Cuadernos De Investigacion Urbanistica, Apr 28, 2011
El presente trabajo está basado en una investigación subvencionada mediante una beca Fulbright/MO... more El presente trabajo está basado en una investigación subvencionada mediante una beca Fulbright/MOPTMA realizada por el autor a lo largo del curso 1995-96.
Actas Del Ix Congreso De Ingenieria Del Transporte Cit 2010 Ix Congreso De Ingenieria Del Transporte Cit 2010 07 07 2010 09 07 2010 Madrid Espana, 2010
Los datos de las encuestas de movilidad recientes en nuestras áreas metropolitanas coinciden en i... more Los datos de las encuestas de movilidad recientes en nuestras áreas metropolitanas coinciden en identificar un ascenso en la movilidad "transversal" o movilidad motorizada entre puntos relativamente dispersos de la corona metropolitana, sin pasar por el centro. Esta movilidad responde a varios factores, que pueden considerarse como fuerzas motrices de fondo de nuestros sistemas metropolitanos: la dispersión residencial y de los centros de servicios, las nuevas pautas relativas al empleo (empleo parcial, autoempleo, deslocalización empresarial a la periferia...), las pautas de movilidad en los hogares, con un crecimiento significativo de las tareas de "acompañamiento" y de atención al hogar, que se realizan de manera creciente con vehículo privado e intercalándolas con los desplazamientos por motivo trabajo ("viajes encadenados")...
Revista De Obras Publicas Organo Profesional De Los Ingenieros De Caminos Canales Y Puertos, Oct 1, 2010
Las perspectivas de demanda para el modo ferroviario han sido tradicionalmente modestas en España... more Las perspectivas de demanda para el modo ferroviario han sido tradicionalmente modestas en España. Las razones que se han apuntado incluyen la reducida densidad de población, las características del sector industrial, que no parece precisar de servicios ferroviarios en la misma medida que otros países, y prefiere la flexibilidad del transporte por carretera, un menor desarrollo logístico de los sistemas de distribución, que impiden
Success of implementation of innovative measures has been ascribed to "strong local leadership". ... more Success of implementation of innovative measures has been ascribed to "strong local leadership". The reference to leadership may be considered as recognition of the difficulties innovative measures face to move along local decision-making processes. These processes can be poorly suited, if not hostile, to innovation, and process-related barriers might be seen to be overcome only with the help of political authority. This paper explores the reasons why local decision making processes are poorly suited to innovation in urban mobility and identifies options for process reform. It builds upon the experience of ECCENTRIC, a Horizon 2020 funded project within the EU's CIVITAS initiative, running from 2016 to 2020 and implementing fifty innovative measures in five European cities, including eleven measures in Madrid. CIVITAS requests a process evaluation of all the measures, looking at the context in which measures are implemented. Based on the process evaluation experience in Madrid, this paper argues that this approach to process evaluation is insufficient. The evaluation process should include a more fundamental aspect: The consistency of each measure within the dominant values in the local public policies being applied by the city. In those measures with a transformative ambition, process evaluation should take into consideration their compatibility with the political vision and values in the city. In order to keep the original ambition of innovation, there is a need for reforms in the decision making processes within municipalities, establishing ad hoc procedures that can properly deal with innovation.
This paper reviews recent trends in long-distance passenger travel in Europe. Its purpose is to e... more This paper reviews recent trends in long-distance passenger travel in Europe. Its purpose is to explore whether some early signals for peak travel in long-distance transport can be identified and if so, which could be the options for a consistent policy action. For the sake of simplicity, only car and air modes are considered. The analysis is based on previous research conducted for the preparation of the recent report of the European Environment Agency (EEA), "Focusing on environmental pressures from long distance transport-TERM 2014" (EEA, 2014). Passenger travel demand data at the national level show striking differences among European countries. Beyond the traditional divide between "new" and "old" EU member states, it seems that differences respond to a much richer variety of traits, including the size of the country, per capita GDP trends and the characteristics of the population. It is within this complex geographical background that the influence of three traditional key drivers should be explored: population, disposable income and lifestyles. Although there are good arguments to conclude that peaking in long-distance transport demand could be reached in an increasing number of European countries, there are also significant forces to further expand demand. Furthermore, it is worth highlighting that peaking, if materialised, would be happening at levels too high to be compatible with GHG emission reduction targets. The paper concludes that there are positive signs in the recent trends of these drivers indicating that they would not result in additional mobility demand. However, these trends could be neutralised by other factors, such as the strategies of European transport policy makers and operators to foster latent demand and expand their markets, this is illustrated by current strategies of air travel operators and some regional governments to further develop low-cost, regional airport-based services.
