All Transport

The economic benefits of improved transport accessibility

International Transport Forum All Transport , , ,

 By Lorenzo Casullo, International Transport Forum

Cover photo accessibility RT croppedA transport journey is very often the first step to participating in economic and social activities – from jobs to schools to hospitals. So if we are no promote full participation and inclusion of all citizens, including those with mobility impairments and disabilities, it is imperative to provide accessible transport options for the largest possible share of the population.

Accessible transportation should be at the forefront not only of mobility policies, but also of urban development at large. An urban approach to greater accessibility should integrate transport planning for all at the early stages of design.

Therefore, a key question is: how can we ensure that decision makers (at the local and national level) invest adequate and targeted sums of money to achieve these goals? Likewise, how can we better promote legislation about the rights of passengers and the duties of transport providers so that accessibility for all is maximised?

Filling the gap

This is the challenge that we, at the International Transport Forum, have laid out for discussion with our member countries and partner organisations. And being a think-tank with a focus on economic policies, we have identified one crucial factor that represents a barrier to investment and more far-reaching regulations – namely, the lack of a common approach to identify and value (including in monetary terms) the economic benefits of accessible transport.

Economic Benefits of Accessibility Report Cover w line around

 

A year ago, we gathered world experts and campaigners in Paris so as to work together towards a clear objective: filling the gap in the theory and practice of accessibility benefits. We produced this report which today stands as a unique compendium of good practice in this field.

We do not wish for our focus on economic benefits to be seen as alternative to the rights-based approaches that the United Nations have successfully rolled out globally, and that numerous governments including those in this room today implement with determination across the world. Rather, our work aims to complement these efforts.

A win-win situation

Our conclusion is that without a clear and robust framework to value the benefits of greater accessibility, these improvements will fail to become a priority – especially when other types of investment (such as to reduced congestion and improved safety) display a large benefits-tag, but accessible transport does not.

Most importantly, assessing the socio-economic benefits of accessibility shows decision-makers a clear win-win situation: investment in accessible transport is beneficial to a large section of the population, and not just to those who are mobility-impaired at the time of planned investment.

Let’s focus on these two key findings – that designing transport systems for those that are less mobile is actually good for everyone, and; that if we do not demonstrate value, accessibility investment will be not be a priority.

More than marginal

First, how do we show that greater transport accessibility is good for all passengers? We need to identify the main beneficiaries. Moving away from a narrower focus on current passengers with some disability, we find that those who benefit also include passengers that are temporarily encumbered in their movements – such as parents with small children, travellers with heavy luggage, pregnant and injured people.

Identifying the beneficiaries of accessible transport

Recent research in the UK and in France gives us an indicative magnitude of this exercise. Studies for the Access for All programme in Britain show that only 1% of passengers at railway stations define themselves as disabled, but more than 5% fall in the “temporarily encumbered” category. Detailed surveys in the Paris metropolitan area confirm that beneficiaries go beyond the less mobile passengers, and include 7% of the population travelling with temporary limitations. For all these travellers, low-floor buses, lifts to stations and simpler pedestrian crossings are of great importance.

An even wider focus on beneficiaries should take into account those who are currently not using transport systems because they are inaccessible to them. For these citizens, better transport accessibility does not mean a “marginally better” journey. It means an entirely transformational impact, providing freedom to access opportunities and services that would have otherwise been precluded. And the number of future beneficiaries is only going to grow in ageing societies.

Capturing the benefits

Secondly, how do we demonstrate the economic value of such investment? We need to adapt and further develop existing economic approaches. Transport practitioners already use those robust approaches in the assessment of economic impacts, and their application to accessible transport is absolutely possible.

Our report is there to help anyone identify and capture these benefits, which include welfare benefits, reduced health and social care costs, and broader economic impacts such as increased participation to economic activities. We also need to add new benefits to the list, including social benefits like reduced stress levels and lower fear of isolation; and private sector benefits such as increased patronage for transport providers.

