Governance, COVID responses, and lessons on decision-making in uncertainty

This chapter introduces governance as the ruleset that stakeholders work with when making decisions, in this on how to deal with COVID crisis in public transport. This chapter looks at several countries and the way in which their decisions, shared between authorities (health and transport) and operators, have shaped the effects on ridership. In a brief case study on Amsterdam, the interplay between various governmental layers and the operator is explained and is shown how existing governance shaped the decisions on the COVID response. This chapter ends with the observation on how COVID responses were shaped by the existing governance and that COVID in turn possibly is having the effect of a rethink on the existing governance.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Organisation & Governanc

Developments in public transport governance in the Netherlands; the maturing of tendering

In 2001, competitive tendering was introduced for most concessions in the Netherlands, to be carried out by regional authorities. These authorities received a great deal of freedom to implement the tendering in the way they saw fit. Over the years, issues arose that challenged the effectiveness of the tendering approaches. For example, operators were overincentivised to low prices, the administrative burden of tendering proved high, service across concession boundaries was poor, cooperation between authorities and operators was poor. Even though the effect of these issues on patronage and efficiency were hard to distinguish from bigger trends, it is clear that tendering has matured. This article, as its precursors in earlier Thredbo conferences, captures these issues and the lessons drawn over the last 15 years and shows in what phases tendering has matured, based on the Dutch experience, that could help other authorities in the process of maturing their tendering of public transport. Key theme has been integration after the fragmentation that tendering brought through strict definition of roles, formal procedures, small and uni-modal concessions.Organisation and Governanc

A new focus in the empirical research of manageability in projects

The outcomes of complex projects regularly reveal the failure of management, when trying to control them towards a predicted outcome. This article reports on a study looking at the emergence of unmanageability in these projects. It takes as a point of departure that the occurrence of unmanageability cannot be attributed to a limited set of discernible decisions, but instead depends on broad trade-offs, often with double bind character. This then leads to the observation that a different approach is also needed to fight unmanageability. While individual trade-offs do not necessarily lead to unmanageability, the research identifies patterns of trade-off outcomes that can cause a project to spiral out of control. Finding coherence towards more manageable projects is shown to be difficult though, since the trade-offs are made separately in different phases of the project and on different levels in the project hierarchy. This article does make a case for more awareness of the coherence of trade-offs by referencing later phases in time and more operational levels in the hierarchy, and suggests aids to achieve higher manageability using such coherent approach.Organisation and Governanc

Public Transport Governance

Public transport can deliver multiple public values, including sustainability, accessibility, and safety. This is a challenging task because actors hold different views in relation to the way in which public transport should work and the outcomes it should produce. The role of governance is to link and coordinate these fragmented views in collective decision-making processes; governance identifies goals and establishes the allocation, amongst diverse actors, of the roles and responsibilities – along with the needed resources and discretionary ability (agency) – for the design and implementation of public transport policies and services. To effectively conduct this task, decision-makers need to embrace, rather than rebuff, the complex interdependencies and conflicts between public values and adopt a whole-of-values, adaptive, and context-aware approach to governance design. Scholars can support in this task, tackling the study of public transport governance through a more comprehensive lens, moving beyond studies with a partial focus on changes in formal institutions only.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Organisation and Governanc

Doelmatig aanbesteden: Een empirisch onderzoek naar de relatie tussen aanbestedingskenmerken en de kostendoelmatigheid van concessies in het regionaal openbaar vervoer

Met het van kracht worden van de Wet personenvervoer 2000 (Wp2000) in 2001 doet marktwerking zijn intrede in het Nederlandse regionaal openbaar vervoer. Via openba-re aanbestedingsprocedures concurreren vervoerders om de concessies (pakketten van vervoerslijnen en -diensten), die door decentrale vervoersautoriteiten in de markt worden gezet. De vervoerders kunnen zo een tijdelijk maar exclusief recht verwerven op het uitvoeren van het openbaar vervoer in een gebied. Daarmee is sprake van concurrentie óm, in plaats van óp de vervoersmarkt. Centraal in dit rapport staat de relatie tussen de manier waarop vervoersautoriteiten concessies aanbesteden en de kostendoelmatigheid van het regionaal openbaar vervoer. Daarmee biedt het beleidsmakers en regionale overheden de mogelijkheid inzicht te verkrijgen in de doelmatigheid van aanbestedingsprocedures. Een belangrijk doel van deze studie is de publieke uitgaven aan het regionaal openbaar vervoer verder inzichtelijk te maken. Het regionaal openbaar vervoer wordt voor een aanzienlijk deel bekostigd door vervoersautoriteiten, via de zogenoemde exploitatiesubsidies aan vervoerders, naast natuurlijk de inkomsten uit de verkoop van vervoerbewijzen. Om een beeld te krijgen van de financiering zijn verschillende gegevens uitgevraagd bij vervoersautoriteiten.Economics of Technology and InnovationOrganisation and Governanc

