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Transferability of Best Practice in Transport Policy Delivery : Final Report

4. Ideal conditions for transport policy implementation

4.1 Introduction: Transport policy implementation in Scotland

4.1.1 Scotland is unusual in Europe in having no regional level of government with some responsibility for transport other than in the Strathclyde area, where the Passenger Transport Executive has control of rail services and the small proportion of non-commercial bus services (see below, for a further discussion of this regional body).

4.1.2 At the present time, the legal responsibility for transport policy delivery lies with the single level unitary local authorities created in 1996; with the Scottish Parliament and its Executive; and, one might well argue, with the private sector operators of buses and trains whose primary objective is profit maximisation - an aim not always entirely congruent with the transport policy objectives of public bodies.

4.1.3 In addition to these statutory entities, there are also four voluntary regional transport partnerships of local authorities in the west of Scotland around Glasgow, the east around Edinburgh, the northeast around Aberdeen, and in the rural Highlands and Islands. These bodies can implement transport policy only through the councils from which they are constituted and, therefore, can only implement regional/cross-boundary initiatives by consensus. An example of such an initiative is the regional integrated ticket recently introduced in south-east Scotland - this however is very costly when compared to other regions' (outwith the UK) integrated tickets, because it cannot by law be cheaper than tickets specific to one operator, and other bus operators' fares are not reduced by subsidy.

Delivery mechanisms

4.1.4 The delivery of new trunk (national) roads in Scotland is managed by the Scottish Executive (central government). Funding is normally entirely public, either as one-off capital expenditure, or by payment of shadow tolls (per vehicle using the road) to a private contractor who has a concession to build and then maintain the road over a set number of years.

4.1.5 Improvements in local bus services can be secured through a variety of mechanisms:

• Local authorities can contract operators to run additional services where these are deemed to provide best value.
• Voluntary (or statutory) partnerships between local authorities and bus operators can improve infrastructure, bus priority and vehicle quality in areas or on certain corridors ("Quality Partnerships"). The statutory option also gives the local authority some control over service frequencies. Currently in Scotland, no statutory quality partnerships exist.
• Quality contracts would allow local authorities to contract all or some bus services in their area, as occurs in Stockholm or London, for example. Subject to the approval of central government, this would give them full control over fares, routes and frequencies, which the other options do not.

4.1.6 Subject to public consultation, Scottish local authorities have the authority to make legal orders to manage the use of road space and reallocate it between different road users - thus they can make cycle paths, bus lanes and manage parking, for example. They can also fund, plan and build local roads.

4.1.7 Rail project implementation is a complex exercise within the current framework in Scotland and, indeed, Britain. Ownership of the infrastructure is separated from operations; the operators are private limited companies running under franchise to a central government agency (the SRA); the infrastructure owner is a not-for-dividend company limited by guarantee. Should a local authority wish to, for example, open a new station on a rail line in its area it will have to:

• Raise funds - normally from a variety of sources, sometimes including the private sector.
• Involve operator, SRA, infrastructure owner and health and safety agency in the planning of the station and the services that will serve it (for example, ensuring that the trains will stop at the station).
• Draw up legal agreements regarding the ownership of the asset once it is built.
• Obtain the agreement of the infrastructure owner to take possession of the railway land in order to build the station.
• Go through the legal process to compulsorily purchase any other land required.
• Contract out the construction of the station to one of a limited number of approved contractors.
• If necessary, indemnify the train operator and infrastructure owner against any knock-on delays that may result from the construction of the station.
• If necessary, pay for new trains that may be required to reliably run the timetable that includes stopping at the new station.

4.1.8 There is anecdotal evidence that the involvement of many different parties in such a process can slow it down and increase costs. Since the creation of this structure, in April 1996, one project (Crossrail in Edinburgh) involving two new stations and conversion of 0.66 km of track from freight to mixed passenger and freight operation has been implemented in Scotland.

