[sustran] WB urban transport draft strategy ex.summ.2

[SUSTRAN Resource Centre]

Continued from previous message....


Urban Roads 

xxiii. In newly developing or growing cities roads are a necessary
component of urban infrastructure. Inadequacy of current road capacity to
carry current traffic results in congestion, damage to the city economy,
increased environmental impact, and, often, particularly harsh impact on
the poor. The urban strategy for roads must thus include initial planning
and reservation of space for transport infrastructure (including, but not
restricted to roads), appropriate hierarchical structuring of the road
network, and funding for adequate maintenance of the economically
sustainable road capacity. Traffic on the roads must also be managed to
maintain safe, efficient and environmentally acceptable movement of people
(not just of vehicles). This implies prioritization of infrastructure to
protect (a) the economic efficiency of the city and (b) movements of public
and non-motorized transport against unrestricted expansion of private
motorized. Agencies capable of managing and maintaining the urban road
system may need development in some cities

xxiv. In larger established cities, however, it is neither socially nor
economically acceptable to balance supply and demand solely by increasing
road capacity. Rigorous appraisal of investments in additional road
capacity needs to take into account (a) the effects of induced traffic on
benefits (b) the benefits and disbenefits of alternatives to non-motorized
transport and (c) environmental impacts. Demand for road space must be
managed to balance movement with capacity through restraint measures. Full
cost charging for road use is the most important of these measures, though
interim proxies, such as parking policies, also have a role to play.
Integration of financing to recognize the interaction between roads and
other modes of urban transport is also a logical corollary of the
development of better charging regimes


Public transport 

xxv. Public transport is a critical element in any poverty oriented city
development strategy. Yet it is in decline in many developing countries
just at the time when richer developed countries have begun to recognize
its importance. That decline is mostly a consequence of the
inappropriateness of its institutional and financial arrangements. 

xxvi. Planning arrangements for public transport are fundamental. The
obvious interaction of public transport with land use require its careful
integration into the planning of metropolitan structure and finance within
a comprehensive long term plan for the city. The public sector must set
strategy, identify infrastructure projects in some detail, confirm the
acceptability of environmental consequences, tariffs and any contingent
changes to the existing transport system. It must acquire the necessary
land and rights of way, ensure development permissions, commit funding and
provide some necessary guarantees. Physical co-ordination (to achieve
convenient modal interchange) and fares coordination (to keep public
transport attractive and to protect the poor). need to be embodied in a
comprehensive transport strategy plan, within which the relationship
between MRT and other modes (both physical and financial) are understood.
There must be integrated implementation management, with arrangements put
in place to facilitate co-ordination between public and private agencies.
The public costs of infrastructure and operations should be foreseen and
securely provided for in a comprehensive financial plan.

xxvii. Supply arrangements for transport services in developing countries
too often take the extreme forms of totally unregulated free entry or
moribund, over-regulated public monopoly. There are better alternatives.
Competition, if properly designed and managed, can secure good value for
money in public transport, without danger of anti-social or illegal
operating behavior. To achieve this, planning of public transport service
should be separated from provision. In big cities competition for the
market, through tendered franchises or concessions, may be preferable to
competition in the market. But this will require new skills for regulation,
procurement and enforcement in that restructured city transport
administrations. 

xxviii. Small vehicle paratransit, supplied by the informal sector, is
often dominant in satisfying dispersed trip patterns and in flexibly
addressing the demands of the poor, particularly in poorer countries. But
it is often associated with anti-social, and sometimes criminal elements in
society, and viewed officially as part of the problem of public transport
but not part of the solution. That is unfortunate. Certainly,
anti-competitive or antisocial behavior within the sector should be
controlled through quality controls and their enforcement. But cities
should also strive to mobilize the potential of the informal sector through
legalizing associations and through structuring franchising arrangements to
give the small private sector the opportunity to participate in competitive
processes.

xxix. Mass transit systems, and particularly metros, are a controversial
element of public transport strategy because of the large burden that they
can impose on city budgets. Private finance is thus increasingly sought for
them. However, opportunistic development on an ad hoc basis has almost
always proved to be damaging, and ultimately costly to the public purse.
Even if private finance is involved, mass transit investments should be
consistent with an approved city structure plan. Moreover, mass transit
systems should normally be incorporated in city-wide price level and
structure plans. The full cost of new mass transit investments on the
municipal budgets, on fares, and on the poor, should be estimated in
advance. No commitment to expenditure should be made in the absence of
secure long term funding. 

