The basic service quality level of transport infrastructure in peripheral areas

The provision of transport infrastructure outside the most populated regions in Finland has been under budgetary pressure for more than decade. Furthermore, many of these less populated areas suffer a decline of the population, which adds to the stress on these regional economies. The prolonged reduction in maintenance also starts to show on the local roads and secondary railroad connections, which in turn may necessitate the reduction of speed or axle load limits. Last year the Ministry of Transport and Communication commissioned a study on the issue in which the various constituent elements for specifying an infrastructure (minimum) service level were discussed. In addition the study indicated the problems and trade-offs of bringing these elements together in a compound evaluation of a (minimum) service level. The constituent elements are very diverse, comprising technical and regulatory aspects of road and rail transport, social aspects such as entitled and aspired range of action, and economic aspects such accessability of product and labour markets. The article summarises the discussion on these elements. In addition it illustrates to what extent compensatory effects have occurred as regards housing and transport when comparing households in the countryside with urban households. There are cost differences which are in accordance with the theory, but the income gap seems to be decisive. The illustration is based on micro-data from the years 1985-1998. The article concludes with pointing at the character of decision making, and the desirable integration of regional public investment portfolios from various policy areas.

Editorial

Environmental and social impact assessment are default elements of transport policypreparation and transport project appraisal in many OECD countries. In the recent pasthowever, it has been realised that such an approach does not suffice. Instead of representingpossible limiting factors, the aims and principles of sustainable development are to beregarded as the very point of departure for formulating transport policies, as is for exampleformulated in the European Commission White Paper on Transport (COM, 2001). This hasconsequences not only for policy formulation, but also for theresearch that is used to buildthe evidence about the actual and potential impacts of transport systems

The adequate integration of sustainability into transport policy

In this paper we discuss to what extent transport policy fails to integrate five types of external effects, and what kind of research needs follow from the objective to make transport sustainable. The discussion is a synthesis of the findings collected and synthesized in the framework of Focus Group 4 of the STELLA project. The assignment of Focus Group 4 was to draw up a set of recommendations for future transport policy-oriented research dealing with external effects, on the basis of a series of specialist workshops. Five different kinds of so-called external effects of transport were identified beforehand, being environment, safety and security, public health, land use and congestion. Safety and security as well as congestion are external effects in the sense that they are not ‘internalised’ in the price of the transport service, but they do affect predominantly others within the transport system. This means that with some delay the transport market still reacts to changes in the intensity of these effects, albeit biased or insufficient. The public goods character of both externalities however implies that public intervention is needed to attain better performance of these external effects, partly via internalisation of the external effects and partly via planning (i.e. by evaluating the trade-offs ex ante). The other external effects, however, are not only insufficiently internalised in the transport price, but they are also predominantly affecting parties outside the transport system. Consequently, changes in the intensity of these effects do not feed back directly into the transport market. In that case public intervention has even a more complicated task, since it takes more time and is more complicated to learn what are actually the right balances for the trade-offs between adequate access and, in turn, sustainability, spatial quality, and public health

Housing prices and the public disclosure of flood risk : A difference-in-differences analysis in Finland

Information gaps and asymmetries are common in the housing market and this is frequently the case with the risks of natural processes, especially in coastal areas where the amenity dimension may dominate the risk aspect. Flood risk disclosure through maps is a policy instrument aimed at addressing this situation. We assess its effectiveness by identifying whether such maps induce a price differential for single family coastal dwellings in three Finnish cities, and by estimating the discount per square meter for various flooding probabilities (return times). The estimations indicate a significant price drop after the information disclosure for properties located in flood-prone areas as indicated by the maps. In the case of sea flooding information in Helsinki, the price effect is sensitive to the communicated probability of flooding. Overall, the discussed policy instrument appears to have functioned as intended, correcting information gaps and asymmetries related to flood risk. The identified effect is spatially selective; it caused a short-term localized shock in market prices in conjunction with some reorientation of demand from risky coastal properties towards ones that represent a similar level of coastal amenity, but are less risky in terms of flooding. This hints at the potential for incorporating the shocks associated with flood events or risk information into broader-scoped urban modelling and simulation. Similarly, the reasonable accuracy with which the housing market processes the additional information shows a potential for wider use of the disclosure of non-obvious risks in real estate markets. In the case of adapting to climate change risks, additional uncertainties may make the disclosure instrument less effective, if used as a single tool.Peer reviewe

