Preface. The Transport Challenge

Transcription

1 The Transport Challenge Preface Local transport systems worldwide are facing significant challenges. In particular, whilst increased car ownership and use has generated huge benefits to many individuals in society it has also led to an array of difficulties. These include increased congestion and a deteriorating environment in urban areas which in turn lead to more dispersed development patterns in suburban and rural areas that become ever more difficult to serve by public transport, thus pushing more people to own and use a car further exacerbating the problems. This situation is important to address because the transport system is integral in allowing people, organisations and nation states to function. The Travel Plan Solution As defined later in this book, Travel Plans comprise a means of delivering measures to help facilitate sustainable transport through an additional mediating institution. Otherwise known as (among other things) site-based mobility management plans, employer transport plans, commuter plans and green transport plans, from the perspective of some local authorities they can be an attractive mechanism for delivering transport improvements. This is because they can be quick, cheap and effective to introduce, whilst also being politically acceptable. By contrast, traditional approaches to addressing transport issues tend to have significant downsides. Thus, building new roads or railways can be effective but is expensive, time-consuming and disruptive; improving public transport services is acceptable but expensive and has only a marginal impact on car use; and restricting or charging for car use can be cheap, quick and effective but is politically unpopular. These strengths of the Travel Plan concept arise because of two key differences from other transport policy instruments. First, rather than being a single policy instrument, the Travel Plan is actually a delivery mechanism of a package of several other policy instruments, which means that a blend of measures can be tailored to the specific needs of a site so as to offer a balanced strategy that can ensure that car use is sufficiently controlled, but that incentives are accurately targeted enough to maintain the acceptability of the plan to the users. Second, Travel Plans are implemented not by the local authority, but typically by organisations such as employers. This has two key effects:

2 xii Sustainable Transport, Mobility Management and Travel Plans Travel Plans are developed effectively at the neighbourhood level and consequently focus directly on the transport needs of the users in that local area; Travel Plans replace the (often negative) relationship between local authority and citizen with a more positive relationship (for example between employer and employee or between school and parent/pupil). Crucially then, Travel Plans work by developing highly user-focused balanced packages of incentives and disincentives in a partnership that involves local government, transport providers, organisations and perhaps most importantly, individual users. In theory, if done properly, Travel Plans offer transport and wider benefits to individuals (through more travel choices); to implementing organisations (via cost savings, happier and healthier staff and better company image); to providers (through additional business opportunities); and to government (congestion reduction, improved air quality). Yet despite these strengths and all round benefits the take up of Travel Plans, even in countries where they have been known for a decade or more, is relatively low. Such a state of affairs is clearly sub-optimal and essentially derives from the (lack of) acceptance by transport generating organisations of their role in addressing transport problems. Aim Accordingly, this book introduces the Travel Plan concept and then provides a detailed examination of how it has evolved over time. Practical and policy recommendations are offered as to how Travel Plans should be developed in the future. In particular, the book focuses on the relationships between government, transport providers, the transport generating organisations and the individual users, and seeks to draw lessons as to how these interactions might be improved. Method The book is based on a review of the existing literature, supplemented by a number of face-to-face interviews and a series of and telephone communications to provide orientation (Bogner et al 2009). The interviews were conducted by the author over the course of a decade of involvement in research into sustainable transport policy in general, and Travel Plan policy in particular for a range of clients including the European Commission, UK National Government Departments and UK regional and local authorities (see the end of this Chapter for a list of these projects). Specifically, the majority of interviews conducted were in-depth, semi-structured and exploratory, which allowed a degree of flexibility enable the interviewees to elaborate where