Identifying and capturing economic benefits

The rare examples of economic valuations undertaken to date demonstrate that the magnitude of potential benefits from improved transport accessibility is often large enough to offset the higher costs. We see this in Britain where the government found a positive business case for investing in accessible railway stations; and in Norway where the National Transport Institute showed that the benefits of making universally accessible bus stops outweigh the costs. In France, a start-up  called Wheeliz is the first peer-to-peer rental website specialising in disability adapted cars for wheelchair users – its growth across Europe is backed by investors.

Whenever you have the chance to do so, outline the socio-economic benefits that accessible transport can unlock. Let’s make this argument to attract more and better investment. Let’s work together towards more accessible and more inclusive cities for all.

Lorenzo Casullo is an economist with the International Transport Forum. This text is based on his presentation at the DESA/DSPD Forum on Advancing Accessible and Inclusive Urban Development for All, held on 14 June 2017 in the context of the 10th session of the Conference of States Parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Sustainable mobility: Can the world speak with one voice?

International Transport Forum All Transport ,

by Nancy Vandycke, World Bank

The transport sector is changing at breakneck speed. By 2030, global passenger traffic is set to rise by 50%, and freight volume by 70%. By 2050, we will have twice as many vehicles on the road, with most of the increase coming from emerging markets, where steady economic expansion is creating new lifestyle expectations and mobility aspirations. Mega-projects like China’s One Belt, One Road could connect more than half of the world’s population, and roughly a quarter of the goods that move around the globe by land and sea.

These transformations create a unique opportunity to improve the lives and livelihoods of billions of people by facilitating access to jobs, markets, and essential services such as healthcare or education. But the growth of the transport sector could also come at the cost of higher fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions, increasing air and noise pollution, a growing number of road fatalities, and worsening inequities in access.

Lack of coherence, lack of objectives

Although these are, of course, global challenges, developing countries are disproportionately affected. The vast majority of the one billion people who still don’t have access to an all-weather road live in the developing world. Although low and middle-income countries are home to only 54% of the world’s vehicles, they account for 90% of the 1.25 million road deaths occurring every year. If we don’t take action now, transport emissions from emerging markets could triple by 2050, and would make up 75% of the global total.

While the case for sustainable mobility is evident, the sector still lacks coherence and clear objectives. There is a way forward, but it requires pro-active cooperation between all stakeholders. That’s what motivated the creation of Sustainable Mobility for All (SuM4All), a partnership between a wide range of global actors determined to speak with one voice and steer mobility in the right direction.SuM4All_Logo_Final_TM

SuM4All partners include Multilateral Development Banks, United Nations Agencies, bilateral organizations, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, and is open to other important entities such as national governments and private companies. Together, these organizations can pool their capacity and experience to orient policy making, turn ideas into action, and mobilize financing.

Everyone around one table

There are three fundamental premises that guide the work of the Sum4All initiative. First, we need to get everyone around the same table. So far, global mobility has been managed by a multitude of actors—UN agencies, multilateral development banks, the manufacturing industry, civil society— who have all been working independently. In the absence of coherent governance, the sector has failed to bring action and financing to scale in order to transform itself. Better cohesion, however, is possible. The energy sector embarked on this journey in 2010 with great results. There is no reason why transport should not be able to do the same.

To be successful, we also have to set some clear goals. Despite its critical role in economic and social development, transport is the only major sector that didn’t manage to get its own Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). This is not good news, and will make it harder to get the global attention and financing needed to move the needle on sustainable mobility over the next 15 years. For the past six months, SuM4All partners have been working to fill the gap and agree on a set of global objectives for the sector, in line with recent international agreements like Habitat III, the Paris Agreement, and the SDGs. Specifically, the four priority goals identified by SuM4All are equitable access, safety, efficiency, and climate-responsiveness.

Taking it to the summit

Last but not least: Technology is changing our world. Let’s make the most of it! Technological innovation will go a long way in helping countries transition to more sustainable mobility. Advances in electric or autonomous vehicles promise to make transport greener, safer, and more efficient. Likewise, digital innovations such as ride sharing platforms, e-commerce, and telecommuting can significantly reduce demand and avoid unnecessary trips.