xxx. Pricing and financing issues are at the heart of public transport
problems as formal bus operations face financial collapse. To some extent
the decline is an unintentional consequence of good hearted but wrong
headed fare and service controls. Some protective prescriptions can easily
be made. General fare controls should be determined as part of a
comprehensive city transport financing plan, and their effect on the
expected quality and quantity of service carefully considered. Fare
reductions or exemptions should be financed on the budget of the relevant
line agency responsible for the categories of person affected (health,
social sector, education, interior, etc.) Modally integrated fares schemes
should be assessed for their impacts on the poor. None of those
prescriptions means that there should be never be any subsidy of public.
But they do emphasize that, in the interests of the poor, sustainable
financing and efficient targeting of public transport is paramount. 


Non-motorized transport 

xxxi. Almost all trips in all cities involve some walking. In many small
cities and even in some very large poorer cities, particularly in Africa,
non-motorized transport accounts for more than half of trips and also very
high proportions of person kilometers traveled. But it is fairly
consistently neglected, or even suppressed, in planning for urban transport.

xxxii. It would be socially and politically unrealistic to adopt an
ideological preference for low technology over high technology in urban
transport. Relatively few individuals or governments would support such a
position. But an explicit strategy is necessary to redress a historic
vicious policy circle in which urban transport policy too frequently
sacrificed the interests of pedestrians and cyclists to those of users of
motor vehicles. The consequence is that non-motorized transport has becomes
less safe, less convenient and less attractive. That neglect of
non-motorized transport is unacceptable because it stems from a failure to
recognize some of the external effects of motorized transport which
distorts individual choice against NMT and because it militates
particularly against the poor who do not have the means to use even
motorized public transport. Internalizing the negative externality through
pricing is almost impossible to achieve in this case as it would require
diffused subsidy payment to pedestrians and cyclists. Appropriate
compensating action thus depends on the public sector. 

xxxiii. In the field of infrastructure the major elements of a strategy
should include clear provision for the rights as well as responsibilities
of pedestrians and cyclists in traffic law; formulation of a national
strategy for non-motorized transport as a facilitating framework for local
plans; explicit formulation of local plan for non-motorized transport as
part of the planning procedures of municipal authorities, and provision of
separate infrastructure where appropriate (for safe movement and for secure
parking of vehicles); incorporation of standards of provision for cyclists
and pedestrians in new road infrastructure design. Incorporation of
responsibilities for provision for NMT should also be included in Road Fund
statutes and procedures.

xxxiv. Traffic management and public education should also be focused on
improving the movement of people rather than of motorized vehicles. In
order to achieve that police need to be trained to enforce the rights of
NMT in traffic priorities as well as in accident recording and prevention.
Furthermore, the development of small scale credit mechanisms for finance
of bicycles in poor countries, which have begun to take off in rural areas,
might also be developed in urban areas.


Pricing and financing 

xxxv. It is ironical that with such a heavy demand for road space, and such
palpable undercharging for its use, cities are short of financial resources
to support the investments and the modes of transport which can best
contribute to the relief of urban transport problems. In the interests of
urban transport integration and sustainability developing countries could
therefore profitably move towards prices reflecting full social costs for
all modes, to a targeted approach to subsidization reflecting strategic
objectives; and to an integration of urban transport funding, while still
retaining supply arrangements for the individual modes which give high
incentive to operational efficiency and cost effectiveness. Monopolistic
public sector supply is not sine qua non for integration. 

