Policy

Big Ambitions, Vague Targets: The UK's Integrated Transport Policy Paper

There is a lot of discussion amongst transport planners and strategists about better integrating transport. The UK has recently published a policy paper on integrated transport.

Key Takeaways

• Guiding principles of People, Place and Partnership will underpin how transport is designed, built and operated in the future, enabling more seamless journeys across the network.
  • Ensure that people are at the heart of everything we do, so transport serves them, no matter who they are.
  • Use transport to create better-connected places across the country, so communities can thrive and grow.
  • Work in partnership across government, with local leaders and the transport sector, so that decision-making is effective, collaborative, and delivers the right outcomes for people and places.
• Eight priorities that have been shaped by what people and stakeholders said matter most to them:
  • Journeys will be easier to plan and undertake with a simple approach to payments and information
  • Provide safe and dependable transport so people can trust the network and travel with confidence.
  • The transport network will be increasingly accessible and affordable, providing people real choice in how they travel.
  • Transport will help create healthier communities, where making healthy travel choices will be easy and convenient, supporting cleaner, quieter and more liveable places.
  • Decisions on transport and development will be better joined up, creating more well connected places to live.
  • Champion data and technology to deliver an integrated, innovative and accessible transport system that is fit for the future.
  • Support and empower local leaders who are accountable to their local electorate to deliver better local transport for their communities.
  • Optimise decision-making and appraisal so that it aligns with the principles set out in this strategy, and is underpinned by high-quality analysis.
• Note: funding was announced for the 'Mini Switzerland' pilot scheme. See here.

Comment

The strategy is very sensible. However, as with so many transport strategy documents around the world, it lacks specific objectives and targets, instead just talking about the metrics it will track.

This makes it impossible to hold the government to account for delivering the strategy and makes me very sceptical that it will be delivered in any meaningful way, something that is all too common around the world.

What Next?

Do you have an integrated transport strategy with specific objectives and targets?

Strategy

The Policy Behind Japan's World-Class Rail Network

Japan has some of the best railways in the world, with 28 per cent of passenger kilometres travelled by rail, more than anywhere else in the developed world. This article from Works In Progress attempts to explain why and what others can learn from Japan.

Key Takeaways

• Japan’s vast railway network is divided between dozens of companies, nearly all of them private.
• Japan’s railway system turns a large operating profit and receives far less public subsidy than European and American railways.
• Cultural explanations are often used to explain Japan's railway success. This is wrong. The Japanese love cars, but they also take trains because they have the best railway system in the world.
• Their system excels because of good public policy: business structures, land-use rules, driving rules, superior models for privatisation, and sound regulation.
• Much about Japan’s railway system could be replicable around the world.
• As transport infrastructure creates benefits that produce no revenue for providers, free markets rarely build enough of it. Japan has partly solved this problem by enabling railway companies to do much more than just run railways.
• Japan’s liberal land-use regulations make it straightforward to build new neighbourhoods next to railway lines, giving commuters easy access to dense city centres.
• Postwar land improvements were only possible because the railways could secure land takings cooperatively with local businesses and landowners.
• Japan does not have the same implicit subsidies to cars. Parking is restricted, and motorways are funded by tolls.
• Japanese National Railways' privatisation removed the final obstacle to creating the world’s best railway system, but the railways stayed vertically integrated.
• Fares are regulated through price capping. However, these caps are relatively high.
• Japanese railways do not receive subsidies for day-to-day operations; they do receive government loans and grants for capital investments.

Comment

Whilst the article rightly points out that the Japanese railway's success is due to good policy, I think it underestimates the difficulty in replicating it.

Governments tend to only pull one or two policy levers at a time. To replicate Japan, you need to change policies on privatisation, land use, car subsidies and fares. Just one of these would be a major political fight in most jurisdictions.

Instead, jurisdictions should assess which parts of their systems they can change to move towards a more Japanese-style model, whilst improving outcomes that provide political support for further change.

What Next?

Which parts of the Japanese model make the most sense to move towards in your jurisdiction?

Policy

Getting Transport Research into the Hands of Policymakers

One challenge in transport is integrating research into policy (we are not the only discipline struggling with this issue). I wrote a blog last year on an idea I had to help out.

This week, I came across two articles discussing the same topic. One on what a researcher thinks can help in transport, and one providing a systematic review of advice to academics.

Key Takeaways

• Evidence suggests that research most commonly influences policy through a diffuse process in which a body of research “enlightens” policymakers.
• To increase the influence of their work, researchers must consider dissemination strategies, including publications for non-academic audiences, as well as translational work that increases accessibility to a body of work.
• To further improve research “uptake,” the policy literature suggests that researchers should foster relationships with policymakers to enhance communication and trust.
• A review of studies on the effectiveness of policy briefs found that they were less effective at changing beliefs among individuals who already had opinions on the issue.
• A politician’s prior attitudes bias their interpretation of information, and presenting more information makes the problem worse, not better.
• Key individuals can play a central role in overcoming these barriers and successfully linking research to policy. “Knowledge brokers,” in particular, provide a bridge between researchers and policy makers, facilitating the flow of information between these groups.
• If transportation research identifies and documents problems with the current paradigm, it can potentially push the field toward a new paradigm that better addresses those problems
• Academics need to educate themselves about the policy process.
• The systematic review had eight main recommendations:
  • Do high-quality research.
  • Make your research relevant and readable.
  • Understand policy processes.
  • Be accessible to policymakers: engage routinely, flexibly, and humbly.
  • Decide if you want to be an issue advocate or an honest broker.
  • Build relationships (and ground rules) with policymakers.
  • Be ‘entrepreneurial’ or find someone who is.
  • Reflect continuously: should you engage, do you want to, and is it working?

Comment

The most influential academics build good relationships with policymakers. Crucially, to do this successfully, they learn to speak to policymakers in their language, which means talking to them in terms of their priorities, not their own. I wrote a blog about this challenge here.

I often find that any one transport policy can work for both the left and the right, depending on how it is presented and the values it emphasises.

One of my hopes for the Transport Reform Network (TRN) is that it will help academics to get high-quality research to impact policymaking. If you haven't yet joined the TRN, you can sign up here.

What Next?

For academics: Do you have a strategy and a plan for getting your research adopted into policy?

For non-academics: Do you have a plan to take forward a reform based on research?

Quick Adventures in Transport Wonderland

Here is what else I came across this week:

• ​Exploration of the impact of on-street parking pricing on the shift to public transport - Research from Greece into public perspectives on moving to dynamically priced parking.
• ​Cycling in New York, London, Paris, and Berlin before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic - Research comparing cycling trends.
• ​A decade of Mobility-as-a-Service research: A systematic review of modelling methods and future research agenda - A review of 92 journal articles on MaaS.

Podcast

When Does Value Engineering Go Wrong?

The latest Transport Leaders podcast discusses Value Engineering and how, at times, it can undermine the value of projects.

You can listen here​

You can watch here​