As transport ministers from around the world gather in Leipzig this week for their 2017 Summit to discuss “Governance of Transport” , we look forward to identifying influential policy makers who can join this global movement and champion the cause of sustainable mobility, not just in their own countries but around the world.

Nancy Vandycke leads the World Bank’s group of transport economists and spearheads the new global initiative on transport, Sustainable Mobility for All. She oversees strategic and analytical engagement on transport, including the climate action effort (with the United Nations), the Impact Evaluation program (with the World Bank’s Research Department), The Global Tracking Framework and the Knowledge Note series (Connections). 

“We must reinvent mobility”

International Transport Forum All Transport, Rail, Road , , , , ,

Michael_Cramer square CroppedMichael Cramer of the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport talks about the imbalance between transport modes and the lessons from “Dieselgate”.

A lot of innovation is happening in transport right now – headlines about self-driving cars and electric vehicles abound. Are we finally on the path towards sustainable mobility?

Cramer: Billions are still invested in forms of mobility that ruin our climate. And it’s still all about cars. Without reinventing mobility we will not be able to stop climate change. A veteran German politician, former Munich mayor Hans-Jochen Vogel, said it well as early as 1972: “Cars are murdering our cities. Those who sow streets will harvest traffic”. Even if one day all cars will be electric, they will still be murdering our cities. When all cars are self-driving, they will still be murdering our cities. We must reduce emissions, sure. But it’s not only about energy efficiency, we must also reinvent mobility as a whole. 90% of car rides in German cities are shorter than 6 kilometers. These are ideal distances to go by tram, bus, bicycle or to walk. Electric cars are being subsidized with billions of Euros – indiscriminately, regardless of the real effect. By comparison, peanuts are given to support the use of electric bicycles or of cargo bikes, where they could have a real impact – cargo bikes could take over half of inner-city deliveries. Neither is there enough investment into the electrification of rail. The interests of car manufacturing are still dominating policy decisions.

But all car companies are busy rethinking their business models. Most are taking a broader view and branch out into areas like Mobility as a Service. Is your description not outdated?

The car industry must change much faster if it really wants to avoid the fate of the large energy utilities. Those ridiculed renewable energies for decades and now find themselves rather wrong-footed. Edzard Reuter, who was boss of Daimler-Benz from 1987 to 1995, warned thirty years ago that car manufacturers would only survive if by evolving into providers of mobility. In those days, Daimler-Benz not only built cars but

3889343455_0265c9c43b_z Cropped
“It’s still all about cars” (Photo: Oran Viriyincy)

also trucks, busses, trams, light rail trains, high-speed trains and even bicycles. His successor sold all those activities. Today, automotive companies are completely dependent on car sales, while they could have profited from the global boom in trams and light rail, for instance. I don’t see much innovation coming from big players who can hardly budge; it will be small and agile companies that plant the seeds of change.

What about the institutions that set the rules under which innovations either thrive or fail – do governments and regulatory agencies also need to become a little more agile?

Let me be a little cynical: No, they really don’t need additional agility. They need to discover what it means to be agile in the first place. One way of becoming more flexible, reactive and creative is to listen less to lobbyists. Take the “Dieselgate” scandal. We Green members of the European Parliament had to go to enormous lengths to get an inquiry going into the tempering with emissions tests. This inquiry has found EU member states and the European Commission guilty of negligence. The committee of inquiry proposed to set up an independent body with responsibility for controlling vehicle emissions. The Parliament’s transport committee, which I shared at the time, voted for this proposal as well. But it was  subsequently killed in the parliament by organised interests who lobbied deputies with the spectre of job losses in their region.

 

26680300913_a8254dbff9_z (1) Cropped
Cycling freaks (Photo: ITF)

What is the lesson from that for you, as a policy maker?

It is hard to stomach that Diesel is still subsidised in many countries, despite being much more harmful in terms of NOx, NO2 and particular matter than standard petrol. Half a million people die as a result of particular matter, NOx and NO2 emissions every year in the European Union. Imagine our drinking water would be polluted like that – there would be immediate action. Not for the air we breathe. Europe’s political institutions – the Council, the Commission, and the European Parliament – must work harder. If after this criminal fraud we can’t abolish subsidies for Diesel, we shouldn’t even be using the word “sustainability”.