This paper reviews current drivers of long-distance passenger transport demand in Europe, and ela... more This paper reviews current drivers of long-distance passenger transport demand in Europe, and elaborates about their environmental impacts and the suitability of current EU policies to address them. The paper focuses on car and air travel, as they concentrate the bulk of environmental impacts, at least in terms of GHG emissions. Furthermore, car travel keeps the highest share of total travel, and air travel is the fastest growing mode in Europe, justifying a closer look to both modes. The prospects of a peaking or "plateau" value for long-distance car travel are discussed, concluding that there is robust evidence of peaking in many European countries, although at unacceptable high levels from a sustainability perspective. In the case of air travel, the main sustainability challenge is the sustained growth in demand, spurred by the strategy of many airports and airlines to induce further demand with low fares. Both trends would need action from governments. The need for action is further justified by two socioeconomic trends: population, with growth concentrated precisely in those countries with higher long-distance mobility patterns, and disposable income, with median values stagnated for many years. The former would suggest a need for demand management action focusing on those countries with higher demand; the latter would challenge the traditional understanding, which associates long-distance transport demand to increasing income and to economic prosperity.
The recent experience of the Spanish Ministry of Transportation in developing a new Transportatio... more The recent experience of the Spanish Ministry of Transportation in developing a new Transportation Plan, intended to use public involvement as a key element to recover legitimacy for long-term planning and to gain support to sustainable transportation objectives. The public involvement procedure reinforced the role of planning but, ironically, also resulted in a more conservative document in terms of the relevance of environmental goals and the emphasis on management vs. infrastructure development policies. Conservationist groups were particularly disappointed about the outcome of the process. Although there was a strong emphasis in creating multiple, well-balanced panels for discussion, consensusbuilding lacked of time to reinforce the position of more progressive approaches compared to "business as usual" positions. Furthermore, key environmental questions proved to be impossible to be carefully examined at this stage, and were postponed to modal plans. Overall, the process served to legitimate and reinforce long-term planning as a useful tool for transportation policy development. However, there is a significant way ahead for making public involvement more influential. Linking goals to clearly specified and regularly monitored objectives would keep public involvement alive along the planning cycle. A more clear link between general transportation policy goals and stakeholders' daily interests, such as quality of service, environmental quality or access to development opportunities should keep alive and improve the dialog among technicians, decision makers and the public, and put additional pressure in the transportation sector to gather further evidence and develop a better understanding about these complex links. Ángel Aparicio 2 Assessing Public Involvement Effectiveness in Long-Term Planning A FRAMEWORK FOR ASSESMENT OF PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN A LONG-RANGE PLAN Public involvement in long-range planning has been a key issue for many decades. Compared to US experience, public involvement in European transportation planning has heavily relied on the development of environmental legislation. Landmarks in this process have been Council Directive 85/377/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment, Directive 2001/42/EC on the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of Plans and Programmes, and Directive 2003/35/EC, of 26 May 2003 providing for public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programs relating to the environment, which implements in the EU the International Convention on Access to Environmental Information, Public Participation in Environmental Decision-making and Access to Justice (The Aarhus Convention). This maybe understood as a consequence of the lack of priority given to public involvement by European transportation administrations. For example, Booth and Richardson (1), referring mainly to the United Kingdom, state that transportation planning has merely incorporated new participative techniques tricking from other public policy areas, but has never been proactive in developing new planning paradigms. Probably, problems and tensions regarding public involvement in European transport plans reflect a wider problem: the absence of a coherent framework for strategic transport planning in many countries (1). Major gaps are the absence of relations with other public policies, mainly spatial planning, and the lack of adequate links among modes. Strategic planning seems elitist, and it is difficult to get the wider public involved: there seems to be some reluctance in transport professionals and policy makers alike to accept that they can get any significant contribution from the general public. SEA regulations and practice are crucial to create an effective hierarchy of assessment, and at focusing public involvement at the adequate level, thus making it more effective and influential. There is, however, a real risk of developing SEA as a highly sophisticated process, and to avoid the fundamental questions (e.g. whether transport demand has inevitably to continue current expansion): the general public would be kept outside discussions aimed at specialist. "The democratic deficit which has characterized strategic transport planning for many years has not yet been repaired. Weaknesses exist in old and new methods, exclusionary practices are being reinforced, and strategies of participation remain top-down."