4.1.9 Should a local authority in Scotland wish to have a new tram or guided bus way in its area, this would normally be pursued by public-private partnership (PPP). Sufficient public capital funding would be made available by central government and from the local authority's own capital resources to subsidise the construction cost of the project to a point where a private sector consortium can fund the balance of the construction costs and be confident that income from fares - which it would be able to keep for a specified number of years after opening - would be sufficient to repay the capital debt, and to make an operating profit. Planning and contract preparation prior to the letting of the PPP contract would have to be carried out by the local authority. The process has a degree of risk and uncertainty somewhat greater than if the project were entirely publicly funded and the construction and operation then contracted out. To date, no guided bus or tram projects in Scotland have been delivered using this mechanism.

4.2 Lessons from best practice

4.2.1 Based on the evidence reviewed in the previous chapter, some ideal conditions for best practice in transport policy implementation are now considered, as is their applicability to the Scottish context.

4.2.2 The foregoing review of questionnaire data, interview results and literature has identified the following aspects of better/best practice in transport policy implementation in other cities and regions in Europe and (one) in North America. These can be summarised as:

• The availability of funding for transport investment and subsidy. It is difficult to make absolutely direct comparisons between cities and regions due to the difficulty of collecting funding/spending data from the (sometimes several) bodies responsible for transport in their area. However, such data as it was possible to collect from the questionnaires, literature, and statistical sources indicates that per capita transport spending (especially investment) in Scottish urban regions is lower than in their better practice European counterparts. There is in addition a need to spend this funding in those policy areas where an improvement is sought.
• The availability of integrated ticketing across a regional area, and that this ticketing is favourably priced (which therefore requires much higher levels of subsidy than are typical in the UK, at least on buses). Particularly important is the availability of an integrated period ticket (e.g. monthly pass for all modes) at a low price.
• Spending money on public transport investment and subsidy appears to bring about consistent year on year increases in public transport patronage. Where modal shift from car to public transport (and cycling and walking) is sought, however, parking restraint and road space reallocation are required. UK examples such as Oxford and York demonstrate that, if severe enough, these restraint based mechanisms can on their own (i.e. without investment in public transport), bring about modal shift. However, these two cases are small, historic cities with many visitors and are not typical of the Scottish context.

4.2.3 There are also a number of factors which have been important in many of the cases studied, but not universally. These include political consensus and a long term commitment to particular transport policies; and tendering of public transport services, rather than running them as direct municipal or publicly-owned operations.

4.2.4 There are also two elements of transport policy delivery that are lacking in Scotland but not in any of the other better practice examples that were studied.

4.2.5 The first is the regulatory system for public transport. In no other area studied is road-based local urban public transport deregulated: a public body of some kind has control over service specification and fare levels. There is a considerable literature about the British experience of bus de-regulation and it is not the purpose of this report to rehearse this debate once again (see for example Preston and Mackie (1996)). One cannot be certain that, had Scotland not taken the path of bus deregulation in 1986, the same precipitous reductions in patronage, real fares increases, and consolidation of services on profitable corridors would not have taken place. But the circumstantial evidence is strong: no other city or region reviewed for this study has a deregulated system of road based urban public transport.

4.2.6 The second is the existence of a regional body, most usually, for the direction of public transport, although in certain instances (London, Copenhagen), with some responsibility for roads as well. The key achievements of these bodies appear to have been, firstly, the introduction of integrated ticketing systems used by a high proportion of passengers and, secondly, the integration of public transport services - especially those that cross municipal boundaries. These two achievements have been accompanied by increasing ridership and, in some cases, economies of scale (with consequent reductions in subsidy requirement).

4.2.7 This does not necessarily imply that a regional body is required in order to bring about service integration and integrated ticketing and fares. However, the circumstantial evidence is once again strong: this research could not find an example of a region that had delivered these elements of transport policy across that region but without a regional body. This therefore implies that the chances of being able to deliver these improvements are greater with rather than without a regional body in place.