Ultimately, are you an optimist or a skeptic regarding the future of human mobility?

A bit of both. We have all the opportunities in the world. When I started out in politics, I was treated as a freak because I advocated cycling as a mode of transport. But it is now a reality. In Copenhagen more than 50% of all inhabitants cycle to work. In Berlin, the number of cyclists has doubled over the past ten years, and without major policy interventions. People will do what is right, and that is my hope.

 

Michael Cramer is Member of the European Parliament for the Green Party.  He chaired the Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism from 2014-17 and remains on the committee. Cramer also heads the parliamentary platform “Rail Forum Europe” and initiated the 10 000 km-long Iron Curtain Bicycle Trail from the Baltic to the Black Sea. On 2 June he will discuss new business models in transport and  the role for authorities with other experts at ITF’s 2017 Summit on “Governance of Transport”. Part of the Summit programme is a bicycle tour led by the mayor of Leipzig.

 

Of taxis and smart phones: balancing innovation and regulation

International Transport Forum All Transport

Sharon Masterson, Corporate Partnership Board, International Transport Forum

app-based-ride-taxi-servicesNecessity is the mother of invention – or is it? It could be argued that the time-honoured adage only holds when we know what we want or need. But what if we don’t? “If I had asked people what they wanted”, Henry Ford famously quipped, “they would have said ‘faster horses’.”

While the car was a revolutionary innovation, it was not immediately disruptive. Early cars were expensive luxury items, so the market for horses and carts remained intact until the Ford Model T created a mass market by making the new technology affordable, thanks to more efficient production methods.

What the transport sector is facing today in many areas follows a similar pattern. True, this time around, innovations are not as disruptive to the eye as motor cars replacing horses. Instead, current disruptive forces in the mobility sector hide under the hood of largely familiar-looking vehicles and in the invisible “cloud” – for instance in the shape of autonomous driving, electric mobility or app-based transport services.

But there are parallels. Take ride-hailing via smart phones: The technology has been on the market for several years. Not even the leading players like Uber or Didi Chuxing, its Chinese rival, have come to dominate the provision of mobility. They are rapidly gaining ground against the traditional forms of moving about in a car, however, and within a decade or two could well become dominant. In a recent survey in China, 8 out of 10 respondents aged 18 to 35 said they had already used a car-hailing app.

The potential of app-based transport has certainly fired up investors: Uber recently received USD 3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign fund, and Didi Chuxing raised USD 7 billion from investors and lenders, including 1 billion from Apple. Today, Uber is the world’s most valuable start up, with a market capitalisation of USD 62.5 billion. Conversely, the Nasdaq-listed Medallion Financial, a huge provider of loans to buy taxi licenses, has lost well over 50% of its stock value since December 2014.

Policy makers in many countries have been caught somewhat off guard by the rapid rise of app-based ride-hailing platforms. In many countries, regulation has been lagging and policymakers struggle in balancing the need to ensure public safety, consumer protection and tax compliance with the potential benefits: higher efficiency of transport, better service, more transparency and the simple fact that consumers like the convenience of pushing a smartphone button to order a ride.

What has not been lagging is the response of those who could possibly to lose out. Legal action by traditional taxi operators has led to some app-based services being banned, operators fined, executives taken into custody, and even violence.

Against this backdrop, a reasoned debate about principles that can serve as a basis for regulators to set frameworks is urgently needed – and this is what we have been working for at the International Transport Forum with key actors. Uber and the International Road Transport Union (IRU, globally representing taxi drivers, among others) are both members of the ITF Corporate Partnership Board (CPB),  and we brought the two together at our 2015 summit of transport ministers. For the first time ever, Uber’s chief strategist David Plouffe and Umberto di Pretto, Secretary-General of the IRU, shared a stage to discuss what the rise of the shared economy means for transport. They agreed that new regulation was needed and just disagreed about how to move forward until that happened – demonstrating that constructive dialogue is possible, even invaluable in such a process.

