Manfred Breithaupt
Transport Economist, GTZ, Germany

The urban areas of the world are facing a 'vicious spiral' of increasing car traffic and urban sprawl leading to ever more demand for road space, says Manfred Beithraupt of GTZ. The fairly dense Asian cities and car-dependent cities in the US have found that it is not possible to build or buy your way out of congestion, points out Manfred. To solve this problem, traffic management must address not just supply aspects, such as the provisioning of extra or wider roads, but also travel demand he suggests.

According to Manfred, travel demand management and economic instruments are particularly appropriate in developing country cities, because of their low costs and multiple benefits. Simply increasing vehicle flows does not solve today's challenges in urban transport - it rather attracts more traffic. Only a combined strategy of improving public transport and restricting individual car use can lead to sustained improvements in urban transport.

He cites the examples of Zurich, Freiburg and Münster where major shifts in the modal split proved possible when the local authorities implemented a comprehensive and integrated urban policy. In Münster 54 per cent of all trips are by non-motorized means of transport (foot, bicycle) and in Zurich private car use is smaller than 30 per cent whereas public transport covers nearly 40 per cent of all trips.

Pointing out that the logic for using economic instruments is that consumers should pay directly for the costs they impose as an incentive to use resources efficiently, Manfred presents urban traffic congestion as an example. If road space is not priced, traffic volumes will increase until congestion limits further growth, he opines.

In recent years, several cities have implemented various forms of road pricing, something which economists have recommended since decades as a way to encourage more efficient use of the transport system, says Manfred. He presents the examples of Trondheim, Oslo and Bergen in Norway, besides Singapore and London. He also points out to cities like Cardiff, Edinburgh, Barcelona, Milan, San Francisco, Sao Paolo, Munich and Stockholm which are working to implement such a system.

According to Manfred, parking control and pricing, the most commonly applied demand management measure is another key issue in the push-and-pull approach towards better urban transport with fewer cars and more cycling, walking, and transit. Parking policies are supposed to support the change from car trips to the more city-compatible means of transport, and to relieve the open space of driven and parked cars for other uses, he says.

He provides the example of the parking policy in Germany which has implemented strict reductions in the number of parking lots in the city centers, has closed particular streets or areas for passenger cars and restricted certain parking areas for residents only. All parking areas are regulated via meters and ticket vending machines. The parking fees are very high at these parking areas, at least 1 Euro per hour in most cities

In the absence of other measures which more accurately target peak period road use fuel tax is a reasonable replacement measure, opines Manfred. He explains that urban fuel surcharges can provide local revenue which can be used to improve the transport system while giving the examples of Mexico City and Bogotá. He goes on to say that in Germany and other countries fuel taxation has been important promoting more environmentally friendly fuels. Most EU countries, for example, have used fuel taxation to make unleaded fuel cheaper than leaded fuel and CNG, LPG and Biodiesel cheaper than conventional fuels. Manfred cites the case of Bulgaria, which receives 36 per cent of its tax revenues from fuel taxation. India collects a paltry 8 per cent.

Even the vehicle tax in Germany is strictly environment related. Not only do cars pay higher tax if they meet less stringent emission norms, the diesel vehicles too pay a higher tax than comparable petrol vehicles. Germany also has a system of emission-based tax bonus where tax incentives are given to vehicles which meet more stringent emission norms before the mandated time.

Manfred also brings in the example of Singapore, which has been the major exponent of vehicle taxation as a means of reducing transport demand, with a tax structure aimed at discouraging older vehicles. Vehicle taxes are imposed at various points, including import, sale, and annual registration. Yet, he says, even with high taxes vehicle ownership continued to increase, leading in 1990 to the application of an absolute quota system limiting the number of vehicles.

The case of Singapore, according to Manfred goes on to show that only a policy mix (a range of economic instruments combined with strong improvement of public transport service quality and land use) is successful. As a result of these, he points out, modal share of public transport has increased from 46 per cent in 1974 to over 60 per cent today.

He also discusses the case of congestion charging in central London, which is just over a year old. He points out that the congestion charge has brought in 30 per cent reduction of car movements, 10 per cent reduction of lorry movements and that vehicle-kilometres for cars have reduced by about 34 per cent, while average speed of traffic during charging days has increased by 37 per cent.

The scheme has also benefited the citizens by reducing peak period congestion delays by 30 per cent, and reducing bus congestion delays by 50 per cent. As buses move faster now, the ridership has increased by 14 per cent. Now the city authority plans to introduce a better bus service to be A financed by the over £100m net annual revenues from the congestion charge.

