[sustran] WB urban transport draft strategy ex.summ.1

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

To whet your appetites to get involved here is the contents page and
executive summary of the draft World Bank Urb Transp Strategy review paper.
http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/transport/utsr.nsf/All+Discussion+Items?OpenView


Urban Transport Strategy Review - Draft  
Type of Paper: Strategy Paper 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CHAPTERS
1. INTRODUCTION
A. The World Bank and urban transport 
B. The World Bank policy context: the objectives of the review 

2. URBAN TRANSPORT AND CITY DEVELOPMENT
A. Transport, urban economic growth and poverty
B. The dynamic of urban structure and transport
C. City development strategies
D. Conclusions: A Strategy for Urban Transport in City Development

3. URBAN TRANSPORT AND POVERTY REDUCTION
A. Urban poverty and social exclusion
B. The transport patterns of the urban poor
C. "Pro-poor" economic growth and poverty reduction 
D. Public transport service planning for the urban poor 
E. Fare policies, subsidies and budget constraints
F. Focusing infrastructure policies
G. Conclusions: A Strategy for Poverty Focused Urban Transport

4. TRANSPORT AND THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT
A. The scale of the issue
B. Noise and other disturbances
C. Urban air pollution
D. Global warming
E. Conclusions; A Strategy for Urban Transport and Environment

5. URBAN TRANSPORT SAFETY AND SECURITY
A. The scale of the issue
B. Safety
C. Security
D. Conclusions: A Strategy for Urban Transport Safety and Security

6. THE URBAN ROAD SYSTEM 
A. Main elements of road strategy 
B. Infrastructure provision 
C. Road maintenance
D. Traffic management
E. Demand management
F. Conclusions: A Strategy for Roads 

7. THE ROLE OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT
A. The significance of public transport 
B. The urban bus sector
C. Para transit
D. Mass transit
E. Public Transport Integration 
F. Conclusion; Towards a Strategy for Public Transport

8. THE ROLE OF NON-MOTORIZED TRANSPORT
A. The importance of NMT
B. Walking is transport
C. Walking on Wheels
D. The policy package
E. Institutions and organization
F. Conclusions; A Strategy for NMT

9. URBAN TRANSPORT PRICING AND FINANCE
A. The role of prices in urban transport
B. Charging for the use of infrastructure
C. Public transport pricing and finance
D. Urban transport financing
E. Conclusions: A Strategy for Urban Transport Pricing and Financing

10. AN INSTITUTIONAL REFORM AGENDA
A. The institutional problem
B. The major issues
C. Organizational Options
D. Human resources
E. Conclusions: A Strategy for Institutional Reform in Urban Transport

11. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE BANK
(To be completed)


Executive Summary

Refocusing the strategic vision for urban transport 

i. The primary focus of all World Bank activity is the reduction of
poverty. The essence of its approach, embodied in the poverty reduction
strategies being developed with the highly indebted poor countries, is a
holistic view of the development process recognizing the interdependence
between sectors, concentrating on the weak links in any particular country,
and aiming to better co-ordinate the activity of the many agencies
involved. In this process urban transport has an important function as a
facilitator to the achievement of wider economic and social objectives
including improved accessibility of health, education and social services,
particularly for the very poor.

ii. Performing that function is increasingly difficult. Urban population is
expanding at more than 6 percent annually in most developing countries.
Within a generation more than half of the developing world's population,
and half of its poor, will live in cities. Motor vehicle ownership and use
is growing even faster than population, with vehicle ownership growth rates
of 15-20% per year not uncommon. The average distance traveled per vehicle
is also increasing in all but the largest, most congested cities. This
growth puts enormous pressures on urban transport systems in developing
countries. Traffic congestion is intensifying. Travel speeds are
decreasing. The environment is deteriorating. And the safety and security
of travelers is also diminishing in many large cities.

iii. These problems impact particularly seriously on the poor. Growing
reliance on private vehicles has resulted in a substantial fall in the
share, and in some cases the absolute number, of trips made by urban public
transport in many cities. As a consequence there has been a decline in
urban public transport service levels. Sprawling urban structures are
making the journey to work excessively long and costly for some of the very
poor. Twenty percent of workers in Mexico City spend more than three hours
traveling to and from work each day, and 10 percent spend more than five
hours. The poor also suffer disproportionately from deterioration of the
environment, safety and security because they are locationally and
vocationally most exposed, and less able to afford preventative or remedial
action.

iv. Urban transport is already an important part of the Bank portfolio with
24 projects under supervision and a further 14 in preparation, as well as
urban transport components in a similar number of urban development or
environment projects.. The recent urban development strategy stresses that
the livability of cities depends on them being economically competitive,
financially sustainable and well-governed and managed. The last World Bank
urban transport policy paper, published in 1986, mainly emphasized the
importance of managing traffic to secure economically efficient urban
movement. Since then a broader perspective has been developing on transport
sector policy, the Bank general transport policy framework of late 1996
emphasizing the essential integrity of economic, social and environmental
dimensions of a sustainable transport policy. It is now important to see
urban transport in a wider comprehensive development framework and with an
increased emphasis on poverty.

v. The objectives of the urban transport review are therefore i) to develop
a better common understanding of the nature and magnitude of urban
transport problems in developing and transitional economies, with
particular reference to their impact on the poor; and ii) to articulate a
strategy to assist national and city governments to address urban transport
problems within which the role of the World Bank (and other agencies) can
be identified.