4.2.8 The Strathclyde area of Scotland demonstrates the point that the regional body may be necessary but not sufficient and that other factors may be more important. In Strathclyde, the regional body, the PTE, is largely in control of specifying local rail services and their fares. It was, prior to 1986, the main bus operator in a regulated bus network. Subsequent to bus deregulation, it lost control of the majority of the bus network, fares and service levels, although it still specifies "socially-necessary" bus services. It runs a regional integrated ticketing scheme, Zonecard, in which the majority of operators participate, on a voluntary basis, but this is expensive (see Table 3.4), because it has to reflect operators' commercial fares, which have risen faster than the rate of inflation since deregulation.

4.2.9 Prior to 1996/7, SPTE was able to implement many rail projects, as it had access to significant capital funds through the regional Council, to which it was accountable. Arguably, the complex new structure of rail project delivery, coupled with a lack of funds, has significantly reduced its ability to deliver new rail projects since then (Docherty, 2000).

4.2.10 In conclusion, SPTE is now a regional body in a changed institutional and financial climate; without the other conditions in place, it is able to deliver relatively little.

4.2.11 Many of the other European regions reviewed have had regional bodies in place for many years, and so it was difficult to find out to what degree implementation has improved since the creation, or change in the nature, of the regional body. There is some information of this nature in relation to the following places:

• Zurich - no appreciable change in transport policy delivery since the powers of the regional body were reduced in 1997.
• Copenhagen - no appreciable change in transport policy delivery since the powers of the regional body were enhanced, in 2000, to cover more than public transport, which was the only responsibility of the former body for over 20 years.
• London - implementation of bus service improvements, road pricing and major street management projects started or speeded up since the regional body was created.
• Berlin-Brandenburg - falling public transport ridership prior to the creation of the regional body, but increasing since.
• Madrid - falling public transport ridership prior to the creation of the regional body, but increasing since.
• Vancouver - creation of a regional body in 1998 has not significantly speeded up transport policy implementation in the region. Prior to its creation, there was a regional public transport organisation which presided over consistently increasing ridership over the past decade.

4.2.12 This list of cities does not unequivocally demonstrate that a regional body is a good thing per se. It does not however provide any evidence that a regional body has hampered transport policy implementation; and in several cases (Berlin, London, Madrid) it has clearly assisted it. This research was unfortunately not able to find any examples of the abolition of regional bodies (other than in Scotland in 1996) to review any links between that and changes in the effectiveness of transport policy delivery.

4.2.13 Examples such as Italy, Portugal and Ireland, discussed in Chapter 3, show that transport policy delivery may be less effective where there is confusion over responsibilities, and a reliance on voluntary co-operation.

4.2.14 All this evidence, whilst circumstantial in the main, tends towards the conclusion that a regional body, its jurisdiction, competencies, governance structure and sources of funding should be constituted in law - although this does not rule out a sharing of responsibilities between local and regional government, as in Helsinki, nor the ability of local government to opt out of the regional structure, as in Madrid. The understanding gained from the interview was that, in this case, local authorities are able to choose whether to give up powers to the regional body; the regional body is legally constituted and has the authority to use these powers, once they have been given up by a local authority. In such cases, national government should set a policy and funding agenda where the benefits of regional co-operation are made very clear.

4.2.15 As noted above, a regional body would not of itself result in improved transport policy delivery: funding is key, and it also appears - at least circumstantially - that public control of public transport fares, frequencies and routes is also necessary. It is possible that if existing municipalities were given greater funding and regulatory control of public transport, this could deliver similar benefits: however, the examples of Greece and Italy - where high levels of subsidy are available - tend to suggest that this may not be the case.