Besides these measures, says Manfred, the institutional set-up for applying an integrated urban transport policy is of paramount importance. Major aspects include: integration of land-use planning, settlement planning and urban transport planning. A regional or urban transport authority shall be responsible for an integration of all public transport operators.

Even as he shows the benefits of numerous measures, Manfred has a note of caution. Mobility management measures should be developed, assessed and applied not individually, but as a package, he warns.

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A Broad Perspective on Policy Integration for Low Emission Urban Transport in Developing Asian Cities

Paul Barter
Visiting Fellow, Public Policy Programme, National University of Singapore

Most Asian cities are now highly congested, resulting in high levels of air pollution and traffic accidents. The most realistic and relatively low cost urban structure and transport strategy for these rapidly motorising Asian cities with very high urban densities will be to accept the high densities but slow down motorisation and aim to encourage non-motorised alternatives in order to prevent unacceptable local pollution and congestion, says Paul Barter, Visiting Fellow of the National University of Singapore.

Urban transport planning and policy has undergone a paradigm shift in terms of "seeing the true mission of transport planning in terms of 'access' rather than in terms of moving vehicles or even in terms of 'mobility'," says Barter. However, environmental policy in urban transport has often failed to reflect this newer transport planning vision.

According to Barter, cities around the world have taken contrasting paths in their urban transport and urban structure systems development, having varying implications for local air pollution relative to GHG emissions.

Especially in the US and Australia, motorisation was embraced without restraint and was accompanied by massive road investment, although some cities retained former rail systems to serve older city centres, he points out. Most new urban development was in the form of sprawling suburbs. These cities had chosen a path of becoming 'automobile cities' with a high degree of 'automobile dependence' with very high car use per person, very high-energy use and GHG emissions per person but with local air pollution that could relatively easily be brought under control with step-by-step improvements in emissions standards, he explains.

European and Japanese cities, says Barter, followed paths with somewhat less emphasis on cars and more on public transport and non-motorised transport. This tended to bring them closer to a 'transit city' model (although with a significant role for private vehicles as well to varying degrees). Most European cities adopted urban planning controls that tended to prevent extremes of low-density urban sprawl. Most also, from an early stage, taxed fuels and vehicles at a higher rate than the USA or Australia. In fact, in Japan he says, private car purchases were actively discouraged through taxation and credit rationing policies until the 1960s, thus delaying motorisation until rather late in Japan's industrialisation process.

Explaining the lack of reliable public transport system, he says that cities that were not yet industrialised by the middle of the 20th century tended not to have been able to invest in very extensive tracked public transport systems. During the 1950s and 1960s most of these cities, including those in Asia, tended to adopt buses and jitneys as their main modes of transport and often abandoned their small rail and tram systems. Many could be described as 'bus/jitney cities', which were characterised by high density, low road provision and high dependence on road-based public transport (buses and/or jitneys) and non-motorised transport. These characteristics made them very vulnerable to 'traffic saturation' due to an influx of motor vehicles.

One distinct 'development path', however emphasised the deliberate slowing down of the motorisation process. This slower motorisation was an important factor in allowing public transport to be built up, even as incomes increased. Examples of this path include Singapore and Hong Kong (and Japanese cities). For a time, Seoul was also an example of this phenomenon.

These experiences contrast with those of middle-income Asian cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Taipei and Bangkok where car and motorcycle ownership has been able to reach rather high levels (comparable to European levels if both cars and motorcycles are counted) before substantial mass transit systems were in place. In Bangkok, Taipei, Jakarta and Manila (and others) land-use patterns have not had the time to adapt to the presence of large number of vehicles. Many have become 'traffic-saturated'. Even modest traffic per person equates to high levels of traffic per hectare in dense cities, so high air pollution problems quickly emerge in such cities. In this situation it has been very difficult to promote and improve public transport or non-motorised transport because buses and jitneys without on-road priority are worse affected by congestion than cars or motorcycles.

He goes on to say that although urgent action is certainly needed to quickly reduce motor vehicle impacts per vehicle kilometre, such vehicle-focused action or technology-focused approach is not enough. They do little to mitigate other fundamental urban transport problems such as congestion, road danger, and several other practical crises in rapidly motorising cities. Longer term and more fundamental approaches are required, he explains. Sustainable development in urban transport energy policy for developing cities most usefully involves actions at several levels simultaneously:

• To reduce the impacts per kilometre of individual motor vehicles and their fuels;

• To restrain traffic growth and restructure demand towards lower impact modes of transport; and

• To encourage the large technical systems of the city into long-term development paths that provide easy access to all but with low energy consumption, low GHG emissions and low concentrations of noxious pollutants.

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