(1). Attempts to create solid SEA methodologies in Europe have not been successful yet. The development of SEA has focused on identifying adequate information sources, rather than in promoting public involvement. This is for example the focus of the European Commission's Expert Group of Transport and Environment report on the improvement of the European Transport and Environment Reporting Mechanism (TERM) (2) or the recent scope of the European Council of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) initiatives to promote SEA in the continent(3). The recently issued "BEACOM Manual" (4) is probably more adequate for particular schemes than for strategic, longterm plans. Furthermore, the manual gives a disproportionate focus to technical analytical instruments than to public participation. Booth and Richardson propose a framework of 5 key questions to define public involvement in transport: • The rationale for involvement (why involve the public?). • The substantive issues (what is negotiable?). • The design of strategies, methods and techniques (How will the public be involved?). • Identifying stakeholders (who should be involved?). • The point at which people should be involved. According to these authors, any assessment of public involvement processes should focus on the empowerment of the process itself. A public involvement process could be characterized by 3 critical factors: • inclusion or exclusion of the public or publics; • the timing of public involvement in the process; • The boundaries of debate. Public involvement would be successful in enhancing planning if it could favor the inclusion of new ideas and knowledge, increase the range of options, test evidence and positions and address uncertainty and conflict. This vision of planning outcome quality is quite different from the traditional agency's viewpoint (being successful at convincing people about the merits of the initial proposal). A similar approach is supported by Szyliowicz (5). According to (1) and (5) public involvement in transportation has to be seen from the broader perspective of governance reform. Three important questions for assessment of the process would be: (a) the degree to which it promotes democratic processes, (b) yields decisions of technical merit, and (c) accords legitimacy to the outcome.
Governance reform is one of the key areas of activity identified in the National Transport Plan o... more Governance reform is one of the key areas of activity identified in the National Transport Plan of Spain, approved by the Government in 2005. The reform aimed at: -increasing the relevance of policies based on management of transport services, compared to infrastructure expansion, and -better integrating the objectives of sustainable development within transport policy-making. To achieve an incremental, but continuous move in this direction, three combined instruments were identified: -Empowerment of a consensus-building framework, based on the one hand on public participation processes, by making it easier to the public to enter the debate on transport policy measures and transport infrastructure projects, and on the other hand on a better formalised framework for the institutional dialogue between the Ministry of Transport and its counterparts at regional and local administrations. -Streamlining the decision-making process, by establishing a new technical report regarding new init...
Se analiza en este trabajo el proceso de toma de decisiones y las herramientas de evaluación de p... more Se analiza en este trabajo el proceso de toma de decisiones y las herramientas de evaluación de proyectos empleadas por el Ministerio de Fomento, con el fin de identificar qué elementos pueden haber consolidado y estar justificando hoy la continuidad de una política fuertemente inversora, con escasa rentabilidad socioeconómica y poco coherente con una perspectiva de desarrollo sostenible. La conclusión es que la influencia real de las herramientas de análisis coste beneficio (ACB) es modesta, y que la búsqueda de políticas más coherentes exigirían, más que una mayor influencia de dichas herramientas, una profunda revisión del sistema de toma de decisiones, incluyendo la incorporación de los instrumentos ligados a la evaluación estratégica en las fases iniciales de planificación, un mayor acceso de la sociedad a la información sobre los proyectos objeto de evaluación y un esfuerzo de transparencia y apertura en los procesos de diálogo y concertación. Se plantean algunas propuestas de mejora del conjunto del sistema de evaluación y toma de decisiones, incluyendo el papel que el ACB podría tener en ese nuevo marco.
