Thinking Highways Europe/row November 2007

THIN KING

HIG HW AYS EUROPE/REST of the WORLD EDITION Volume 2 • Issue 4 • Q4/2007

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS Manfred Swarovski reflects on a life spent saving lives

LOUDER THAN WORDS Phil Tarnoff’s call for increased productivity

PAY AS YOU DON’T GO

Six different views of urban congestion pricing

PLUS:

Green ITS • DARPA Urban Challenge • Human Factors • Active Traffic Management • EU Finance & Funding • Australia • South Africa • POLIS • EUROCITIES • Chris Skinner the

INTELLIGENT

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Advanced transportation management policy • strategy • technology finance • innovation • implementation integration • interoperability

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Foreword Thinking

Kevin Borras is publishing director of H3B Media and editor-in-chief of Thinking Highways Europe/Rest of the World and North America editions.

Editor-in-Chief Kevin Borras Sales and Marketing Luis Hill, Tim Guest Design and Layout Phoebe Bentley, Kevin Borras Sub-Editor and Proofreader Maria Vasconcelos Contributing Editors Bruce Abernethy, Richard Bishop, Lee J Nelson, Andrew Pickford, Phil Sayeg, Phil Tarnoff, Darryll Thomas, Harold Worrall, Amy Zuckerman Contributors to this issue Barbara Bernardi, Gary Bridgeman, Ruth Bridger, Hannah Budnitz, James Burgess, Phil Charles, Janina Freitag, Al Gullon, Matt Hardey, Tara Kazi, Andreas Kossak, Malavika Nataraj, Margaret Pettit, Peter Plisner, Phil Sayeg, Mike Sena, Chris Skinner, Phil Tarnoff, Paul Vorster, Johanna Zmud

Come on down, Pete Price is right H3B Media’s UK Road Pricing Think Tank was truly memorable - thankfully for all the right reasons... For those of you that read my last foreword and were now hoping to be put out of your misery - sorry, I still can’t talk about what I did a reasonable job of not talking about last time. I have been told that I can tell you more in the first issue of 2008, by which time Project X will have been underway for a couple of months. This is actually quite handy as Selling The Idea, our UK Road Pricing Think Tank, which we staged on 27 and 28 November to a sell-out crowd, provided far too many talking points to not be the subject of this foreword. A year ago we set out to run an event that would provide two days worth of genuine debate about road pricing in the UK and, I think it’s fair to say, that by and large that’s precisely what we did, judging by the amount of congratulatory emails we have had since we returned to the office after seemingly taking over the small, affluent Surrey town of Weybridge. You can never go too far wrong by inviting Prof Eric Sampson, CBE to open your

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well back as he heads off, safe in the knowledge that all manner of sparks and explosions are going off in the room he has just left. Many people vehemently disagreed with much he had to say. London First’s Tim Hockney asked “What London was he talking about?”, Ian Catling called one of Norris’s statements “outrageous” and Consulting Stream’s Simon Albutt joked that we might as well go home now if road pricing is doomed to failure. However, provoking thought was the whole objective, not providing a platform to promote products. A case in point was the TIF Roundtable, which due to some last-minute political fudging threatened to become a non-event as only one TIF bid council were able to take part. A frantic round-up of three willing experts not only salvaged the session but also provided Derby’s Pete Price with exactly what he came to the event for: the tools with which to do his job. Information, direction and inspiration. And that, I think, says it all. TH

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Visualisation Tom Waldschmidt ([email protected]) Conferences and Events Odile Pignier ([email protected])

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event. The ITS industry in the UK would be a far poorer and smaller place without Eric. His thought-provoking “who are we selling the idea to, exactly?” gambit perfectly set the tone for the two days. We are currently in the arduous but fascinating throes of editing the 12 hours of video that Shoot You Productions recorded at the event and a highlights package will find its way onto our website in January. It’s no surprise to announce that Eric Sampson will feature quite heavily, as will Steve Norris, who announced himself as “the former next Mayor of London” in what proved to be his sole paean to self-deprecation. Norris is a superb orator, as the audience will testify, but so much so that it’s only after he has left the building that you can hear people saying “Hang on a minute, did he just...” And yes, he very probably and purposefully did say “National road pricing just ain’t going to happen”. That’s the point of inviting him - he lights a firework, lobs it in, then stands

Managing Director Luis Hill [email protected]

Publishing Director Kevin Borras [email protected]

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Thinking Highways is published quarterly in two editions – North America and Europe/Rest of the World - and is available on subscription at £30/€40 (Europe/RoW) and US$60 (North America). Distributed in the USA by DSW 75 Aberdeen Road, Emigsville, PA 17318-0437 USA. Periodicals postage paid at Emigsville, PA. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Thinking Highways, 401 S W Water Street, Suite 201B, Peoria, Illinois 61602, USA.