4.2.16 Constituent local authorities, or an elected regional council, normally control the policy direction of the regional bodies that have been reviewed for this work, but they are in most cases constituted in law, with statutory powers. In some cases, local councils may opt in to the regional framework, in which case the regional body has statutory powers in that authority's area in the policy areas for which it has competence. In only one of the cases studied, Berlin-Brandenburg, is the regional body entirely voluntary - but it does nonetheless appear to function for the policy areas for which it has (voluntary) competence. It is not possible to conclude from this one case that entirely voluntary organisations are any more or less effective than statutory bodies; only on the basis that most regional transport bodies have a statutory status can it be argued that a statutory basis is more effective than a voluntary one. It should however be noted that VVB Berlin-Brandenburg does not have responsibility for promoting and managing cross-boundary infrastructure projects; all regional bodies that have this function are statutory.

Delivery mechanisms for projects

4.2.17 The questionnaire survey revealed that a wide range of projects, some of which are quite large (e.g. metro extensions; LRT schemes), have been delivered in the respondents' regions during the past five years. As noted above, none of the European respondents uses PPP to deliver these schemes. In contrast, contracting out of operations to private companies once schemes have been built is quite common. The closest example to a PPP scheme is the Oresund metro, the government loan for the construction of which will be paid back from the betterment value of the land around the metro stations.

4.2.18 The regions interviewed explained that their projects are delivered conventionally. That is:

• The need for a project is identified in a 5 or 7 year regional transport plan (e.g. in Paris, Helsinki, Stockholm or Madrid), prepared by the regional body.
• The plan - and associated investment - is agreed by the constituent municipalities of the regional body and by central government. At this stage, delays can take place as different constituent members negotiate about which projects should be included in the plan.
• An appraisal process is used to prioritise the projects.
• Public money is obtained to fund the projects. In Stockholm, this comes primarily from local taxpayers; in most other countries, from local and national taxpayers; and, in France, from national taxpayers and through the versement transport payroll tax (although in Paris the versement transport is used primarily to fund subsidy).
• Public consultation takes place; as in the UK, this can slow the implementation process.
• Detailed plans are drawn up, by the regional body.
• The construction of the projects is competitively tendered, by the regional body, to private contractors.
• Operation remains either with the public operator (e.g. the metro in Barcelona) or is tendered out (e.g. LRT in Stockholm).

4.2.19 Rail projects are slightly different: whilst the need for regional rail improvements may be identified regionally, the body responsible for their implementation is the national rail operator. The French and Spanish respondents did not indicate that this caused them problems in achieving regional objectives for rail policy, but in Stockholm, the differing priorities of the national rail infrastructure owner and the regional body can sometimes lead to investment decisions that support national rather than regional rail requirements.

4.2.20 Whilst consultation with local municipalities and local residents can sometimes slow project implementation, respondents did not report that projects were delayed because responsibility for their implementation was shared between many different bodies; in general, lines of responsibility are clear and relatively simple.

4.2.21 The report now considers how the conditions for implementation might be realised in Scotland.

4.3 Conditions for transport policy implementation in Scotland

4.2.1 In this section, ideal conditions for transport policy implementation are considered. These conditions have been developed from the findings of this study.

4.3.2 As argued above, no regions in Europe whose transport policy implementation is judged to be better practice have in place a deregulated system of local bus transport. This suggests that Scotland would benefit from a change from the current deregulated system to one of regulated tendered contracts, where fares and service levels are set by a public body.

4.3.3 The previous sections have demonstrated that the examples from the rest of Europe show that effective transport policy implementation is normally associated with the existence of a statutory regional body. It is therefore posited that a statutory regional body - into which local authorities can opt, should they wish - will assist better transport policy implementation. It is suggested that there should be an opt-in because this could increase the acceptability of such a body; although this could reduce its effectiveness, in some situations.

4.3.4 The primary responsibilities of this body would be to provide regional integrated ticketing and to set regional fares policy. It should also take on responsibility for tendering of public transport, within the regulatory framework outlined above, and hence service integration. Various options were suggested by respondents for such a framework:

• All local rail, tram and bus services controlled by the regional body (e.g. Stockholm, Paris).
• Only public transport services running between local authorities controlled by the regional body, with local authorities responsible for franchising services within their area (e.g. Helsinki). All services remain within a regional tariff structure.
• Rail services, and outline bus and tram service specifications set by the regional body; local authorities, or groups of them, would then set detailed contracts at the local level for services in their areas - thus maintaining a balance between the local and the strategic. (None of the cases studied has such a mechanism in place, although it was suggested by one respondent as a model.)