The European Commission's vision for a more competitive and sustainable transport in Europe h... more The European Commission's vision for a more competitive and sustainable transport in Europe has been outlined in the recent Transport White Paper (WP). The Transport WP sets out to remove major barriers and bottlenecks in key areas across the fields of: transport infrastructure and investment, innovation and the internal market. The aim is to create a Single European Transport Area with more competition and a fully integrated transport network which links the different modes and allows for a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers and freight. To this purpose, the Transport WP puts forward 40 concrete initiatives for the next decade, including technological as well as non-technological measures. The Strategic Transport Technology Plan (STTP), addressing the technology pillar of the White Paper, is hence designed to contribute to these objectives in the mid-term. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) undertook the responsibility to produce this scientific assessment, as a contribution to the STTP preparation. The assessment took place from November 2010 to August 2011 and covered all transport sectors and issues.JRC.F.8-Sustainable Transpor
Transportation Research Board Conference Proceedings, 2015
This white paper provides a foundation for the Second EU-U.S. Transportation Research Symposium h... more This white paper provides a foundation for the Second EU-U.S. Transportation Research Symposium held April 10–11, 2014, in Paris, France. The paper takes its theme from one simple and inspiring statement found by the authors in one of the preparatory notes for the Symposium: “research has little value if its outcomes are not applied.” Although this paper includes multiple examples of successful transportation research implementation activities, programs, and strategies on both sides of the Atlantic, its overarching thesis is that there are necessary core conditions for enhancing the implementation of transportation research in Europe and the United States that remain largely unrealized: Condition 1. A process that provides sufficient funding for research implementation, Condition 2. Centralized planning and coordination, Condition 3. Effective data collection and analysis, and Condition 4. Effective use of intellectual property tools. This paper reviews specific myths about transportation research implementation that arguably work against constructive change. The paper ends with a set of 12 hypotheses designed to promote discussion regarding possible steps for promoting enhanced research implementation.
Comprehensive discussion of the barriers to the implementation of tranport research in the Europe... more Comprehensive discussion of the barriers to the implementation of tranport research in the European Union and the United States.
This paper focuses on analysing institutional cultures and research governance regimes in a sampl... more This paper focuses on analysing institutional cultures and research governance regimes in a sample of 10 countries, including the Mediterranean Area, Russia and CIS countries, Latin America and Eastern Asia. The research provides a general assessment of the similarities and difference in governance regimes and identifies the key opportunities for strengthening international cooperation in transport research. In spite of the complexity and diversity of the situation, there is an enormous potential to increase international cooperation, based particularly on the strengths of the European Union (EU) experience and governance structures for research in the transport sector. This system has proven to be effective in interacting with the research systems of its member states and of the countries associated to the EU research program. The EU prevailing strategic approach, with a focus on global challenges, is another valuable asset to facilitate international cooperation.
The level of cooperation between modes of transport (multi-modal transport) is possibly the most ... more The level of cooperation between modes of transport (multi-modal transport) is possibly the most recurring concept appearing in European transport planning documents over the last 25 years. Whilst significant advances have been achieved in the areas of freight and urban transport, inter-urban passenger transport has faced greater difficulties and its development remains limited. This paper analyzes the evolution in this concept in Europe and it reflects on the barriers which have thus far jeopardized the consolidation of a multimodal transport system with rail as its backbone. Railway undertakings should have played a major role in the consolidation of a multimodal system, but they seem to have preferred to compete with other public transport modes, taking advantage of the development of high-speed rail (HSR) services, rather than seeking cooperation with operators from other modes, and particularly with road transport operators, which could have increased dramatically the coverage ...