Although due care has been taken to ensure that the content of this publication is accurate and up-to-date, the publisher can accept no liability for errors and omissions. Unless otherwise stated, this publication has not tested products or services that are described herein, and their inclusion does not imply any form of endorsement. By accepting advertisements in this publication, the publisher does not warrant their accuracy, nor accept responsibility for their contents. The publisher welcomes unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations but can accept no liability for their safe return. © 2007 H3B Media Ltd. All rights reserved. The views and opinions of the authors are not necessarily those of H3B Media Ltd. Reproduction (in whole or in part) of any text, photograph or illustration contained in this publication without the written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. Printed in the UK by Stones the Printers

Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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Contents

04

COLUMNS Eurocities’ Mobility Forum

08

Prof Phil Charles’ Australian Update

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COVER STORY

Kevin Borras finds Swarco’s chairman Manfred Swarovski in ebullient mood - especially when the conversation turns to China

THE THINKER ITS guru Phil Tarnoff on what sounds like stating the obvious but unfortunately isn’t: increasing your productivity can improve effectiveness ROAD PRICING Johanna Zmud on what would make the idea of road pricing publicly acceptable...

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Mike Sena, on the other hand, wonders if anyone has come up with a better congestionbusting alternative in the last two millennia

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Is India’s congestion problems hampering its economic growth, wonders Malavika Nataraj

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Dr Andreas Kossak looks at how road pricing has taken off in Germany

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...although according to Al Gullon, congestion is all a matter of personal choice 64

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Ruth Bridger presents a history of road pricing in the UK

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DARPA URBAN CHALLENGE Janina Freitag and Matt Hardey focus on a British company’s significant role in last month’s Californian battle of the ‘bots GREEN ITS ERTICO’s Gary Bridgeman and James Burgess on how ITS is helping to improve transport’s environmental impact SOUTH AFRICA ITS South Africa’s CEO, Dr Paul Vorster talks about a novel scheme that is entirely without merit. But in a good way...

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HUMAN FACTORS Integrating human factors into ITS is vital, according to Dr Tara Kazi ACTIVE TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT Peter Plisner examines how hard-shoulder running is proving to be a surprising success in the UK THE THOUGHT PROCESS Chris Skinner, ITS consultant and adjunct lecturer at the University of Sydney’s Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies POLIS NETWORK According to Hannah Budnitz of POLIS member Reading, ITS doesn’t necessarily stand for Intelligent Transport Systems

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FINANCE AND FUNDING Margaret Pettit’s EU roundup turns its attention to Poland

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Advertisers’ Index

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30/11/07 20:35:04

Eurocities’ Mobility Forum

Keep it all in Internalising the external costs of transport is occupying the collective minds of EUROCITIES So, what is the problem here? Why should we be talking about internalizing the external costs of transport? As much as transport benefits the worldwide economy, transport activities are still generating nuisances/ costs not only to other transport users but to society in general. Examples of such costs are ones generated from congestion, accidents, environmental costs (i.e. climate change and pollution), infrastructure and land use. The mathematical equation, (that may sound dull, but bear

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with us and you’ll see things will get more and more interesting) resulting from the relation between who or what produces the costs and the cost paid by the users does not always work correctly. Is there a reason for that? To make our concept even more attractive we can tell you that there is not only one single reason, there are millions. Why is that so? “If the universe was written in mathematical language, and the letters were triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, and it was humanly impossible to comprehend a single word”,

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humankind would be much happier. Besides, policy, politics and society tend to complicate our beautiful mathematical equation.

Q&A

First of all we need to find an answer to the questions - do we need to take into account the revenues gained from the collection of charges, congestion taxes, tradable permit or electronic charges? If so, do we need to create a link between the internalisation of these costs and the use of those revenues? In an ideal world, these should www.h3bmedia.com

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Robert Eurocities’ KellyMobility and Mark Forum Johnson finance public transport, mobility management measures or other environmental friendly modes. Secondly (and a much more difficult question to find an answer to): what do we want to achieve by collecting these charges? The opportunity to tackle climate change using this model sounds like it would be a fantastic Christmas present. Al Gore has been saying for quite a while that we need to act now. The deadline for the European Commission consultation on 31 December 2007 might even be too late.

Warming to the idea

Having understood the urgency of the situation, we are still not clear about the goals of internalizing these costs. Without resorting to any difficult mathematical calculation, it is clear enough that this model will not stop cars contributing to the +2C° temperature threshold. If, as committed readers, you will take the time to go through this very brave piece of EU legislation (we say brave, because to picture the worst scenario and really think about it, you really need to be brave!), you will not hesitate for a second in picturing this scene: a giant wave submerging beautiful pieces of history such as Venice, Amsterdam or Athens.

