Island transport, car ownership and use: A focus on practices in Cuba, Malta, Mauritius and Singapore

Car ownership is growing in many countries and this growth results in further car use and increasing emissions – a trend diametrically opposed to a reduction of transport energy and longer term sustainability targets, and a problem that is particularly acute in island states across the world. The aim of this paper is to consider how various contextual factors influence the development of transport systems in four island states. Within this, the paper seeks to explore how transport systems have developed in Cuba, Mauritius, Malta and Singapore. The paper finds that a number of contextual factors have combined to result in four rather interesting transport outcomes

Demand responsive transport: A review of schemes in England and Wales

Local-authority-administered Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) schemes are increasingly prevalent in England and Wales, partly as a result of the growth in the availability of government funding. However, insufficient research has been undertaken into the nature of these schemes and their performance, making it difficult to predict their future role. In this respect, a survey was undertaken to collect data on the background, operation, and performance of DRT schemes in England and Wales. It found that DRT schemes are often designed in an attempt to tackle social problems caused by poor accessibility and that they took time to become established, to achieve their objectives, and to reach an acceptable performance in terms of subsidy level. The paper concludes that local-authority-led DRT schemes have a role to play, but that lessons learned from schemes currently in operation must be heeded by those contemplating new scheme development

Car clubs : lessons from the Netherlands and San Francisco

Car clubs are now attracting support from a number of organisations in the UK but as yet no real champion has emerged. Marcus Enoch argues that the lesson from the Netherlands and San Francisco is that national or local government support is critical in helping car clubs to get established

Demand Responsive Transport : lessons to be learnt from less developed countries

Marcus Enoch examines three Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) schemes which are being successfully operated in Turkey, Hong Kong and Mauritius and asks what the UK can learn from their experiences

Managing transportation demand in Singapore

Singapore has long held a well deserved reputation for being at the cutting edge in the field of managing the demand for car use. But in addition to the high profile policies of charging for road use and rationing the number vehicle licences through a vehicle quota system, the South East Asian city state has also been innovative with a number of supporting policies too. In this article Marcus Enoch takes a more rounded look at the Singapore experience

A possible blueprint for mainstreaming travel plans in the UK?

The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the evolution of the travel plan since its introduction in the UK just over a decade ago, and then draw on this to suggest how travel plans may develop over the next ten years. The paper draws on existing literature and the experience of the authors and colleagues to suggest that travel plans have gradually shifted from being predominantly a niche product towards being an integrated, comprehensive yet still focused tool in three senses: segment, scale and scope, and proposes that a fourth element ‘structure’ is also important. It then suggests that policy makers might use these observations to provide an eventual target destination that might inform a more strategic approach as to the potential of the travel plan in the future and sets out some possible intermediate stops along the way

Pooling together : why the vanpool works in the US and the Netherlands

A vanpool is a group of 7-15 people who commute together on a regular basis in what is called in the USA a van – but what we would call a minibus. The vanpool concept is predicated on the voluntary driver, and expenses are shared among the group. Largely as a result, vanpools are widely regarded in the USA as being the most cost-effective transportation demand management measures for employers to support. Currently there are more than 10,000 vanpools in the USA, which are operated by private operators, employers and public agencies. In addition, vanpools are beginning to be developed in the Netherlands. However, as yet they are almost unknown in the UK. The purpose of this article is to identify why this is the case by looking at vanpools in the United States and the Netherlands

Recouping public transport costs from gains in land values

Marcus Enoch examines the experiences of Hong Kong and Copenhagen where efforts have been made to exploit the windfall increase in land values related to transport developments. He asks whether this approach can be made to work in the UK

UK parking cash out experience, and lessons from California

Controlling parking – either by restricting the number of spaces available, or by charging users to park – has long been acknowledged as one of the more effective elements in any strategy to reduce car use. But it is this very effectiveness that also often makes such punitive measures extremely unpopular, and therefore difficult to introduce. A more acceptable measure is the idea of paying to persuade drivers not to use their cars for certain trips – i.e. effectively bribe motorists to use an alternative mode. One application of this principal – the parking cash out – is becoming increasingly common in the UK. This article looks at the performance of current UK parking cash out examples and compares this experience to California where parking cash out has become a mainstream policy measure

Getting the bus to work : why quality bus corridors work in Dublin

Dublin has achieved a remarkable increase in bus patronage through the introduction of quality bus corridors. Marcus Enoch reports on Dublin’s success which is founded on properly implemented bus lanes. He concludes that the key to persauding car users to switch to the bus is that the bus journey time must be consistently and significantly less than that taken by car