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Transferability of Best Practice in Transport Policy Delivery : Final Report

3.15 Conclusions

3.15.1 The preceding sections of Chapter 3 have presented a great deal of information about individual case study regions and cities. For the purposes of the study, it is important to understand the key factors that have contributed to success in each case, and their relative importance.

3.15.2 A summary of the success factors in each of the case study regions is presented in Table 3.3, below. These factors are then discussed in the subsequent paragraphs. For each case study, Table 3.3. presents the most important success factors that, from the review of available evidence, appear to have most influence on the achievement of transport policy objectives. Some of these factors are structural and political; and some are actual transport policies that appear to be particularly important in achieving overall objectives. The first six rows of the table cover these structural factors; and the other rows, the policies that have been most important in achieving objectives. "Public support" refers to the popularity of the region's transport objectives with the public. "Political champion" refers to the presence, or otherwise, of a prominent politician who champions particular transport policies. "Central government "steer" " refers to the degree of guidance from central government to local and regional authorities on the transport policy decisions that they should make.

Table 3.3 - Success factors in each case study

Table 3.4 - Financial comparisons

3.15.3 Table 3.3 shows that, after the existence of integrated ticketing, the most important factor in the successful delivery of transport policy is funding. Therefore, for those regions for which it was possible to gather information, financial data are presented in Table 3.4, and compared with the situation in the Lothians and Strathclyde. This shows that, for both Scottish regions, public transport subsidy is below the average of the other areas, public transport investment is significantly below, and monthly season tickets cost significantly more, than in other areas of Europe. Public transport mode share is much lower. This confirms other work, for example by CfIT (2001). (The figures for subsidy are taken from the annual reports of regional public transport organisations. In some cases these figures may not include some of the costs of rail subsidies, which may be absorbed by national rail organisations - so subsidies may be higher than stated.)

3.15.4 Table 3.4 also shows that the three areas that have achieved modal shift from car to public transport spend significantly above average on investment and/or subsidy, as well as having strong land use and parking restraint policies.

3.15.5 Table 3.4. shows, further, that the existence of regional bodies can be seen to be linked to the successful implementation of transport policy. This is not a function of the regional body per se, but rather of two key transport policy measures that have been implemented in the regions concerned: integrated ticketing, and (to a lesser extent), tendering of public transport services. This does not of course mean that these measures cannot be implemented without a regional body in place; however, the fact that all the regions considered in the Table have a regional body in place provides strong circumstantial evidence that there is a link between the governance structure, and what is implemented.

3.15.6 Table 3.3 can also be interpreted to provide a summary of the factors that have contributed to success in each case. It is obvious from the table that more factors have been important in the case of Stockholm than in the case of Madrid. However, there is no direct link between the number of success factors and the degree of success in policy implementation. Since 1986, for example, public transport ridership has been rising more steeply in the Madrid than in the Stockholm region, due to greater in-migration and changes in the distribution of population and jobs in the Spanish, compared to the Swedish, capital region. On the other hand, Stockholm has made some small progress towards reducing the use of cars, at least for commuting, whilst Madrid has not.

3.15.9 The following sections discuss some of these issues in more detail.

Integrated ticketing

Funding

3.15.11 Information on funding levels is scarce but, from those regions that were able to supply it, those which are typically considered to be examples of best practice are spending orders of magnitude more money to improve services and infrastructure than is spent in comparably-sized regions in Scotland. There are no European examples where the proportion of operating costs raised from fares is more than 70%; the comparable figure in Scotland (for bus) is over 90%. This has the dual effect of keeping fares lower and service levels higher than here.

3.15.12 There is obviously an issue here with regard to value for money. Unlimited amounts of money cannot be spent on public transport in order to boost its ridership. Table 3.4 shows how much money is spent in the regions that were able to supply data. Few of these cities or regions have evidence of mode shift to public transport from car. All of them have evidence of increasing public transport patronage; what Table 3.4 does not show is that in the cases of Stockholm, Helsinki, Madrid, London and Vancouver, public transport patronage - including bus - has been rising consistently for the past decade. Whilst bus patronage in the Lothians and Glasgow is currently stable or rising slightly (Scottish Transport Statistics 2002), this stability is only a recent phenomenon: over the past decade, bus patronage in these two areas has fallen. In 1990-91, total passenger trips in the former Strathclyde region were in the region of 280 million; this fell to 190 million by 1998-99, and has since recovered slightly, to about 205 million in 2000-2001. The respective figures in the Lothians were 145 million; 100 million; and 110 million. As subsidy in these regions is limited to a small minority of services, it has not changed significantly in this period. (Concessionary fares payments are excluded from subsidy for the Scottish comparators as, strictly speaking under the terms of the UK Transport Act 1985, concessionary fares reimbursement should leave operators no better and no worse off than they would have been, had no concession been in place.)