Why bother?

Sceptics will ask: “If this going to happen anyway, why should we pay more for polluting?” Unfortunately we do not have a mathematical equation to answer that question. Do you have an answer? It is a pity that Galileo (that’s him on the opening page) is no longer with us, he might have had one. To give a considered reply we would need to assume political responsibility for having made a political choice in the first place. Describing Galileo, Bertold

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“Sceptics ask ‘If this is going to happen anyway why should we pay more for polluting?’” Brecht once said: “Unlucky would be the world that would need heroes!” Are we in need of heroes? Or do we simply need a rational way to influence travel behaviour? It’s amazing how we always end up at the same solution whichever angle we’re approaching our problems from. It is like in Italy - no matter the road you take, you will always end up in Rome. Talking about Rome, can we find the ideal charging solution for Rome that can be successfully transferred to other cities such as Warsaw, Kaunas or Brno? Definitely not. This is another problem which has not yet been accounted for in our mathematical equation. “Strength through diversity” might be the solution. If we are

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not mistaken this sounds like the title of EUROCITIES contribution to the European Commission Green Paper, “Towards a new culture for urban mobility”?

A third way

Most of our political leaders have been trying to find the third way, as the ideal solution for all kinds of problem. As much as our charges problem is concerned we would only be happy at the point when we found what lies in the middle between the “good for all” legal framework and nothing at all. Are we reaching the conclusion that this model will be totally useless? Not at all, we hope. You need to internalize your external costs of transport in the same way that you need to breathe to remain alive. And wouldn’t it better if the air you breathed was clean? TH For more information please contact Barbara Bernardi, EUROCITIES’ mobility policy officer at [email protected]

or visit the website at www.eurocities.eu www.h3bmedia.com

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30/11/07 20:09:50

Charles & Sayeg’s Australian Update

The toll road out of Eden PROF PHIL CHARLES is joined by fellow contributor PHIL SAYEG to discuss Australia’s toll road challenge Rapid population and employment growth in Australia’s major cities plus changing travel patterns is expected to increase the demand for travel. In addition there are constraints on transport infrastructure expansion due to limits on public funding available and community pressure to restrict building new roads. This forecast growth in traffic will increase congestion pressures, significantly increasing transport costs, reducing travel time reliability and increasing vehicle emissions and energy use. The recent report by the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics estimates the cost of congestion for Australian cities was A$9.4 billion in 2005

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and is estimated to more than double by 2020 to A$20.4 billion. A number of measures are available to mitigate congestion, encompassing demand reduction and management, improving management of traffic and increasing capacity. The most appropriate response would be to employ a combination of measures, including road user charging and public-private partnerships in the funding and operation of toll roads. There is a generally accepted need to moderate transport demand, which tends to rise faster than population and income growth. Motorists do not take into account the full costs of their transport decisions, which leads to a situation whereby the road

system is used excessively, compared to a situation where they perceive all costs including externalities. Traffic congestion itself may moderate demand to some extent and encourage shorter trips, but is an inefficient means of travel demand management. Charging for road use is recognised as a key tool for achieving optimal use of the road and broader transport network to signal to motorists the actual costs of their travel on the community. Road tolling is a form of road use charging that is applied in major capital cities on the east coast, which have toll roads. It is normally applied not to optimally manage demand, but as a means of funding road infrastructure, which is www.h3bmedia.com

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MultaRadar is the world’s most successful mobile and stationary system to monitor traffic. The technology is convincing with variable application options and precise readings, with unquestionable identification and recording. MultaRadar is ready for use extremely quickly and is very easy to operate – our service team offers effective support here.

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Visit us at the Intertraffic 2008, 1st-4th April, Hall 1, Stand 01.416.

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Charles & Sayeg’s Australian Update Robert Kelly and Mark Johnson

considered to be economically beneficial and able to be provided earlier than it may otherwise have been through normal funding arrangements.

Key co-ordinates

An emerging challenge is the uncoordinated development of toll roads with different toll regimes and long concession periods. The issue is more pronounced as most toll roads are developed in and around congested centres and there is a tension between the objectives of private operators seeking to maximise return on investment and governments aiming to maximise community benefits. “Delays to non toll road traffic created by traffic management measures needed to reinforce the high speed function of the toll roads can be significant as the volume of non toll road traffic across many roads can easily exceed toll road usage. Network effects are significant in congested conditions and can be magnified across a wide area diluting the benefits of toll roads especially if they are not well conceived. In Sydney for example, each motorway operator sets tolls under their individual concession agreement. These agreements have been developed from a tendering and negotiation process, at different times and economic

