Overcoming Financial Barriers

The funding process and the availability of both revenue and capital funding can create a barrier to the effective design, implementation and maintenance of sustainable transport and land-use schemes. The DISTILLATE Funding Project therefore sought to identify the nature of these barriers, how they are being experienced by local authorities, and the ways in which they could be overcome. This paper provides an overview of the findings of this project. The methodological approach included a series of consultations with transport practitioners and their counterparts in public health, environmental strategy, land-use planning and corporate policy units, three literature reviews, semi-structured telephone interviews with transport practitioners, two workshops and continual engagement with five case-study partners. The results of these research activities have been encapsulated within a Funding Toolkit, which has been designed to enable significant improvements in the way in which local authorities can manage, and overcome, funding barriers. Other research products include a guidance note for the funders of transport schemes, which provides stakeholders with an overview of the barriers faced by local authorities and recommendations about how they can be alleviated. This paper gives an overview of the research findings and details the role that both local authorities and the funders of transport and land use schemes can play in alleviating the impact of funding barriers

The demand for public transport: The effects of fares, quality of service, income and car ownership

This paper reports on key findings from a collaborative study whose objective was to produce an up-to-date guidance manual on the factors affecting the demand for public transport for use by public transport operators and planning authorities, and for academics and other researchers. Whilst a wide range of factors was examined in the study, the paper concentrates on the findings regarding the influence of fares, quality of service and income and car ownership. The results are a distillation and synthesis of identified published and unpublished information on the factors affecting public transport demand. The context is principally that of urban surface transport in Great Britain, but extensive use was made in the study of international sources and examples

Funding for local authority transport and land-use schemes in the UK

This paper focuses on the research activities, findings and planned products of one of the UK EPSRC-funded DISTILLATE (Design and Implementation Support Tools for Integrated Local Land use, Transport and the Environment) projects on the funding of transport and land-use schemes. Research activities have included a literature review, dialogue with local authority case studies and a funding workshop. The research identified and explored a range of barriers to funding, including lack of revenue funding, difficulties in obtaining funding for ‘soft’ schemes, the formation of partnerships and timing-related issues. The research also revealed that the funding system is failing to meet the needs of the current transport policy focus on managing travel demand, rather than being a supply-led process. The key project outputs are described, which include a ‘funding toolkit’ for local authorities, and guidance for funding bodies regarding the barriers faced

Funding for local authority transport and land-use schemes in the UK

This paper focuses on the research activities, findings and planned products of one of the UK EPSRC-funded DISTILLATE (Design and Implementation Support Tools for Integrated Local Land use, Transport and the Environment) projects on the funding of transport and land-use schemes. Research activities have included a literature review, dialogue with local authority case studies and a funding workshop. The research identified and explored a range of barriers to funding, including lack of revenue funding, difficulties in obtaining funding for 'soft' schemes, the formation of partnerships and timing-related issues. The research also revealed that the funding system is failing to meet the needs of the current transport policy focus on managing travel demand, rather than being a supply-led process. The key project outputs are described, which include a 'funding toolkit' for local authorities, and guidance for funding bodies regarding the barriers faced.Sustainable transport Funding Local transport planning Partnerships Local transport schemes

Land-use and transport interactions: Towards a research agenda

International audienceDuring the year 2012 and the beginning of the year 2013, a group of European researchers and experts leaded by the ECTRI (European Conference of Transport Research Institutes) Thematic Group "Mobility" has worked on a research Initiative for ERTRAC (European Road Transport Research and Advisory Council) in the field of Land-use and transport interactions. The purpose was to identify the principal challenging topics for Europe in the coming years. The objective was also to provide elements of decision for policy makers in the fields of land use and transport planning. This paper summarizes the main conclusions of this document. The paper is divided into five parts. The second part proposes a brief overview of previous research in the field of LUTI in Europe and beyond. The third part explains the motivations of the paper. The fourth part discusses the research topics that have still to be investigated. The fifth part concludes the paper

The differing perspectives of road users and service providers

A survey of almost 3000 people gathered evidence on their experiences of problems on Britain's roads, their level of support for potential solutions, and on the different perspectives of transport professionals. An assessment was made of the steps required to reduce gaps between users' expectations and their current experience. Questions raised by the findings include: the likelihood that current policy priorities are influenced by inaccurate assumptions about what the public would find acceptable; the potentially misleading impressions created by vicarious opinions; the need to re-weight survey responses to correct for differential response rates; and the role of public opinion, media pressure and professional judgement in the political decision-making process.

A Method for the Design of Optimal Transport Strategies

This paper presents a methodology for the design of optimal transport strategies and demonstrates its application to six UK cities. An objective function representing the total welfare of a transport strategy is used to measure the performance of the strategy; the levels of policy instruments in a strategy, such as changes in public transport fares and frequency, are chosen such that the objective function is optimised. Two types of analysis are reported: sensitivity tests around individual policies to examine their relative impacts, and optimisations of packages of transport policies. The effects of spatial variations of the public transport policies in the optimisations are also investigated

A method for the design of optimal transport strategies

This paper presents a methodology for the design of optimal transport strategies and demonstrates its application to six UK cities. An objective function representing the total welfare of a transport strategy is used to measure the performance of the strategy; the levels of policy instruments in a strategy, such as changes in public transport fares and frequency, are chosen such that the objective function is optimised. Two types of analysis are reported: sensitivity tests around individual policies to examine their relative impacts, and optimisations of packages of transport policies. The effects of spatial variations of the PT policies in the optimisations are also investigated.