Cuadernos De Investigacion Urbanistica, Apr 28, 2011
El presente trabajo está basado en una investigación subvencionada mediante una beca Fulbright/MO... more El presente trabajo está basado en una investigación subvencionada mediante una beca Fulbright/MOPTMA realizada por el autor a lo largo del curso 1995-96.
Actas Del Ix Congreso De Ingenieria Del Transporte Cit 2010 Ix Congreso De Ingenieria Del Transporte Cit 2010 07 07 2010 09 07 2010 Madrid Espana, 2010
Los datos de las encuestas de movilidad recientes en nuestras áreas metropolitanas coinciden en i... more Los datos de las encuestas de movilidad recientes en nuestras áreas metropolitanas coinciden en identificar un ascenso en la movilidad "transversal" o movilidad motorizada entre puntos relativamente dispersos de la corona metropolitana, sin pasar por el centro. Esta movilidad responde a varios factores, que pueden considerarse como fuerzas motrices de fondo de nuestros sistemas metropolitanos: la dispersión residencial y de los centros de servicios, las nuevas pautas relativas al empleo (empleo parcial, autoempleo, deslocalización empresarial a la periferia...), las pautas de movilidad en los hogares, con un crecimiento significativo de las tareas de "acompañamiento" y de atención al hogar, que se realizan de manera creciente con vehículo privado e intercalándolas con los desplazamientos por motivo trabajo ("viajes encadenados")...
Revista De Obras Publicas Organo Profesional De Los Ingenieros De Caminos Canales Y Puertos, Oct 1, 2010
Las perspectivas de demanda para el modo ferroviario han sido tradicionalmente modestas en España... more Las perspectivas de demanda para el modo ferroviario han sido tradicionalmente modestas en España. Las razones que se han apuntado incluyen la reducida densidad de población, las características del sector industrial, que no parece precisar de servicios ferroviarios en la misma medida que otros países, y prefiere la flexibilidad del transporte por carretera, un menor desarrollo logístico de los sistemas de distribución, que impiden
Success of implementation of innovative measures has been ascribed to "strong local leadership". ... more Success of implementation of innovative measures has been ascribed to "strong local leadership". The reference to leadership may be considered as recognition of the difficulties innovative measures face to move along local decision-making processes. These processes can be poorly suited, if not hostile, to innovation, and process-related barriers might be seen to be overcome only with the help of political authority. This paper explores the reasons why local decision making processes are poorly suited to innovation in urban mobility and identifies options for process reform. It builds upon the experience of ECCENTRIC, a Horizon 2020 funded project within the EU's CIVITAS initiative, running from 2016 to 2020 and implementing fifty innovative measures in five European cities, including eleven measures in Madrid. CIVITAS requests a process evaluation of all the measures, looking at the context in which measures are implemented. Based on the process evaluation experience in Madrid, this paper argues that this approach to process evaluation is insufficient. The evaluation process should include a more fundamental aspect: The consistency of each measure within the dominant values in the local public policies being applied by the city. In those measures with a transformative ambition, process evaluation should take into consideration their compatibility with the political vision and values in the city. In order to keep the original ambition of innovation, there is a need for reforms in the decision making processes within municipalities, establishing ad hoc procedures that can properly deal with innovation.
This paper reviews recent trends in long-distance passenger travel in Europe. Its purpose is to e... more This paper reviews recent trends in long-distance passenger travel in Europe. Its purpose is to explore whether some early signals for peak travel in long-distance transport can be identified and if so, which could be the options for a consistent policy action. For the sake of simplicity, only car and air modes are considered. The analysis is based on previous research conducted for the preparation of the recent report of the European Environment Agency (EEA), "Focusing on environmental pressures from long distance transport-TERM 2014" (EEA, 2014). Passenger travel demand data at the national level show striking differences among European countries. Beyond the traditional divide between "new" and "old" EU member states, it seems that differences respond to a much richer variety of traits, including the size of the country, per capita GDP trends and the characteristics of the population. It is within this complex geographical background that the influence of three traditional key drivers should be explored: population, disposable income and lifestyles. Although there are good arguments to conclude that peaking in long-distance transport demand could be reached in an increasing number of European countries, there are also significant forces to further expand demand. Furthermore, it is worth highlighting that peaking, if materialised, would be happening at levels too high to be compatible with GHG emission reduction targets. The paper concludes that there are positive signs in the recent trends of these drivers indicating that they would not result in additional mobility demand. However, these trends could be neutralised by other factors, such as the strategies of European transport policy makers and operators to foster latent demand and expand their markets, this is illustrated by current strategies of air travel operators and some regional governments to further develop low-cost, regional airport-based services.