xxxvi. Charging for road infrastructure is the core of a strategy both for
efficient allocation of resources and for sustainable finance. In
principle, vehicular users of congested urban road space should be charged
a price at least equal to the short run marginal cost of use. Fuel tax is a
poor surrogate for congestion or road maintenance impact pricing, but in
the absence of direct charging should be structured along with vehicle
license duties to give a proxy. Taxes on different fuels should be
structured to reflect their relative contributions to urban air pollution,
again in conjunction with the structuring of vehicle license duties.
Parking charges are also a poor proxy for congestion charges but should in
any case always cover the full opportunity cost of land used for parking.
Where parking policy is the only available proxy for efficient pricing,
controls need to cover all forms of parking space (including that provided
privately by employers for employees), and should be designed to secure a
level of restraint equivalent to that of efficient prices. Cordon pricing
and tolling of specific roads is a step in the right direction, but the
long term solution must lie in a more thoroughgoing application of
congestion charges. All road congestion charges, or fuel tax surcharges
operating as a proxy for them, should accrue to the municipal or
metropolitan authority, and not to the central treasury.

xxxvii. Pricing principles for public transport modes should be determined
within an integrated urban strategy, and should then reflect the extent to
which road infrastructure is adequately charged. Given the high level of
interaction between modes, and the prevalent undercharging of road use, no
absolute value should be ascribed to covering all costs from fares, either
for public transport as a whole, or for individual modes. In particular,
transfers between roads and public transport services, and between modes of
public transport are potentially consistent with optimal pricing strategy.
However, in the interests of efficient service supply, transport operators
should operate competitively, with purely commercial objectives, financial
transfers being achieved through contracts between municipal authorities
and operators for the supply of services. Any non-commercial objectives
imposed on operators should be compensated directly and transparently,
where appropriate by non-transport line agencies in whose interests they
are imposed. Above all, In the absence of appropriate contracting or other
support mechanisms the sustainability of public transport service should be
paramount, and generally have precedence over traditional price regulation
arrangements.

xxxviii. Some urban transport financing principles follow. Given the
interaction between modes, there is a strong case for the pooling of urban
transport financial resources within an urban transport fund administered
by a strategic transport authority at the municipal or metropolitan level.
Inter-governmental transfers should normally be made to the fund, and
should be structured to avoid distorting the efficient allocation of
resources within the transport sector at the local level. Private sector
financing for transport infrastructure should be raised through competitive
tendering of concessions, which may be supported by public contributions,
so long as these have been subject to proper cost benefit analysis.


Institutions 

xxxix. No single institutional blueprint for public transport is
appropriate for all countries. But there is enough experience of the
difficulties arising from the failure to align policies between
jurisdictions, agencies or to secure collaboration between them, to
establish some general principles for the reduction of institutional
impediments to effective policy integration. 

xl. Better jurisdictional co-ordination. is a high priority. At a purely
institutional level this may be facilitated through the clear establishment
in law of the allocation of responsibility between levels of government.
Formal institutional arrangements should be made for collaboration where
multiple municipalities exist within a continuous conurbation.
Inter-governmental transfers should be carefully planned to be consistent
with the allocation of responsibility, but central government might use
inter-governmental transfer arrangements to encourage co-ordination at the
metropolitan level, as in France. 

xli. For functional co-ordination there should be a strategic land use and
transport plan at the municipal or metropolitan level with which detailed
planning, both of transport and land use should be aligned. Functions
should be clearly allocated between agencies, with more strategic functions
being retained at the higher level in metropolitan areas. Obligations
statutorily imposed on local authorities should be linked to specific
channels of finance (such as direct line agency funding of reduced fare or
free public transport. Responsibility for traffic safety should be
explicitly allocated, with an institutional responsibility at the highest
level of the local administration (mayors office or its equivalent).
Traffic policing should, where possible, be separated from more general
"criminal" policing functions and traffic police, should be trained in
traffic management and safety administration, and should be involved
collaboratively in transport and safety policy planning

xlii. For effective involvement of the private sector planning and
operating responsibility for public transport should be institutionally
separated and technical regulation should be separated from procurement and
economic regulation. A clear legal framework should be established for
competition in public transport supply, either in the market or for the
market. Operating agencies should be fully commercialized or privatized,
and the development of new competitive private suppliers of service should
be encouraged through legal recognition of associations, etc. At the same
time, the public sector should develop professional service procurement and
contract enforcement skills.

xliii. Human resource development is critical to all institutional change
and can be assisted by technical assistance loans or grants, and by
twinning arrangements between cities at different stages of institutional
development. If this is not adequate all policy is likely to fail.


Created by:  Date Created: 10/17/2000 01:25 PM Date Modified: 10/18/2000
12:09 PM