As a next step, as part of the Corporate Partnership Board’s programme of work, a workshop was convened. Representatives from Uber and Lyft, the taxi industry, regulators, academics and other stakeholders came to Paris in November 2015 to seek points of consensus on regulation and identify persistent points of tension that need focused attention to resolve. The report emanating from that meeting, entitled App-Based Ride and Taxi Services: Principles for Regulation, will make fascinating reading for regulators. Among other things, it offers them four pieces of concrete advice:

  • Focus policy regarding for-hire transport on the needs of consumers and society. This will enable the development of innovative services which could contribute towards public policy objectives such as equitably improving mobility, safety, consumer welfare and sustainability.
  • Keep the regulation framework as simple and uniform as possible. Avoid creating different categories for regulating new mobility services. Regulators should seek to adapt frameworks to better deliver on policy objectives in innovative ways and not simply preserve the status quo.
  • Encourage innovative and more flexible regulation of for-hire transport services. Use data and the findings from data analysis for more timely intelligence to inform the policymaking process. Today’s data accuracy and availability mean that more than ever before, policymakers have tools at hand which enable them to take a more flexible approach to regulation and through monitoring, evaluate how these regulations are working, and adapt or streamline as necessary.
  • Work more closely with operators to achieve data-led regulation.. The emergence of digital connectivity and wireless communications has opened the possibility of new types of instruments that could allow better control of the efficiency and provision of services as well as giving authorities a completely new and transparent way of pursuing policy objectives.

The emphasis on the role of data here is particularly interesting. Do app-based transport services increase congestion or reduce it? Do they provide better mobility for people without cars or access to public transport, or not?  These questions, among the most hotly debated issues around the arrival of these services, can only be settled with enough relevant data. (“In God we trust, everyone else, bring data”, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg often said, quoting the eminent statistician W.E. Deming).

If regulators learn to work with those who have the data, and learn how to harness the power of this data, it will be for the benefit of businesses and citizens. We have also just published another report on data-driven transport policy. But – in the immortal words of Rudyard Kipling – that’s another story!

Useful links

The reports mentioned above are part of a series of Corporate Partnership Board reports. For more information, please contact either Programme Manager sharon.masterson@itf-oecd.org or Project Manager philippe.crist@itf-oecd.org

Recent ITF reports:

The sharing economy and new models of service delivery

Ministers, the business community, civil society, labour and the Internet technical community will gather in Cancún, Mexico on 21-23 June for an OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy: Innovation, Growth and Social Prosperity

This article is co-published with the OECD’s Insights Blog.

Safe and secure, from London to Lahore and everywhere in between!

International Transport Forum All Transport , ,

Heather Allen, independent consultant on sustainable transport, climate change and gender

international-womens-day-logo

March 8th – International Women’s Day – gives us a good reason to reflect on progress on the variety of women’s issues that are hindering equality. Being safe and secure is a basic human value – yet in today’s world, personal security is still a major issue everywhere. In a woman’s world there are also more subtle links between it, public space and transport that I have been looking into more closely having just finished a review of published literature on this subject.  The report will be published soon on http://www.fiafoundation.org/connect/publications.

Many studies show that all over the world women use all forms of public transport[1] more than men and, more importantly, they usually rely on it more than men as they have fewer or no other mobility choices. Yet they are also more worried about using it, as their personal security is frequently compromised, and it appears that this may be getting worse rather than better!

Incidents often take place in public places, especially as women travel to and from places of education or to and from work. It comes as no surprise that it especially seems to occur on public transport, and not only in the developing world! To avoid this, women tend to use strategies that mean either they decide not to travel or they seriously change their travel habits. This impacts their access to opportunities, and ultimately their quality of life.

Harassment is a complex subject, and not made any easier by the subjective nature of how individuals interpret what might be considered harassment. In some cultures this is directed by social norms whilst in others it may be religious, faith or even income-based. We are not just talking about violence here, but rather behaviours that are unwanted, uninvited or that cause fear. Fear of it happening is as bad as what actually happens and it affects different women in different ways, making it difficult to apply scientific theory to understand why and how this happens. Collecting data on this is also made more difficult as the information can be spread across a number of security agencies, so much of the information can be considered anecdotal, unless it is obviously of a criminal nature.

