Railway Comparisons – Company Profiles

This work was undertaken as part of a project sponsored by the British Railways Board entitled `European Railway Comparisons'. The aims of this project are as follows: (i)To compare the current efficiency of European railway operators and examine recent trends at both aggregate and disaggregate levels. (ii)To assess the effects of economies of scale and economies of density on European rail operations. (iii)To make an exploratory assessment of the potential for further disaggregation by market type (InterCity, Commuter, Freight) in order to make detailed comparisons of market shares. The main methods employed to carry out this study are as follows: (i)A review of the literature on railway cost and productivity analysis. Preliminary findings are given in Working Paper 354 and a paper presented to the World Conference on Transport Research (Nash, C.A. and Preston, J.M. (1992) "Assessing the Performance of European Railways"). (ii)Collation of published data for 13 European State Railway Operators. (iii)Face to face interviews with managers at the 13 State Railway companies in order to check our understanding of published data sources, gain more infomation at a disaggregate level (administered by a self completion questionnaire) and obtain an understanding of the institutional background. This report summarises some of the background information that was obtained from the interviews undertaken in the summer of 1992. A company profile is developed for each operator under four main headings: Objectives and Management, Finance, the Freight Market and the Passenger Market