Transport Demand Management Policy Integration in Chinese Cities: A Proposed Analysis of Its Effects

Transport demand management (TDM) measures are widely regarded as essential tools to deal with traffic issues. Their effectiveness has been under scrutiny. Packaging of TDM measures has recently received much attention from researchers and governments because it can achieve more complex policy goals and resolve the negative effects of single TDM measures. Many studies have examined the concept of policy packaging, the ideal packaging process, and potential barriers at the theoretical level. However, the way TDM packaging as a concept works in a real-world context has received little attention. Additionally, there is little methodology to analyse its characteristics from a dynamic and historical perspective. Therefore, this study provides a methodology for analysing TDM packaging in four dimensions (i.e., density, classification, interaction, and time). These dimensions respectively reveal how many and what kind of TDM measures have been implemented, how they interact in a package, and how these characteristics change over time. We examine this methodology through comparative case studies based on policy document analysis in two Chinese cities, Dalian and Shenzhen, both of which adopt a large number of TDM measures. The results show that this methodology successfully reveals the characteristics of case cities: both tend to put more TDM measures into the transport policy package to deal with traffic issues, but the package in Shenzhen is more integrative than that in Dalian. We also find that with the integration of packaging increasing, transport systems are becoming more sustainable, and Shenzhen performs better in this regard than Dalian. This methodology can be used to analyse policy packaging in broader areas and to examine its influence on transport systems in more case studies in future research.Organisation and Governanc

Governance van de coördinatie van twee grote infrastructurele projecten: De casus Vught

Opdracht van Provincie Noord-BrabantOrganisation and GovernanceIntegral Design and Managemen

Dealing with Cross-Sectoral Uncertainty: A Case Study on Governing Uncertainty for Infrastructures in Transition

The interdependencies between infrastructures are growing. Engineering decision making that earlier was largely confined to a specific sector now requires more and more understanding of how systems interact: a system-of-systems perspective. The article analyzes the effect of that added complexity in a single case study in de Zuid-As, Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, and relates the findings to the literature on engineering decision making and project management in complex projects. The article concludes that cross-sectoral engineering decision making has an additional level of complexity that requires governance of uncertainty. Despite this challenge being a well-known challenge among infrastructure operators, it is still not recognized for its importance, and it seems to be a neglected element in collaboration. Key is an open approach in the early stages that goes beyond classic cooperative decision making in engineering and project management environments.Organisation & Governanc

Assessing passenger preferences for Bus Rapid Transit characteristics: A discrete choice experiment among current and potential Dutch passengers

To gain ridership, bus services need to offer more than just high frequencies. An attractive system design for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is a result of various configurational choices concerning infrastructure, rolling stock and operations. To find out which configurations are preferred by potential and current passengers, a Discrete Choice Experiment was carried out in The Netherlands. For this study, eight BRT characteristics were included. Results (n = 1019) show that four characteristics are valued the most: frequency, service hours, reliability and stop spacing. The attractiveness of three different service formulas or configurations is evaluated. The more conventional bus configuration is preferred by the majority of the respondents. However, a considerable amount (25%) of respondents that prefer this configuration does not consider using this service formula. Configurations that either address offering more passenger comfort or higher capacity, do seem to be attractive to distinct passenger segments who are more likely to actually use the service. These appealing BRT configurations address different types of passenger segments and therefore could coexist on certain routes.Organisation & GovernanceMarketing and Consumer Researc

Inventory and rating of performance indicators and organisational features in metropolitan public transport: A worldwide Delphi survey

This paper contributes to the discussion on the ways organisational form of public transport systems may influence its performance. A worldwide Delphi survey with experts in the field is presented. After a three-stage iterative process interspersing questionnaires and controlled feedback the survey produces authoritative inventories and ratings of performance indicators and organisational features in public transport. In relation to performance indicators, system-wide metrics such as user satisfaction, cost-recovery, and modal split are selected as preferred measures for a strategic assessment of public transport. Concerning features of organisational form driving performance outcomes, integration emerged as the central dimension: policy integration between public transport and other sectors, single integrated planning authority, as well as ticket and fare integration were highly rated by Delphi experts.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Organisation and Governanc