It would seem to be on the increase despite the high estimated level of non-reporting of incidents that were found internationally. In New York it is estimated that 96 per cent of sexual harassment and 86 per cent of sexual assault on the subway goes unreported; in Baku, Azerbaijan, none of the 162 out of 200 women who reported having been sexually harassed on the metro reported it to the appropriate authority. In Egypt, only 2.4 per cent of the 83 per cent of Egyptian women and 7.5 per cent of the 98 per cent of foreign women living or travelling in Egypt who had experienced sexual harassment in a public place reported it.

There is little documented evidence that women have either reduced their mobility horizons or changed their travel patterns entirely because of concerns over personal security. But we do know that all forms of harassment affect women deeply and reduce their confidence, and that they implement strategies to reduce the risk of this, which ultimately impacts their ability to move freely in public places. If this is directly associated with their transport options, it is also likely to affect their decisions to take up educational opportunities, join the labour market and influences the kinds of jobs they pursue[2].

In addition, if women pass on a negative value judgement to their children, those boys and girls will grow up thinking that public transport is unsafe. It is likely that this will become ‘a belief’ as they grow into adulthood and as soon as they can, they will prefer to buy or share a car, motorbike or scooter – creating a vicious downward spiral of increased congestion even if every vehicle is cleaner than today!

So where does that lead us? Certainly farther away from where we want to be in terms of equal opportunities and sustainable development. Excluding women from being active in the labour market, for any reason should be considered to be out of order in today’s world. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that if women in every country were to play an identical role to men in markets, as much as US$28 trillion would be added to the global economy by 2025. If this exclusion or reduced opportunity is due to transport inequalities, we can do something about it, but only if we shift it to being a development rather than a security issue.

Both aspects are interdependent – the more active women are in the labour market the more they are able to demand safe and secure transport, while the less empowered they are the more socially exclusive transport becomes. Putting them in separate carriages may be a temporary solution, but it also underpins the concept that women should be kept apart and not be given equal rights.

By addressing both ends of this equation we can create a win, win, win situation – addressing equity, economic empowerment and improving quality of life. But we need to make sure that people do not think that harassment is unavoidable or acceptable, or that they will not be caught. Let’s start today in respect of women everywhere!

Useful links

This article is based on work supported by the FIA Foundation. I would like to express my thanks to the FIA Foundation for its foresight and vision in supporting this research. The full report and executive summary can be downloaded here.

You are invited to attend a free FIA Foundation webinar on 21 March 14:00 -17:00 GMT. Details are available from Caroline Flynn (c.flynn@fiafoundation.org).

At the upcoming International Transport Forum’s 2016 Summit, 18-20 May 2016 in Leipzig, Germany, there will be a debate on “Women in transport: Mind the (gender) gap”.

[1]Public transport for the purposes of this study includes all types of public transport services (formal and informal) and includes minibus services, shared taxis etc

[2] http://www.empowerwomen.org/en/circles/freedom-of-movement-and-womens-economic-empowerment/womens-mobility-in-public-places#sthash.hxTe17sT.dpuf

This post is jointly published with OECD Insights.

Decarbonising Transport

International Transport Forum All Transport ,

by José Viegas, ITF Secretary-General

Humans don’t enjoy being stuck somewhere. We like to move, go places. In fact, man values this mobility so much that he created extraordinary tools to get from A to B, starting with the wheel and not ending with the airplane.

We value our freedom of movement because it generates such incredible value for us. Imagine for a moment that all the means of transport you’re using have disappeared. Not that easy to get to work. No fresh groceries in the supermarket. You’ll need to walk to the doctor despite the sore knee.

Conjecture? For you. But for millions, lack of access to transport – and therefore to the things that transport provides access to – is a reality. There are still children that don’t go to school because they can’t get to school. It’s the same for health services and jobs.  And it’s true for the larger economy as well – well-connected countries tend to thrive; those that do not struggle to bring their goods to world (or indeed national) markets.