Carbon footprints and personal emission monitoring

To reach the long-term goal of substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the consumption of households is a crucial factor. To address consumers and change their behaviour towards a more climate-friendly lifestyle, new policy instruments are neede

Overadaptation to Climate Change? The Case of the 2013 Finnish Electricity Market Act

In this paper, we put forward a definition of over-adaptation in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) projects. We detail an illustrative case in which the response to extreme weather risk while aligned with the goals of CCA, is implemented beyond the economically efficient scale. We undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the 2013 Finnish Electricity Market Act, enacted partially as a reaction to long, storm-induced electricity blackouts experienced after 2000. The Act imposes strict requirements on electricity distribution companies as regards the duration of blackouts. Meeting these requirements entails investments amounting to billions of euros. As a benefit, we quantify the avoided cost from the blackouts for households and producers. Our results, derived from Monte-Carlo simulations, show that for urban areas, the net expected value is positive. However, in rural areas less strict requirements could have been economically more efficient. Our results indicate that distributional impacts and correspondence between those who benefit and those who pay the costs should be taken into account in DRR and CCA policies that require large-scale investments. We also note that the population affected by a disaster may not accept DRR and CCA that are successful in terms of regulation and implementation. This applies when societal and individual preferences do not coincide.Peer reviewe

Ohjauskeinoyhdistelmät asumisen, henkilöliikenteen ja ruoan ilmastovaikutusten hillintään – KUILU-hankkeen loppuraportti

Asumisen ja henkilöliikenteen ilmastovaikutusten ohjaukseen on jo käytössä lukuisia ohjauskeinoja ja toimenpiteitä. Ruokavalintojen ilmastovaikutusten vähentämiseen on vain yksi ohjauskeino, eli valtioneuvoston periaatepäätös kestävistä julkisista hankinnoista, mutta se sisältää useita toimia, joilla on myönteisiä vaikutuksia. KUILU-hankkeessa oli useita osavaiheita, joissa mm. arvioitiin olemassa olevia ohjauskeinoja, jonka jälkeen kehitettiin ohjauskeinoyhdistelmiä asumisen, liikenteen ja ruoan ilmastovaikutusten hillintään. Hankkeen aikana järjestettiin kaksi asiantuntijatyöpajaa. Tässä hankkeen loppuraportissa esitetään suosituksia ja ehdotukset ohjauskeinoyhdistelmistä asumisen, liikenteen ja ruoan ilmastovaikutusten hillintään. Työssä on arvioitu myös ohjauskeinoyhdistelmien vaikutuksia kasvihuonekaasupäästöihin. Asumisen ja liikenteen päästöissä arvioitiin vuoteen 2020 mennessä voitavan saavuttaa yhteensä yli 4 miljoonan tonnin (Mt) päästövähennys, millä on merkitystä Suomen päästövähennystavoitteiden kannalta. Ruokaan liittyvillä ohjauskeinoilla arvioitiin voitavan saavuttaa 0,3 - 0,5 Mt päästövähennykset. Toisaalta on syytä todeta, että kulutuksen päästöt ja päästövähennykset voidaan laskea monella tavoilla, ja käsitteet ja laskentaperusteet olisi syytä määritellä vielä täsmällisemmin myöhemmissä tutkimuksissa. Arvioiden taustalla olevia oletuksia on myös syytä tarkastella kriittisesti. Ohjauskeinoyhdistelmät osoittavat, että ohjauksen vaikuttavuutta voidaan edelleen lisätä. Kun ohjauskeinoja tarkastellaan kokonaisuuksina, niin ohjauskeinojen välisiä synergiaetuja saadaan esiin ja ohjauksen tehokkuutta voidaan parantaa. Tämä edellyttäisi valtionhallinnon sisäisen yhteistyön vahvistamista esimerkiksi politiikkaohjelmien ja ministeriöiden yhteisten, kulutussektorikohtaisten tulostavoitteiden avulla. Ohjauskeinojen hyväksyttävyys todettiin tärkeäksi asiaksi, johon voidaan myötävaikuttaa hyvällä toimeenpanolla. Ohjauksen pitkäjänteisyys ja vaikuttavuus ovat olennaisia sekä ilmastopolitiikan onnistumisen että hyväksyttävyyden kannalta