3.15.13 These comparisons of spending and bus patronage trends provide strong circumstantial evidence that there is a link between high spending levels, and rising patronage. It is also the case that in all the Scandinavian and Swiss cases, consistently rising patronage has been achieved at the same time as operating costs per vehicle km have been reduced, consequently reducing the proportion of costs that is covered from subsidy, during the past ten years. In contrast, on bus services in Britain outside London, subsidy per passenger has remained constant over the past decade (Rye and Wilson, 2002).

3.15.14 The survey research was not able to find much reliance on PPP schemes for investment (although there is considerable involvement of private sector bus operators in many countries). Investment is funded largely by central or provincial government loans, and/or from local taxes.

3.15.15 Furthermore, where regional transport bodies do not have the direct power to levy tax, they are - as with PTEs in the UK - dependent on revenue from their constituent local authorities. However, these local authorities seem able to raise revenue from local taxes much more freely than are their UK counterparts.

Common structures of regional transport administration

3.15.16 The importance, or otherwise, of a regional structure for transport administration was discussed at some length in the previous chapter. On the one hand, it has been shown that the existence or creation of a regional body does not automatically guarantee effective transport policy delivery. On the other, the best practice case studies reviewed in Chapter 3 all have some form of regional structure in place, and these do seem important in delivering two important policy measures: integrated public transport services, and integrated ticketing.

3.15.18 The sample of case studies is too small to be able to conclude if any one of these structures is more or less associated with best practice in the delivery of transport policy. The second and third variants of the regional structure are more common.

Tendering and regulatory structures for public transport

3.15.19 The introduction of tendering in bus and (to a lesser extent) regional rail services has brought major efficiency gains to Scandinavian cities in particular, allowing them to enhance service with the same amounts of subsidy. Whilst private sector involvement has been shown to be effective in this context, it is instructive that not a single one of the examples reviewed for this study has deregulated its bus services, nor re-structured its rail services by privatising its rail operations and infrastructure (although separation of the two elements of the railway is occurring across Europe, in response to EU Directives, and is most advanced in Sweden).

3.16 Less good practice

3.16.1 Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is little information available on less good practice in transport delivery: those areas that do not deliver are not forward in publicising the reasons why. Additionally, there is little evaluative information available that compares different cities and regions.

3.16.3 These countries are also at the bottom of the EU transport spending table (Eurostat, 2000). In Greece and Portugal, rural public transport is provided on a largely self-financing basis (Colin Buchanan and Partners, 1996), and there is a lack of integrated ticketing. Within the big cities, it is heavily subsidised, but there is a lack of the supportive land use and parking policies that have assisted public transport usage in cities in parts of northern Europe. In all five countries, there is a fragmentation of responsibilities for transport provision that commentators (e.g. MARETOPE, 2002) have argued reduces the effectiveness of transport policy implementation.

3.16.4 More details of Dublin, Portugal, and the UK are provided in the following sections.

3.17 Dublin, Ireland

Recent Changes in Public Transport

3.17.1 There are various changes to the structure of public transport that have been proposed for Ireland, though these have not yet been fully implemented. The basis of these changes is to increase the level of competition in the bus industry, to separate Irish Rail into an operating company and an infrastructure company, and to establish various independent institutions, for example, for procuring infrastructure projects, for regulating public transport, and for regulating railway safety. If these changes go ahead, the operational structure of public transport in Ireland that results will be similar to that in Figure 3.1 below.

Figure 3.1 - New organisational structure for public transport

3.17.2 The reforms are detailed by the Department of Public Enterprise (2000) in their consultation paper, and specify the need for coordination of measures at local, regional and national level, in order to achieve integration. The stated objectives are to provide an integrated public transport system, to sustain economic growth, and to improve social cohesion. These proposed changes are far reaching in terms of the public transport industry, but have little impact on the competencies of local government. They therefore show little scope for increased integration between public and private transport measures, and increases in public transport will be determined by market demand rather than any assessment of need. At present this integration is entirely dependent on cooperation between different levels of government, and these reforms do not indicate that this will change.

3.17 .3 Whilst public transport has not been deregulated and is still completely state owned (although there are some unofficial long distance bus services), its bus system receives the lowest level of subsidy of any EU member state (Colin Buchanan and Partners, 1996). Historically it, too, has spent a very low proportion of total government funds on transport - between 1990 and 1995 it was ranked 13 ^th (2 places behind the UK) in transport spending per capita among EU Member States (Eurostat, 2000). Anecdotal evidence suggests that the fragmentation of decision making has been a barrier to the faster implementation of transport policy in the Dublin area.