The freedom to hop in a car

We won’t be easily persuaded to give up the freedom to hop in a car or on a plane. On the contrary, billions of people in the emerging economies are discovering the advantages – and joys – of modern-day mobility. If anything, global demand for transport will grow.

In itself that is not a bad thing – but only if we manage to, among other improvements, decarbonise transport.  Today, our mobility is almost completely driven by fossil fuels. Even the electricity for electric cars or for trains often comes from coal or oil-powered plants. Compared with other sectors, transport emissions make up almost a quarter of all CO2 emissions from fuel combustion (pdf) – by 2035 it could reach 40%, which would make transport the world’s largest emitter.

The link between mobility and harmful CO2 emissions must be broken if we want to continue to remain as mobile as we are. If governments were forced to limit mobility in order to save the planet, the economic, political and human costs could be huge.

Back to the future

The better way is to provide carbon-free transport. In around 1900, the majority of cars in New York City were electric – let’s go back to the future. Improved or new technology alone will not solve the problem. To decarbonise transport over the next 35 years or so, all the levers we have at our disposal need to be aligned towards this goal, many of which are outside the transport sector: digital connectivity and 3D printing may make some passenger and freight transport superfluous in the future, and urban land use policies can be improved to reduce the need for urban motorised travel.

The International Transport Forum is launching a major initiative to help achieve this alignment. Anchored in the ITF’s Corporate Partnership Board (CPB), our Decarbonising Transport project will provide decision makers with an effective tool to develop a road map towards decarbonisation, and then help to navigate it. It will allow governments and enterprises to test and gauge the impact of individual actions in a highly complex and interdependent reality.

Quantitative and inclusive

There are three core elements on which the Decarbonising Transport project builds: First: COP21. The Paris agreement of December 2015 doesn’t actually mention transport. But it creates a framework in which countries will review their emissions reduction targets in five-year cycles, starting in 2020. Others, like the transport sector could follow this lead, creating synchronicity with countries.

Second: the data. The Decarbonising Transport project will evolve around in-depth quantitative analysis. Our ambition is to federate existing data and knowledge on transport to create the most comprehensive model of global transport activity to date.  ITF has strong in-house modelling, and we are already reaching out to potential partners to link up existing models and leverage their collective power to become more than the sum of the parts. Decision makers will be able to use the simulations to calibrate their emissions reduction actions.

The third characteristic of the Decarbonising Transport project is that it will be inclusive. The modelling will serve dialogue and mutual learning among a broad set of partners who are joining forces to design the roadmap towards carbon-neutral transport. Governments, corporations, universities, multilateral institutions, foundations, NGOs will all have their place and contribute knowledge, data or money. 19 major international companies are already involved through the CPB.

Getting ready for 2020

The Decarbonising Transport project will be officially inaugurated on 19 May, at the ITF’s 2016 Summit in Germany. We plan to present intermediate results a year later. And by May 2019, we want the modelling to be robust enough to provide effective support to the 2020 reviews of COP emissions reduction commitments.

This is an open project, and very much a work in progress. All who have an interest in helping to make our mobility, and therefore our way of life, sustainable are invited to become part of the effort. Join me on Periscope (Twitter’s live stream app) for a Q&A session on Decarbonising Transport on Wednesday, 2 March at 15:00 Central European Time (CET) if you want to know more.

 

The Sharing Economy: How shared self-driving cars could change city traffic

International Transport Forum All Transport , ,

by Sharon Masterson, International Transport Forum Corporate Partnership Board

Click to download the report
Click to download

In 2011, TIME Magazine named collaborative consumption (or the sharing economy as it is often called) as one of the top 10 ideas that will change the world.

Four years on, this prediction seems to be holding true. The number of companies operating in the sharing economy is rising rapidly in the transport sector alone, and includes household names such as Uber, BlaBlaCar, Lyft, Zipcar, etc. The public seems to be embracing this phenomenon as we witness users flocking to join these platforms across the globe.