3 Preface necessary and even to develop new themes whilst maintaining control when necessary (Drever 1995). Meanwhile, the question topic areas for the interviews were developed based on an initial review of the literature and of course were heavily dependent on the nature of the research project being conducted at that time. Meanwhile, the and telephone personal communications referred to were far shorter and more focused, and sought to either: answer specific questions about what had happened or was happening to Travel Plans at a particular time and place; or speculate on what was likely to happen to Travel Planning in the future. In contrast to the interviews, most of these were conducted during the course of the last three years specifically for the purpose of this book. In terms of those interviewed and contacted, these included Travel Plan practitioners (typically Travel Planners, consultants or service providers) and policy officers at the local, regional, national and European level who were generally involved in specific Travel Plan initiatives which were relevant to one or other of the research projects. Also interviewed were several experts, that is people who process special knowledge of a social phenomenon which the interviewer is interested in (Gläser and Laudel 2004), in this case generally commentators on the Travel Plan sector including academics, journalists and consultants. In this research the experts were selected on the basis of their experience with indepth knowledge of the sector, and the experiences and insights of these experts were felt to be useful in teasing out the key issues surrounding Travel Planning. Accordingly, those participants could be said to have been selected based on a purposive sampling strategy, whereby interviewees/respondents are selected to meet the specific needs of the researcher (Trochim 2008; Miles and Huberman 1994). In order to gain an understanding of the Travel Plan sector, data were then analysed using thematic analysis, which Boyatzis (1998: 4) suggests involves developing an explicit code, which may be a list of themes, a complex model with themes, indicators and qualification that are casually related or something in between these two forms. Or, in other words, thematic analysis is a process that determines commonalities, relationships and differences across a set of different responses (Gibson and Brown 2009). Structure The book is structured as follows. Chapter 1 outlines the issues and challenges facing transport planners and policies, while Chapter 2 establishes the Travel Plan concept and charts its development. Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 then investigate how Travel Plans have evolved in terms of four axes of development, namely xiii

4 xiv Sustainable Transport, Mobility Management and Travel Plans segment, scale, scope, structure and support. Chapter 7 then presents a series of recommendations for practitioners and policy makers to support the development of the Travel Plan, and then concludes by examining the current status of Travel Plans around the world and considering the future prospects of the Travel Plan. References Bogner, A., Littig, B. and Menz, W Interviewing Experts, (London: Palgrave Macmillan). Boyatzis, R.E Transforming Qualitative Information: Thematic Analysis and Code Development, (London: Sage Publications). Drever, E Using Semi-structured Interviews in Small-scale Research: A Teachers Guide, (Edinburgh: Scottish Council for Research in Education). Gibson, W.J. and Brown, A Working with Qualitative Data, (London: Sage Publications). Gläser, J. and Laudel, G Experteninterviews und Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse, (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschafen). Miles, M.B. and Huberman, A.M Qualitative Data Analysis, 2nd Edition, (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications). Trochim, W.M.K Research Methods Knowledge Base Non-probability Sampling, Web Center for Social Research. [Online] Available at socialresearchmethods.net/kb/sampnon.htm [accessed 8 July 2010]. Related Travel Plan projects Travel Reduction Attainment Via Energy-efficient Localities PLANning (TRAVEL PLAN PLUS) project, European Commission, Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation, Intelligent Energy Europe, STEER Programme, Brussels, A possible blueprint for mainstreaming Travel Plans in the UK? Project for the UK Department for Transport and the National Business Travel Network, London, Best practice guide for implementing local Travel Plan groups for Transport for London, London, OPTIMUM2 project for the Interreg IIIB programme of NWE, European Commission, Lille, Taxation futures for sustainable mobility for the Economic and Social Science Research Council, London, Opportunities for mobility management, a series of small scale studies for the London Borough of Southwark, London, Evaluating the effectiveness of the site specific advice programme for Travel Plans for the UK Department for Transport, London,

5 Preface Evaluation of government departments Travel Plans for the UK Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, London, The impact of the personal tax regime on modal choice for the UK Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and UK Inland Revenue, London, Contributing to a sustainable integrated transport system for the Scottish Executive, Glasgow, Fair and efficient pricing in transport the role of charges and taxes for the European Commission, Brussels, xv