An investigation into the reasons for the rejection of congestion charging by the citizens of Edinburgh

In February 2005, residents of Edinburgh, a medium-sized city in the United Kingdom, were given the opportunity to vote in a referendum on the introduction of a road user charging scheme, which had been in development for almost a decade. The public voted against the scheme by a ratio of 3:1 and it was consequently abandoned. This paper describes the evolution of the scheme, and presents results of research to determine the principle factors responsible for the public's overwhelming opposition to the scheme. The research used a postal, self-completion questionnaire that was distributed to 1300 randomlyselected households in central and southern Edinburgh three months after the referendum. The questionnaire responses were analysed to assess the influence of several factors on the way respondents voted in the referendum. Car use was shown to be the principle determinant of voting behaviour, with car owners strongly opposing the scheme while non-car owners only weakly supported it. The public’s limited understanding of the scheme increased the strength of the opposing vote. Further, the public were largely unconvinced that the scheme would have achieved its dual objectives of reduced congestion and improved public transport. The findings suggest that more attention should have been paid to designing a simpler, more easily communicated, scheme and convincing residents, particularly public transport users, of its benefits. Some other aspects of the scheme that militated against its successful introduction are also briefly identified

The marginalisation of bicycling in Modernist urban transport planning

This article deals with the scientific factors that have contributed to the dominance of motorised transport and the development of theoretical approaches in transport planning. Connections are made to modernism and to the theories within the field of transport planning that have created today's transport systems. Connections are then made to the field of bicycle planning. It is argued that there is a lack of theoretical research in bicycle planning that built on empirical studies. This has contributed to the bicycle often being marginalised in transport systems. Moreover, it is argued that new theoretical research could have a similar effect on bicycle planning as it has had on motorised transport planning. Although there is theoretical research about bicycling, such as vélomobility research, such research does not tend to theorise about bicycle planning. The idea put forward in this article is that theoretical knowledge from the field of mobility studies could be a first step in that direction. This article draws on the politics of mobility and research in vélomobility and develops a theoretical ground for transport planning that takes bicycling into consideration

Economic instruments and traffic restraint

Tax and Transport Policy: In recent years there have been increasingly strong linkages between national fiscal systems and environmental/transport objectives. Within the European Union, European Commission (EC) policy has been outlined in documents such as ‘Towards Fair and Efficient Pricing’ (1), and ‘Fair Payment for Infrastructure Use’ (2). In summary these well-researched documents advocate that transport infrastructure charges should normally reflect the marginal social costs at the point of use. These marginal social costs should include not only marginal wear and tear costs on infrastructure, but also ‘external’ costs imposed on society, the environment and the wider economy through accidents, pollution, emission of climate change gases, congestion etc.. While regulatory and physical design mechanisms are also recognised as having an important role to play, it is tax and charging instruments that the European Commission and national states see as being most effective at encouraging efficient and sustainable transport systems in the longer term. In practice, moving towards such a strategic policy aim has proved problematic. In the first place, transport taxation is an increasingly political sensitive subject, as the autumn 2000 ‘fuel price’ protests in several European countries showed. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that marginal changes in the fiscal framework would provide sufficient encouragement to make a real difference in consumer behaviour. It requires a major restructuring to address the issue of environmental performance. This chapter therefore explores the potential to move towards more radical actions in a way that might succeed in overcoming the shortcomings experienced by more short term strategies. Structure of the Chapter: This chapter first considers the purposes of taxation and the implications of this for the use of fiscal policies in the new transport agenda of managing transport demand. It then considers the fiscal policies that can be used to influence consumer behaviour in acquiring and using different forms of transport, before going on to explain how these policies have – or have not – been used in the recent past in the UK. The chapter then argues that the use of fiscal policies has been quite limited, particularly in comparison to other countries. It therefore advocates and examines the implications of the adoption of a wider range of fiscal policies, as part of a wider package of economic instruments and regulations to achieve transport demand management in an effective manner that also recognises the political sensitivities involved

Workshop 4 report: Criteria for successful collaboration.

This paper synthesizes evidence from Workshop 4 ‘Criteria for successful collaboration’ of the 15th International Conference on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport. This workshop focused on collaboration between public and private organisations as a key dimension of public transport governance. Collaborative arrangements can in some cases be a complementary approach to owner-instruction relationships (when allowed within the legal framework), overcoming or at least addressing some of the “critical interfaces” and problems that “fall between the cracks” in formal institutional structures. Collaboration between organisations with different resources and aims is often crucial for the ability to identify, develop and implement efficient solutions to problems that exceed traditional divisions of responsibility. It can foster trust (trusting partnerships) and joint capacity for innovation; and it can take place in formalized partnerships or more informal networks.Papers at the workshop addressed both positive and negative experiences of collaboration in Scandinavia, Brasil, Chile, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Australia from an empirical perspective, but several more theoretical papers considered the place of collaboration within wider governance frameworks. The workshop discussions led to a clearer definition of collaboration, and the formulation of key lessons on collaboration as a critical dimension in the interaction between the organisations that drive the development of current public transport operations and management, and future public transport improvement