Greater Dublin

3.17.4 The Greater Dublin Area comprises the local authority areas of the Dublin Corporation and the counties of Fingal, South Dublin, and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown (the Dublin Region), and the counties of Kildare, Meath, and Wicklow (the Mid-East Region).

3.17.5 Public transport in Dublin is by rail (nationally-owned Irish Rail), and bus (over which nationally-owned Dublin Bus has an effective monopoly), and in 1998, 89% of public transport journeys were made by bus. Dublin has been expanding rapidly over the last decade, as Ireland's economy has been going through a boom period. The City of Dublin has a population of 500,000, while the Dublin transport area has a population of 1.1 million. There are 90 million passenger trips made within the transport area of the City of Dublin, while there are 300 million made in the Greater Dublin area per year. Peak hour mode share (motorised trips) in 1997 was 19% bus, 8% rail and 73% car. The respective figures in 1991 were 26%, 10% and 64%. Over the same period, peak hour average car journey times increased from 31 minutes to 43 minutes, largely as a result of increasing congestion. (DTO, 2002.)

3.17.6 Over the last decade or so, public transport ridership (as opposed to mode share) has increased substantially, due to economic growth. Cost coverage of public transport has increased considerably, from 84% in 1988 to 96% in 1998. This is very high, even compared to Britain (a 1996 report for the European Commission also found that Ireland's bus services received the least subsidy of any in the EU at the time (Colin Buchanan and Partners, 1996)).

3.17.7 This low level of subsidy, combined with the limited amount of competition in the bus market means that bus services are relatively expensive, and of lower quality than elsewhere in Europe. Increases in subsidies have been identified by the Department of Public Enterprise as being necessary, to improve the quality of public transport in Dublin, along with the introduction of public service contracts.

3.17.8 The Dublin Transport Initiative (DTI) was first introduced in 1995 with the aim of coordinating transport measures in the Dublin region, though the DTI Strategy. This coincided with the introduction of the Dublin Transportation Office (DTO), which was set up to carry out the transport planning process.

3.17.9 In 2001 the DTO published their strategy for 2000-2016, which includes a summary of the achievements following the first DTI Strategy 5 years previously. This report specifies the challenges that were faced over the previous five years, and the main one relates to the exceptional economic and demographic growth of the Greater Dublin Area of this period (eg. the number of people in employment rose from 549,000 in 1995 to 681,000 in 1999, and over the same period car ownership rose from 292 per 1000 population to 342 per 1000). These figures were far greater than those forecast by the DTI, and have put the transport system in Dublin under considerable pressure.

3.17.10 Over the initial five year period there were also several major infrastructure projects established, some of them across the county boundaries within the Dublin Region. These included the introduction of Quality Bus Corridors, the extension of DART / Suburban rail services, increased park and ride facilities, considerable increases in cycleways, national road improvements, and the start of construction work on the Light Rail (LUAS). However, the 2001 DTO report acknowledges that many of these infrastructure projects have slipped behind schedule, due to reduced funding, and the responsibility for their implementation being shared between many agencies. Increasing modal share for car and increasing journey times (see above) also indicate that what was implemented was, initially at least, insufficient to reverse travel and car ownership trends.

3.17.11 Part of the DTO report sets out proposals for new institutional arrangements for Land Use and Transport. The establishment of a Strategic Body for the Greater Dublin Area was at the consultation stage when the report was published. Once established, this body would make long-term strategies for land use and planning, and would therefore take over from the DTO. It would also monitor and enforce these strategies, and would act as the independent regulator for all Dublin public transport, setting detailed service standards. The planned Railway Procurement Agency will still be effective, but it will only undertake projects that are consistent with the Strategic Body's strategies. Similarly, the National Roads Authority will still be responsible for the national roads, but will only be able to implement projects that are in line with these strategies.

3.17.12 While these changes provide an interesting development in transport administration in Dublin, it is too early to see if this coordination of transport and land use planning (without the direct integration of road and rail authorities) will produce improved coordination on the ground, and whether the present trends towards car ownership and use can be reversed.

3.18 Lisbon, Portugal

3.18.2 The report makes it clear that the most important factors in the above list are the confusion of roles and legislation; and the lack of cost-control in public transport provision.

3.19 The UK

3.19.2 It is also instructive that, in considering its position on a draft Directive on regulatory reform in local public transport, the European Commission has at no stage suggested full deregulation of public transport on the British (outside London) model; it has always been committed to opening up the market for the supply of local public transport through a franchising/contract process.

3.19.3 A review of countries with less effective transport policy implementation thus shows that many of the success factors that are found in the case studies of effective practice are lacking in areas where transport policy is not well implemented.

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