Given that a typical car lies idle some 23 hours a day, car owners are investing in something that they barely use, so this untapped potential is at the heart of the sharing economy in personal transportation. With automated, self-driving cars only around the corner (and some precursor components already in the market in the form of adaptive cruise control, lane assist and self-parking), we decided to look at how combining the shared economy aspect (shared vehicles) with developing technology (automated vehicles) can be applied today, by asking “What if all conventional cars in a city were replaced by a fleet of shared self-driving vehicles”?

The results of this exercise were very interesting.

We carried out a simulation on a representation of the street network of the city of Lisbon, using origin and destination data derived from a fine-grained database of trips on the basis of a detailed travel survey. Trips were allocated to different modes: walking, shared self-driving vehicles or high-capacity public transport. We set a constraint that all trips should take at most 5 minutes longer than today’s car trips take for all scenarios, and assumed all trips are done by shared vehicles and none by buses or private cars. We also modelled a scenario which included high-capacity public transport (Metro in the case of Lisbon).

We modelled two different car-sharing concepts, “TaxiBots”, a term we coined for self-driving vehicles shared simultaneously by several passengers (i.e. ride sharing), and “AutoVots”, cars which pick-up and drop-off single passengers sequentially (car sharing).

For the different scenarios we measured the number of cars, kilometres travelled, impacts on congestion and impacts on parking space.

The results indicate that shared self-driving fleets can deliver the same mobility as today with significantly fewer cars. In a city serviced by ride-sharing TaxiBots and a good underground system, 90% of cars could be removed from the city.

Even in the scenario that least reduces the number of cars (AutoVots without underground), nearly half of all cars could be removed without impacting the level of service. Note: TaxiBots replace more cars than AutoVots since the latter require more vehicles and much more re-positioning travel to deliver the same level of service.

Even at peak hours, only about one third (35%) of today’s cars would be on the roads (TaxiBots with underground), without reducing overall mobility.

No matter what the scenario, on-street parking spots could be totally removed with a fleet of shared self-driving cars, allowing in a medium-sized European city such as Lisbon, reallocating 1.5 million square metres to other public uses. This equates to almost 20% of the surface of kerb-to-kerb street area (or 210 football pitches!)

These findings suggest that shared self-driving fleets could significantly reduce congestion. In terms of environmental impact, only 2% more vehicles would be needed for a fleet of cleaner, electric, shared self-driving vehicles, to compensate for reduced range and battery charging time.

So what are the policy insights from this study?

  • The impact of self-driving shared fleets is significant but is sensitive to policy choices and deployment scenarios. Transport policies can influence the type and size of the fleet, the mix between traditional public transport and shared vehicles and, ultimately, the amount of car travel, congestion and emissions in the city. For small and medium-sized cities it is conceivable that a shared fleet of self-driving vehicles could completely obviate the need for traditional public transport.
  • Actively managing freed capacity and space is still necessary to lock in benefits. Shared vehicle fleets free up a significant amount of space in the city. However prior experience indicates that this space must be pro-actively managed in order to lock in benefits. Management strategies could include restricting access to this space by allocating it to bicycle tracks or enlarging sidewalks, or also to commercial or recreational uses, as well as to delivery bays. For example, freed-up space in off-street parking could be used for logistics distribution centres.
  • Road safety will likely improve; environmental benefits will depend on vehicle technology. Despite increases in overall levels of car travel, the deployment of large-scale self-driving vehicle fleets will likely reduce crashes and crash severity. At the same time, environmental impacts are still tied to per-kilometre emissions and thus will be dependent on the penetration of more fuel efficient and less polluting technologies.
  • Public transport, taxi operations and urban transport governance will have to adapt. The deployment of self-driving and shared fleets in an urban context will directly compete with the way in which taxi and public transport services are currently organised. These fleets might effectively become a new form of low capacity/high quality public transport. Labour issues will be significant but there is no reason why public transport operators or taxi companies could not take an active role in delivering these services.

Useful links

As well as this study, the ITF Corporate Partnership Board has released additional studies looking at Autonomous Driving: Regulatory Issues and Mobility Data: Changes and Opportunities

This article first appeared in the OECD Insights blog