4.3.5 Previous sections of the report have shown that there is more money spent on transport in European cases of best practice than in this country. Therefore, the ideal conditions for implementation demonstrate a need for transport to access to significant levels of funding, both revenue and capital, comparable to those of similar sized regions in northern Europe. This funding should be raised through the body's own tax raising powers, or through a statutory precept on the local councils, and/or through special levies (e.g. road pricing or versement transport). However, the regional body should be subject to meaningful targets for improvements in operating costs, quality and farebox ratio for the public transport services that it procures.

4.3.6 The regional bodies that exist elsewhere appear to have a variety of different funding mechanisms. This suggests that it is the level of funding available, rather than the precise mechanism, that will influence the effectiveness of implementation. That said, many of the case study examples have more flexibility in the amount of money that they are able to raise locally than is local government in this country.

4.3.7 Again, the evidence marshalled from elsewhere points to a structure whereby delivery of major projects would be managed by the regional body, for cross-boundary projects; or by the local authority, for projects entirely within the local authority area. A five or seven year regional transport plan should be produced by co-operation between the local councils, the regional body and central government to identify major projects. Funding for these projects should come from national government and/or local taxation and special levies, and experience from the rest of Europe suggests that they might be delivered more quickly, were the structures for so doing rather simpler. PPP and Special Purpose Delivery Vehicles are not common in other parts of Europe.

4.3.8 In rural areas, such as the Islands, Highland, Scottish Borders (possibly) and Dumfries and Galloway, this model could be modified, to remove any need for a regional body. These Councils are large enough in geographical area to be effective deliverers of improved public transport. The key issue here is for them to be able to move to a quality contract situation for rail and bus, with sufficient funding to be able to keep fares relatively low. Thus they could then function much like a German Verkehrsverbund, or its Swedish equivalent. There is already evidence (e.g. Borders' Council LTS) that those parts of Scotland where bus services are predominantly tendered have seen increased patronage through better integration and planning of services, and changes in the structure and funding regime for rural public transport could enhance this process.

4.4 The pre-conditions, and local transport strategies

4.4.1 A further aspect of this study was to consider how the ideal conditions for transport policy implementation might assist in the more effective delivery of transport policy in Scotland. The transport delivery programmes of the local authorities in Scotland are set out within their Local Transport Strategies (LTSs). These documents were produced in 2000 and varied in detail, from largely aspirational, to detailed statements of projects and initiatives that were planned to be implemented.

4.4.2 To date, there has been no survey of Scottish local authorities to find out which of their planned projects have indeed been implemented, which remain to be completed, and which have met implementation problems. Nor has the Scottish Executive published data to show what percentage of the ringfenced funding that it has provided to local authorities for public transport investment, and walking and cycling projects, over the past four years, has actually been spent as planned. Obviously, if all planned expenditures have occurred, and all projects implemented as planned, then it would be difficult to argue that the existence of the ideal conditions for implementation would actually enhance transport project delivery in Scotland. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that not every project has been implemented as planned, due to:

• Delays or changes to projects caused by the public consultation process (which can also affect cross-boundary schemes).
• Increases in costs above anticipated levels.
• Skills shortages, especially in the rail industry.
• Changes and uncertainties in the rail industry, especially with regard to the operator's franchise, and the ownership of infrastructure.
• Differing aspirations of bus operators and local authorities affecting, for example, the speed of delivery of real time information systems.
• The regulatory framework for bus services, which has influenced the speed and scale of implementation of integrated ticketing.

4.4.3 Thus it is likely, though not guaranteed, that the ideal conditions for transport policy implementation might address some of these problems.