This paper reviews current drivers of long-distance passenger transport demand in Europe, and ela... more This paper reviews current drivers of long-distance passenger transport demand in Europe, and elaborates about their environmental impacts and the suitability of current EU policies to address them. The paper focuses on car and air travel, as they concentrate the bulk of environmental impacts, at least in terms of GHG emissions. Furthermore, car travel keeps the highest share of total travel, and air travel is the fastest growing mode in Europe, justifying a closer look to both modes. The prospects of a peaking or "plateau" value for long-distance car travel are discussed, concluding that there is robust evidence of peaking in many European countries, although at unacceptable high levels from a sustainability perspective. In the case of air travel, the main sustainability challenge is the sustained growth in demand, spurred by the strategy of many airports and airlines to induce further demand with low fares. Both trends would need action from governments. The need for action is further justified by two socioeconomic trends: population, with growth concentrated precisely in those countries with higher long-distance mobility patterns, and disposable income, with median values stagnated for many years. The former would suggest a need for demand management action focusing on those countries with higher demand; the latter would challenge the traditional understanding, which associates long-distance transport demand to increasing income and to economic prosperity.
The recent experience of the Spanish Ministry of Transportation in developing a new Transportatio... more The recent experience of the Spanish Ministry of Transportation in developing a new Transportation Plan, intended to use public involvement as a key element to recover legitimacy for long-term planning and to gain support to sustainable transportation objectives. The public involvement procedure reinforced the role of planning but, ironically, also resulted in a more conservative document in terms of the relevance of environmental goals and the emphasis on management vs. infrastructure development policies. Conservationist groups were particularly disappointed about the outcome of the process. Although there was a strong emphasis in creating multiple, well-balanced panels for discussion, consensusbuilding lacked of time to reinforce the position of more progressive approaches compared to "business as usual" positions. Furthermore, key environmental questions proved to be impossible to be carefully examined at this stage, and were postponed to modal plans. Overall, the process served to legitimate and reinforce long-term planning as a useful tool for transportation policy development. However, there is a significant way ahead for making public involvement more influential. Linking goals to clearly specified and regularly monitored objectives would keep public involvement alive along the planning cycle. A more clear link between general transportation policy goals and stakeholders' daily interests, such as quality of service, environmental quality or access to development opportunities should keep alive and improve the dialog among technicians, decision makers and the public, and put additional pressure in the transportation sector to gather further evidence and develop a better understanding about these complex links. Ángel Aparicio 2 Assessing Public Involvement Effectiveness in Long-Term Planning A FRAMEWORK FOR ASSESMENT OF PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN A LONG-RANGE PLAN Public involvement in long-range planning has been a key issue for many decades. Compared to US experience, public involvement in European transportation planning has heavily relied on the development of environmental legislation. Landmarks in this process have been Council Directive 85/377/EEC of 27 June 1985 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment, Directive 2001/42/EC on the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of Plans and Programmes, and Directive 2003/35/EC, of 26 May 2003 providing for public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programs relating to the environment, which implements in the EU the International Convention on Access to Environmental Information, Public Participation in Environmental Decision-making and Access to Justice (The Aarhus Convention). This maybe understood as a consequence of the lack of priority given to public involvement by European transportation administrations. For example, Booth and Richardson (1), referring mainly to the United Kingdom, state that transportation planning has merely incorporated new participative techniques tricking from other public policy areas, but has never been proactive in developing new planning paradigms. Probably, problems and tensions regarding public involvement in European transport plans reflect a wider problem: the absence of a coherent framework for strategic transport planning in many countries (1). Major gaps are the absence of relations with other public policies, mainly spatial planning, and the lack of adequate links among modes. Strategic planning seems elitist, and it is difficult to get the wider public involved: there seems to be some reluctance in transport professionals and policy makers alike to accept that they can get any significant contribution from the general public. SEA regulations and practice are crucial to create an effective hierarchy of assessment, and at focusing public involvement at the adequate level, thus making it more effective and influential. There is, however, a real risk of developing SEA as a highly sophisticated process, and to avoid the fundamental questions (e.g. whether transport demand has inevitably to continue current expansion): the general public would be kept outside discussions aimed at specialist. "The democratic deficit which has characterized strategic transport planning for many years has not yet been repaired. Weaknesses exist in old and new methods, exclusionary practices are being reinforced, and strategies of participation remain top-down."