Urban Transport, City Development and Poverty Reduction 

vi. Urban transport contributes to poverty reduction both through its
impact on the city economy and hence on economic growth, and through its
direct impact on the daily needs of the very poor. Both of these
contributions are presently being undermined by the deterioration of
transport conditions in the large cities and particular the megacities.

vii. High level structural policies may improve the situation, but in
limited ways. Provision of adequate road capacity is important, but in many
of the densest established cities it is physically and economically
impossible to escape from congestion by road building. Deconcentration from
primate cities is often advocated but rarely achieved in fast growing
developing countries. Good local planning and management of urban land use
structure can reduce total transport demand, but has practical limitations.
The effectiveness of liberalization of land markets is severely weakened by
the inability to internalize the external costs of development. 

viii. Some of the weaknesses of these structural policies can be addressed.
Central governments can encourage the development of secondary cities as
regional hubs, both by appropriate fiscal incentives and by the location of
their own activities. Structure planning capability can be developed, and
provision made within structure plans of adequate space for transport
infrastructure to meet immediate demand and to accommodate growth. Planning
and development of land use can be coordinated with that of transport
infrastructure and services, as experience in a number of developing cities
shows. This requires the nurturing of development control skills and
practices at the city level as well as the elimination of price distortions
in both land and transport markets, including the underpricing of congested
road space and the absence of full cost connection charges and impact fees
for land development. 

ix. Even when all this is done, the problems of the megacities are unlikely
to be totally resolved. So, in the absence of any simple and comprehensive
structural solution a more eclectic policy package must be devised,
employing system management and restraint policies to find a workable
balance between the individual desire for increased space consumption
associated with unlimited personal mobility and its adverse economic
consequences.


Strengthening the poverty focus 

x. A tempting and common conception of a policy response balancing growth
and equity is the combination of increased road capacity in an attempt to
speed up the movement of vehicles, with public provision of fare controlled
public transport. In practice this has usually proved to be ineffective
(because it generates more congesting car traffic) and inequitable (because
it leads to a progressive decline of public transport services). So a more
poverty focused policy is needed, reflecting both the actual transport
needs of the poor and the current impediments to those needs being satisfied. 

xi. In many countries the poor are heavily dependent on walking and on
non-motorized transport. But planning for pedestrians is frequently
sacrificed to planning for the faster flow of vehicles. Where attention is
given to pedestrians it often takes the form of poorly located and designed
segregated crossings forcing them to trade safety for substantial
inconvenience. The first requirement of a poverty focused strategy is thus
that the importance of walking and other non-motorized transport activities
should be recognized both in infrastructure design and in traffic management. 

xii. Where the poor use motorized transport they depend heavily on public
transport, both formal and informal. So a similar emphasis needs to be
given to priorities to public transport in infrastructure design and
management. But there are even more pressing issues concerning the
operation of public transport. Ill judged policies on general public
transport fare controls in the absence of secure subsidy mechanisms can
actually harm the poor. Constraints on the informal transport sector often
harm the poor in a similar way. In larger cities, with a variety of modes,
efforts to secure modal integration also need to be carefully managed to
ensure that they do not increase the number of times the poor have to pay
per trip, and that fares on the services on which they are particularly
dependent do not increase.

xiii. The recent decline in public transport has resulted from
deteriorating finances in the absence of a secure fiscal basis for support.
Fiscal failure is certainly part of the problem. But experience suggests a
rich agenda of urban public transport policies which are both pro-growth
and pro-poor, yet which are consistent with the fiscal capabilities of even
the relatively poorest countries. First, supply costs can be reduced.
Absence of competition in public transport is likely to both increase costs
and reduce supply to the poor. A preference for stable, disciplined supply
should not be misinterpreted as a case for uncontested monopoly. Associated
with this is the need for better targeting of support. Attention needs to
be given to financing of support mechanisms, avoiding deficit financing of
monopolist suppliers, and wherever possible targeting very specific groups.
Because transport infrastructure investment and transport pricing policies
affect land values, poverty oriented urban transport interventions should
be integrated in a broader strategy incorporating housing, health,
education and other social service policies.

xiv. City governments may wish to go further than this in helping the poor
to cope with their transport problems. Experience teaches some lessons
about what not to do, as well as highlighting opportunities for more
effective strategy development. First, controlling fares in the absence of
realistic analysis of, and provision for, the resource needs of that social
strategy, actually destroys public transport service and may seriously harm
some of the poor. The use of public sector monopolies to ensure cross
subsidy within public transport, does not escape the fundamental resource
problem, and adds some extra burden of inefficiencies in supply. On the
positive side, a fiscal source is usually readily at hand. If all road
vehicle movements in congested areas were properly charged for that would
not only secure more efficient use of infrastructure but also generate a
secure financial basis for urban transport provision. An urban transport
strategy should address the fiscal and institutional arrangements to
achieve this by appropriate empowerment of municipal governments.