4.4.4 Within their LTSs, most authorities have aspirations for:

• A desire to see regional co-operation and partnership working in order to achieve regional transport objectives: this is seen in LTSs from Aberdeenshire, Falkirk, Perth and Kinross and Mid- and East Lothian.
• Integrated ticketing schemes and travel cards.
• Improving cross-boundary public transport links, including rail links. Many authorities' LTSs express a desire for such links, including Fife, North Lanarkshire, West Lothian, Moray, Perth and Kinross and Falkirk.
• Rail enhancements, especially links to airports. Several of the authorities in the Strathclyde area wish to see a heavy rail link to Glasgow airport, for example.
• Enhanced interchange, and integration of public transport services. Stirling, Edinburgh, Fife and Mid Lothian cite these elements as aspirations within their LTSs.

4.4.5 Many of the projects listed of course reflect an aspiration for increased funding for transport investment; one authority (East Dunbartonshire) also includes an aspiration for a reduction in the gap between public transport fares and the costs of car use.

4.4.6 The review of best practice from elsewhere demonstrates that it is these types of aspirations that would be more likely to be met, were the ideal conditions for transport policy implementation to be in place in Scotland.

4.5 Implementing the ideal pre-conditions

4.5.1 The previous sections have analysed experience from other European countries in order to arrive at a set of conditions which, if in place in Scotland, would probably increase the speed and degree of transport policy implementation. However, the attainment of these conditions would require considerable change - legislative, financial and institutional; and some of these changes (with regard to the delivery of rail projects) may be beyond the competence of the Scottish Executive itself to address.

4.5.2 Given that these changes would be wide-ranging and could have implications which might not be anticipated, even from the most in-depth studies of similar systems elsewhere, there could be benefits in testing a new model of transport delivery in a small area of the country. In the early 1980s, deregulation of bus services was tested in a number of areas of Britain outside London; new levels of funding, institutional and regulatory arrangements may at some future stage be introduced on a trial basis in Scotland also.

4.5.3 Any organisational change has the disbenefit that those involve tend to focus on the change itself rather than on service delivery during the change period; however, this would be a short term problem which should be recompensed by much improved transport delivery in the longer term.

Legislative changes

4.5.4 The primary legislation required to move to the conditions for more effective transport policy implementation has already been passed into law; it is now possible for local authorities to enact Quality Contracts for local bus services in all or part of their areas. At present, there is an anecdotal impression that central government would not support moves by local authorities to use Quality Contracts. The findings of the study suggest that central government could lead, at least experimentally, in this area, perhaps by studying forms of contracting used elsewhere (e.g. Stockholm) in greater detail.

4.5.5 Amongst other cities and regions studied for this research, regional rail enhancements have been achieved in Madrid, Copenhagen, Paris, Stockholm, Munich and Zurich. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the structures for the delivery of rail projects are much simpler in these countries (particularly those outwith Scandinavia, where infrastructure and operations have been effectively separated) than they are in Britain. This does not simply reflect the availability of money to deliver the projects, but also the smaller number of actors involved, and the lesser reliance on contractual relationships between them. Much more vertical integration of regional rail systems remains in these cities than in Britain. To re-create such a structure in this country would require new legislation in the UK Parliament. Pending the decision to make such legislation, it may behove the Scottish Executive to undertake research visits to Stockholm and Copenhagen to compare in detail the implementation of rail projects there, with those here, with a view to understanding whether there are aspects of the British rail project delivery process that could be simplified or speeded up, within the existing legislative structure.

Costs

4.5.6 Organisational change, and the setting up of new organisations, can be costly. By way of an indication of how much a regional body may cost to run, some data on administration costs and numbers of people employed were gathered from their websites. For example:

• Storstockholms LokalTrafik (SL) in Sweden employs 197 planners and administrators; and a further 800 in its LRT and Metro infrastructure arms.
• Knooppunt Arnhem-Nijmegen in the Netherlands covers a region of 700,000 people but employs only 20 staff. It has responsibility for planning and tendering bus transport, and managing major project investment in the region.
• Zurich's Verkehrsverbund costs about 1.3 million per year to run.
• Transport for London's central directorates cost 111 million per year to run.
• Oslo's Landtrafik (regional public transport organisation) spends 5% of its annual budget on "administration".