(1). Attempts to create solid SEA methodologies in Europe have not been successful yet. The development of SEA has focused on identifying adequate information sources, rather than in promoting public involvement. This is for example the focus of the European Commission's Expert Group of Transport and Environment report on the improvement of the European Transport and Environment Reporting Mechanism (TERM) (2) or the recent scope of the European Council of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) initiatives to promote SEA in the continent(3). The recently issued "BEACOM Manual" (4) is probably more adequate for particular schemes than for strategic, longterm plans. Furthermore, the manual gives a disproportionate focus to technical analytical instruments than to public participation. Booth and Richardson propose a framework of 5 key questions to define public involvement in transport: • The rationale for involvement (why involve the public?). • The substantive issues (what is negotiable?). • The design of strategies, methods and techniques (How will the public be involved?). • Identifying stakeholders (who should be involved?). • The point at which people should be involved. According to these authors, any assessment of public involvement processes should focus on the empowerment of the process itself. A public involvement process could be characterized by 3 critical factors: • inclusion or exclusion of the public or publics; • the timing of public involvement in the process; • The boundaries of debate. Public involvement would be successful in enhancing planning if it could favor the inclusion of new ideas and knowledge, increase the range of options, test evidence and positions and address uncertainty and conflict. This vision of planning outcome quality is quite different from the traditional agency's viewpoint (being successful at convincing people about the merits of the initial proposal). A similar approach is supported by Szyliowicz (5). According to (1) and (5) public involvement in transportation has to be seen from the broader perspective of governance reform. Three important questions for assessment of the process would be: (a) the degree to which it promotes democratic processes, (b) yields decisions of technical merit, and (c) accords legitimacy to the outcome.
Governance reform is one of the key areas of activity identified in the National Transport Plan o... more Governance reform is one of the key areas of activity identified in the National Transport Plan of Spain, approved by the Government in 2005. The reform aimed at: -increasing the relevance of policies based on management of transport services, compared to infrastructure expansion, and -better integrating the objectives of sustainable development within transport policy-making. To achieve an incremental, but continuous move in this direction, three combined instruments were identified: -Empowerment of a consensus-building framework, based on the one hand on public participation processes, by making it easier to the public to enter the debate on transport policy measures and transport infrastructure projects, and on the other hand on a better formalised framework for the institutional dialogue between the Ministry of Transport and its counterparts at regional and local administrations. -Streamlining the decision-making process, by establishing a new technical report regarding new init...
Se analiza en este trabajo el proceso de toma de decisiones y las herramientas de evaluación de p... more Se analiza en este trabajo el proceso de toma de decisiones y las herramientas de evaluación de proyectos empleadas por el Ministerio de Fomento, con el fin de identificar qué elementos pueden haber consolidado y estar justificando hoy la continuidad de una política fuertemente inversora, con escasa rentabilidad socioeconómica y poco coherente con una perspectiva de desarrollo sostenible. La conclusión es que la influencia real de las herramientas de análisis coste beneficio (ACB) es modesta, y que la búsqueda de políticas más coherentes exigirían, más que una mayor influencia de dichas herramientas, una profunda revisión del sistema de toma de decisiones, incluyendo la incorporación de los instrumentos ligados a la evaluación estratégica en las fases iniciales de planificación, un mayor acceso de la sociedad a la información sobre los proyectos objeto de evaluación y un esfuerzo de transparencia y apertura en los procesos de diálogo y concertación. Se plantean algunas propuestas de mejora del conjunto del sistema de evaluación y toma de decisiones, incluyendo el papel que el ACB podría tener en ese nuevo marco.