Urban Transport and the Environment 

xv. Urban air pollution from transport in developing countries contributes
to the premature death of over half a million people per year in developing
countries, and imposes an economic cost of up to 2 percent of GDP. The most
damaging pollutants are lead, small suspended particulate matter, and in
some cities, ozone. The poor in the megacities face the worst of these
problems. A strategy for urban transport environmental improvement is thus
not a luxury to be afforded at the expense of the poor, but an important
element of an urban transport strategy for the poor.

xvi. Understanding of environmental impacts of urban transport remains
deficient in several areas. This includes some fields of pure research,
such as the detailed understanding of the health impacts of different small
particulates, and some of simple data collection and analysis (such as the
levels and sources of ambient air pollution). Where knowledge exists it is
often poorly disseminated (as in the case of the optimal oil fuel mix for
two stroke gasoline engines). Continued improvement of urban environmental
data, better analysis and more energetic dissemination of proven knowledge
can be assisted both by investment in equipment and by technical assistance.

xvii. Some robust "win-win" strategies exist which can be adopted within
the urban transport sector. Good traffic management reduces environmental
impact as well as congestion. Because most critical decisions about travel
behavior are made by individuals, driven largely by economic self-interest,
incentive systems are very important. Tax levels and structures are often
decisive in determining the amount of transport undertaken, and the choice
of mode, technology and fuel. Tax structure reform can encourage the use of
cleaner fuels and stimulate better vehicle maintenance. This requires the
design of fiscal measures to handle problems associated with the use of the
same fuel in several sectors (policy on kerosene) and multiple objectives
(policies on diesel taxation). The integration of transport interventions
in general municipal development packages may offer better leverage than
transport specific projects in this respect. The Bank can help identify and
focus on major polluters by the international exchange of experience in
designing integrated urban environmental strategies. 

xviii. While it is generally preferable to concentrate on performance
standards, rather than on specific technology preference, there are also
some relatively clear technological priorities for the sector. These
include the elimination in lead from gasoline, the replacement of two
stroke by four stroke motorcycles, and the elimination or cleaning up of
high mileage heavy polluting vehicles. The Bank can help both with
technical assistance in these fields and, in some cases, with the financing
of public infrastructure and incentive mechanisms to stimulate change.


Safety and Security 

xix. Nearly half a million people die and up to 15 million people are
injured in urban road accidents in developing countries each year, at a
direct economic cost of between 1 and 2 percent of GDP. A majority of
victims are poor pedestrians and cyclists. Fears for personal safety and
security significantly deter the use of non-motorized transport. 

xx. For traffic safety the first step is the development of national road
accident statistics data collection and analysis capability, and the
formation of institutional arrangements to ensure that this data is
effectively transmitted to those who need it for policy purposes. For
example, the introduction of "black spot" identification and treatment as a
joint activity analysis of police and traffic management departments is
data dependent. But it is already clear that pedestrians and cyclists form
a much larger proportion of victims in developing than in developed
countries, and that accidents occur widely on road links rather than being
concentrated at junctions as in developed countries. Seat belts and
junction improvements thus do not have the same priority in developing as
developed countries.

xxi. Accident frequency and severity can be reduced by improved road
design, traffic management, medical service and other policies. Some
specific safety related infrastructure investment can be identified (such
as infrastructure for NMT in Lima, or grade separated railway crossings in
Buenos Aires). More generally, however, there is merit in incorporation of
safety elements in all transport infrastructure projects by instituting a
mandatory safety audit in the design process. Improved medical response can
be achieved by some relatively cheap and simple institutional innovations.
Increasing safety awareness to change traffic and pedestrian behavior
requires development and training of staff for specific road safety
coordinating agencies or councils, both at national and municipal levels.
Much is possible, and is now being sought through the Bank instigated
Global Road Safety Partnership.

xxii. Personal security is a social problem which goes much wider than the
transport sector in many countries. But it is nevertheless important to
analyze the nature and significance of insecurity in the urban transport
sector and to devise policy instruments to counter it. That might include
collection and analysis of data on personal security in the sector to
enhance official awareness of the problem, commitment of police authorities
to arrest and the courts to appropriately penalize delinquents.
Strengthening public participation in projects - particularly at the
neighborhood level - is important. Some transport policy initiatives can
contribute directly. For example, street lighting - designed to improve
pedestrian security - can be included in street improvement and
particularly in slum upgrading projects. For public transport, franchise
conditions can give incentives for improved attention to security by public
transport operators.