4.5.7 The scale of the organisation obviously depends on the functions that it performs - this is clearly why TfL's costs are so much higher. The Netherlands example shows that a relatively new regional organisation can also be extremely lean. Anecdotal evidence from Berlin-Brandenburg points to economies of scale when a larger regional body takes over the procurement of public transport from a number of smaller organisations. Additionally, a regional body may be of a scale whereby it can attract and retain the very scarce skills that are required to deliver complex rail and light rail projects - skills that might not be attracted to work for a small local authority. Since the regional body would be likely to be constituted on a statutory basis and in part dependent on the Scottish Executive for funding, it would be possible in defining the body to set it demanding performance targets to ensure that it did not become a "heavy-handed bureaucracy" (a criticism sometimes levelled at the former London Transport).

4.5.8 Table 3.4 presented data showing the sums spent on public transport in different cities and regions around Europe, comparing these with Lothian and Strathclyde. It is clear from this that average public transport investment per capita is more than twice the level in comparable European cities than it is in Lothian. Subsidy per capita is also higher, by 25% (Lothian) and 50% (Strathclyde). This implies an increase in spending on Scottish public transport investment of 50% (or more) over current levels; and in subsidy, of a similar magnitude. The Eurostat (2000) figures cited earlier in the report note that UK transport spending was 0.6% of GDP during the early 1990s, compared to a northern European average of about 1.1%. This adds further weight to the argument that conditions for more effective delivery of transport policy in Scotland would require a doubling in spending in those areas in which change is sought (sustainable transport, if targets for reductions in the rate of increase in car use are to be achieved).

Institutional change

4.5.9 It has been noted that constituent local authorities may resent the powers of any statutory regional body. There are several ways in which this barrier could be overcome. Primarily, as in Berlin-Brandenburg, the regional body would have to quickly demonstrate that it can deliver benefits. Secondly, the regional body would have to take subsidiarity seriously - by, for example, delegating decision making on local bus routes to local councils. Thirdly, the creation of a new body may be resented less than the transfer of power to an existing, known organisation (this was seen to be important in Madrid, for example).

4.5.10 The questionnaire respondent in Jonkoping was, as with other respondents, from a regional body. She recognised that her regional body was still dependent on municipalities for funding and for co-operative working in those areas of transport policy in which it does not have full competence. She felt that resentments by lower levels of government - manifesting themselves in a reluctance by them to work with the regional body - could be reduced simply by an open planning process and a commitment to effective joint working by the regional body. It is instructive that Jonkoping is one of the few regions to have achieved mode shift away from car; there may be a relationship between the open-ness with which the regional body works, and the effectiveness of policy implementation.

4.5.11 Given that a regional body would have tax-raising powers, this would represent a departure from current UK government practice, where the tax-raising powers of local levels of government are strictly limited by central government, as are their borrowing powers. Other countries in Europe, and the USA, function with, it appears, much less stringent controls on lower levels of governments' ability to tax and borrow. (In the US, for example, many local authorities have the right to levy additional sales taxes and to hypothecate the revenue for local use. In France, state-owned companies can borrow outwith the PSBR.) The arguments against such freedoms relate to macro-economic policy and go well beyond the scope of this study. However, the European model suggests that regional transport bodies, or their constituent municipalities, do have independence in deciding how to raise funds for transport; by inference, this freedom appears to produce better transport policy implementation, but may have macroeconomic disadvantages in other areas of policy.

4.6 Conclusions

4.6.1 The objectives of the work, taken from the brief, were to:

• consider those areas of Europe that have made exemplary progress in delivering transport policy and determine the underlying mechanisms - such as single bodies and regional/city-wide approaches to transport planning and delivery - contributing to this success;
• assess the delivery benefits that have been obtained through these mechanisms and whether their implementation can be seen as Best Practice; and
• assess how effective these mechanisms would be if transferred to Scotland and identify any barriers that would have to be overcome for their successful implementation.