The European Commission's vision for a more competitive and sustainable transport in Europe h... more The European Commission's vision for a more competitive and sustainable transport in Europe has been outlined in the recent Transport White Paper (WP). The Transport WP sets out to remove major barriers and bottlenecks in key areas across the fields of: transport infrastructure and investment, innovation and the internal market. The aim is to create a Single European Transport Area with more competition and a fully integrated transport network which links the different modes and allows for a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers and freight. To this purpose, the Transport WP puts forward 40 concrete initiatives for the next decade, including technological as well as non-technological measures. The Strategic Transport Technology Plan (STTP), addressing the technology pillar of the White Paper, is hence designed to contribute to these objectives in the mid-term. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) undertook the responsibility to produce this scientific assessment, as a contribution to the STTP preparation. The assessment took place from November 2010 to August 2011 and covered all transport sectors and issues.JRC.F.8-Sustainable Transpor
Transportation Research Board Conference Proceedings, 2015
This white paper provides a foundation for the Second EU-U.S. Transportation Research Symposium h... more This white paper provides a foundation for the Second EU-U.S. Transportation Research Symposium held April 10–11, 2014, in Paris, France. The paper takes its theme from one simple and inspiring statement found by the authors in one of the preparatory notes for the Symposium: “research has little value if its outcomes are not applied.” Although this paper includes multiple examples of successful transportation research implementation activities, programs, and strategies on both sides of the Atlantic, its overarching thesis is that there are necessary core conditions for enhancing the implementation of transportation research in Europe and the United States that remain largely unrealized: Condition 1. A process that provides sufficient funding for research implementation, Condition 2. Centralized planning and coordination, Condition 3. Effective data collection and analysis, and Condition 4. Effective use of intellectual property tools. This paper reviews specific myths about transportation research implementation that arguably work against constructive change. The paper ends with a set of 12 hypotheses designed to promote discussion regarding possible steps for promoting enhanced research implementation.
Comprehensive discussion of the barriers to the implementation of tranport research in the Europe... more Comprehensive discussion of the barriers to the implementation of tranport research in the European Union and the United States.
This paper focuses on analysing institutional cultures and research governance regimes in a sampl... more This paper focuses on analysing institutional cultures and research governance regimes in a sample of 10 countries, including the Mediterranean Area, Russia and CIS countries, Latin America and Eastern Asia. The research provides a general assessment of the similarities and difference in governance regimes and identifies the key opportunities for strengthening international cooperation in transport research. In spite of the complexity and diversity of the situation, there is an enormous potential to increase international cooperation, based particularly on the strengths of the European Union (EU) experience and governance structures for research in the transport sector. This system has proven to be effective in interacting with the research systems of its member states and of the countries associated to the EU research program. The EU prevailing strategic approach, with a focus on global challenges, is another valuable asset to facilitate international cooperation.
The level of cooperation between modes of transport (multi-modal transport) is possibly the most ... more The level of cooperation between modes of transport (multi-modal transport) is possibly the most recurring concept appearing in European transport planning documents over the last 25 years. Whilst significant advances have been achieved in the areas of freight and urban transport, inter-urban passenger transport has faced greater difficulties and its development remains limited. This paper analyzes the evolution in this concept in Europe and it reflects on the barriers which have thus far jeopardized the consolidation of a multimodal transport system with rail as its backbone. Railway undertakings should have played a major role in the consolidation of a multimodal system, but they seem to have preferred to compete with other public transport modes, taking advantage of the development of high-speed rail (HSR) services, rather than seeking cooperation with operators from other modes, and particularly with road transport operators, which could have increased dramatically the coverage ...
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Papers by Angel Aparicio