Swedish and Scottish National Transport Policy and Spend: a Social Equity Analysis

(Article in Special Issue "Accessibility and Transportation Equity")The topic of social equity in transport planning has been dealt with, in particular, by authors such as Martens (2012) and Martens and Golob (2012) using a social justice based-approach. However,such an approach, whilst valuable and analytically rigorous (based as it is on accessibility modelling), does not consider a wide range of possible other social impacts of transport, as set out in a framework first put forward by Geurs et al. (2009). This paper uses Geurs’ analytical framework to consider two empirical case studies: The National Transport Strategy for Scotland, adopted in January 2016, together with associated national level spending plans; and Sweden’s 2014 2025 National Transport Plan. The paper will first summarise the contents of each document before analysing them in relation to the categories of social impact that Geurs (2009) identifies, and assess how, in relation to each category of impact, various social groups will benefit or disbenefit. A range of projects (planned) to be delivered by the two national strategies is then analysed in relation to the criteria. This analysis shows that the two national strategies/plans are in their distribution of spending, and the projects funded are generally working away from greater social equity in their distributional impacts

A balanced transport package for heavily-frequented venues

René Teeuwen, Tom Rye and Marcus Enoch explain how an approach to mobility management at heavily-frequented sites, intended to be applicable across North West Europe, is being developed by the trans-national OPTIMUM2 project

Converging structures? Recent regulatory change in bus-based local public transport in Sweden and England

This paper compares the regulatory structures that have developed in local bus regulation over the past 20 years in local public transport in Sweden and England outside London, and their impacts. The paper will attempt to assess how far there are similarities in these structures and whether there is evidence of any form of convergence. It does so with a review of the relevant legislation and structures, and their effects, based on the published and grey literature in the two countries. It uses a theory of the regulatory cycle (based on Needham, 1983) to theorise the relative regulatory positions of the two countries. It pays particular attention to the development of types of cooperative or partnership contract between the public and private sectors in local bus transport in the two countries, and assesses the similarities and differences between these two contracts. It concludes that, whilst the two countries may be at different points on the regulatory cycle, and therefore that in regulatory terms these partnership contracts are the result of very different pressures, in fact they are resulting in some similarities, though not in any way a regulatory convergence

Key challenges in the status analysis for the sustainable urban mobility plan in Podgorica, Montenegro

The paper presents the results of the application of a practical approach for collecting data, which provides a simple, cost efficient, and easily reproducible method that was applied to obtain the necessary data for the status analysis of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) for Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. Important data for the estimation of the existing condition of the traffic system were collected through desk research from the appropriate institutions and organizations. Several surveys and focus group interviews were conducted, in which about 5000 residents of Podgorica participated. In addition to answering questions, residents made numerous suggestions, confirming the correctness of a participatory approach in the new traffic planning paradigm that provides the SUMP with crucial advantages. A manual cordon count of traffic on five bridges for the traffic of the motor vehicles, as well as on two pedestrian-only bridges, was performed by students from the study program Road Traffic, and there are plans to repeat this in the coming years in order to enable more reliable monitoring and evaluation of the obtained data. Contemporary quality management tools such as BYPAD and ParkPAD were also used to assess the status of cycling and parking policy, respectively. It is especially important to emphasize that Podgorica is the first city in the West Balkans, and the fourth city in Europe, in which the ParkPAD tool was applied. A wide range of negative phenomena and trends was identified, like a rapid increase in the number of registered vehicles, an increase in the motorization rate and the number of traffic accidents, increased non-compliance with traffic rules, excessive use of passenger cars and auto-taxi vehicles, insufficient use of unattractive public transport, walking and cycling, etc. Based on the data collected, key challenges in status analysis in Podgorica were identified, which the SUMP should try to overcome. View Full-Text Keywords: sustainability urban mobility plan (SUMP), urban planning, vehicles, parking, public transportation, walking, cyclingpublishedVersio

Using the personal taxation regime to encourage modal shift : an international review

Correctly pricing transport behavior to take account of the ‘external’ costs such as congestion, emissions and congestion imposed on society by excessive car use has long been a tenet of effective Transportation Demand Management. But while policy makers have striven to increase public transport subsidies, raise petrol taxes, and introduce road user charging schemes to change the price of car travel, the wider influences of the personal tax regime has had relatively little attention. This paper is a review of reforms to the personal tax regime to favor more environmentally benign forms of travel and, in particular, to encourage employers to take part in TDM-type programs. The results reported are based on work undertaken for the UK Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, and the Inland Revenue. In addition to reporting the British situation, it also outlines how this same process has been approached in the United States, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and Norway, and at how successful they have been thus far with respect to TDM objectives. It then draws conclusions as to which direction policy makers could aim for the future