4.6.2 The report has, through a questionnaire survey, identified that the objectives of Scottish transport policy are typical of regions and cities throughout Europe, and further afield. It has also shown that the key mechanisms and factors that underlie transport policy delivery to achieve these objectives are:

• The availability of capital funding for public transport at about twice current levels.
• The availability of revenue funding for public transport at about 20% higher levels than today.
• Lower public transport fares, and the availability of an integrated multimodal ticket at the regional level.
• Integration of public transport services (timed connections, new journey opportunities etc).
• That integrated services and tickets are always delivered through some form of regional transport body. In a few cases this body may be constituted on an entirely voluntary basis but, more often, its powers are statutorily defined. Unless the other factors listed above are in place, however, the regional body can achieve little.
• If mode shift from car to public transport, walk and cycle is to be achieved, then restraint of parking and reallocation of road space to more sustainable modes is very important.
• For policies to be effective, they must be in place for a long time (a decade or more), which implies consistent political consensus on their efficacy, if not party political stability.

4.6.3 In no region or city that can be considered to be delivering better or exemplary practice in transport policy implementation is the local roads-based public transport system deregulated; the most successful systems are run on a franchised (quality contract-type) basis. Given that some Scottish cities are currently considering how best to integrate existing bus systems with planned tram systems, it is recommended that more detailed study of contracting regimes is undertaken to assess the transferability of these to the Scottish context.

4.6.4 In delivering public transport infrastructure projects, none of the European case studies examined use a PPP framework, although it is common to run metros and trams on a franchise basis, once they have been built. However, funding for the construction of such schemes comes almost exclusively in the forms of public grant and borrowing consent.

4.6.5 Furthermore, the institutional structure for the delivery of rail projects in most of the European countries examined appears to be considerably more simple than in Britain.

4.6.6 In terms of delivery benefits, the cities and regions surveyed were asked to list projects implemented within the past 5 years; whilst these were not quantified (in terms of, for example, km of light rail installed), many of those surveyed had implemented several large projects within that timescale - tram and metro extensions, rail schemes and road schemes. There was a perception among some of the respondents that these larger schemes were more often implemented than smaller, more local schemes.

4.6.7 Of ten European cities for which data were available, all had enjoyed increasing public transport patronage over the past ten years or more, in stark contrast to the 30% drop in bus patronage in Scotland over the same period. However, only three had seen a mode shift towards public transport; these are areas whose central cities, in particular, have implemented parking and other traffic restraint measures.

4.68 It is not possible to assess how effective these mechanisms would be if transferred to Scotland, other than to argue that the circumstantial evidence of the various case studies suggests that Scotland's current national and local transport policies would be more likely to be achieved, if these mechanisms and factors were in place here. At present, the conditions for transport policy implementation in Scotland and in Britain as a whole (outside London) are unusual when compared to those that exist in much of northern Europe; by inference, outcomes more in line with those of other parts of northern Europe would be more likely to be achieved, were those conditions to be in place here. But that cannot be guaranteed.

4.6.9 The key barriers to the attainment of these conditions in the Scottish case are:

• Financial costs.
• The organisational cost of setting up new organisations and transferring powers from existing organisations.
• Legislative changes, with regard to the structure of the rail industry.

4.6.10 These costs could be significant. It is suggested that one way to reduce possible negative impacts would be to experimentally implement the conditions that obtain in the case study cities and regions in other parts of Europe, but only in one relatively small area of Scotland, to better understand the impacts of these conditions in practice. This would also help to contain costs and any other negative impacts.

4.6.11 In final conclusion, therefore, this study has surveyed and reviewed experience from several different regions and cities in Europe in order to better understand the mechanisms and conditions that appear to be most closely associated with better practice in the delivery of transport policy. These conditions are in many ways very different to those currently in existence in Scotland but, if implemented, would increase the probability that transport policy objectives would be achieved.

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