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conditions, resulting in the NSW Government having limited policy control to manage network and community impacts. The NSW Government deem it necessary to establish a devoted website at http:// www.sydneymotorways.com to help road users calculate the toll for trips around the entire network. In South East Queensland, the two current toll roads (Gateway and Logan Motorways) under the control of State-owned Queensland Motorways are located on the edge of Brisbane. Recent longterm toll road concessions awarded by Brisbane City Council under the TransApex transport plan are for the North-South Bypass Tunnel, which passes under the CBD and the Hale Street Bridge on its western edge. In the near term the Airport Link and Northern Link are proposed as additional toll road concessions over 30 to 50 years. The current and proposed TransApex concessions are being developed as stand alone projects, whose financial performance is dependent on the toll rates they apply and the usage they attract. By their nature, these private concessions are very long term, involve high investment (ie billions of dollars) from demanding lenders who have borne high risks. Revenue

streams depend on forecast demand at toll rates, different for each concession, defined in the concession agreements and predicating that the concessions will be largely unchangeable except at high financial cost to government. Continued fragmentation of future toll road concessions is undesirable. As a matter of urgency governments should study options for, and then adopt, a more flexible model for future toll road concessions, rather than the current “stand alone” model. The challenge for governments is encouraging optimal use of the road network, at the same time recognising the investment level, risks assumed and desired rate of return needed by private consortia bidding for toll road concessions. However, the inappropriate concessioning of “stand alone” road projects is likely to continue despite their potential to create more congestion than they are claimed to alleviate. TH Prof Phil Charles is Director of the Centre for Transport Strategy at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. [email protected] Philip Sayeg is Director of Policy Appraisal Services, based in Brisbane, Australia. [email protected] www.h3bmedia.com

30/11/07 20:20:47

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AFTER

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Cover Feature KEVIN BORRAS talks to MANFRED SWAROVSKI, CEO of SWARCO and a member of the family that owns the world famous Swarovski glass empire. In his first press interview of the 21st Century, Swarovski talks of the company’s future plans, why imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery and how SWARCO owes its existence to the cousin of a singing cowboy

almost instantly boosted their performance, let alone It’s 1969 and Manfred Swarovski is not a happy man. morale and share price. Having travelled from Austria looking for a US part“Our ethical business conduct (as set out in our Code ner to manufacture and market his retroreflective of Conduct) is an important principle for SWARCO,” glass beads for use in road markings, he has so far says Swarovski. “However, lawful behaviour is not spent several weeks to-ing and fro-ing from a series enough for running a successful business. Our innovaof unsuccessful meetings with companies across tive capacity, our competitive edge and the partnership the States that either don’t want to work with anyone approach we cultivate with our customers/partners are else or are unwilling to go into business with him or also key to our good reputation and the satisfaction of back his idea. On the verge of giving up he decides our clients. It took over 40 years to build up SWARCO to take a short break in Mexico. step by step.” He wanders into a bar, sits down on a stool and orders Incidentally (or perhaps not), the D. Swarovski & Co. a drink. Next to him is a man wearing a cowboy hat who Group had originally patented the idea of reflective nods in his direction. “What brings you here?” asks the safety glass in the 1930s, basing the product on its crysbe-stetsoned figure. Swarovski tells him that he’s trying tal and rhinestone production techniques, techniques to find a business partner in the US. that have not altered all that significantly. “What line of business are you in?” asks the man, who, “One thing MARGARET I will say though,” interjects a mischieit turns out, is the cousin of the famous singing cowboy of Thinking Highways’ financial analyst vously smiling Swarovski. “The technology we were the 1930s and 40s, Gene Autry, hence the cowboy hat at the Territorial using when we started in 1969 is what the Chinese are (andPETTIT as it turns outlooks he is also called GeneEuropean Autry). to copy us today!” you will come to learn if “Glass beads,” says Swarovski imagining that he’d Cooperation Programme and using finds that likeChina, with you read this article, is rather obviously Swarovski’s bête then have to explain what they are and what they are any other major programme, it’s a matter of noire. for. priorities Having visited the company’s home town of Wattens, “Me too,” says Autry. And the rest is history. just east of Innsbruck in the West of Austria, I wondered why they had headquartered in such a Through the looking glass small, but picturesque, town. Fast forward 38 years and, it’s not with“That’s simple,” explains Swarovski. out foundation to say that the name “I grew up here. I am from Wattens. The SWARCO is as synonymous with refleccompany has moved around a bit actutive glass beads as Swarovski’s great ally. Production was in Amstetten, about grandfather Daniel’s is with crystal three hours from here, near Vienna. decanters. Then we moved to Vienna, then Amstetten and then back “I’m glad I didn’t give up, I have to say,” remarks to Wattens about 20 years ago. There’s no production Swarovski, SWARCO’s chairman, a little unnecessarily. here, “ he says. “It’s just headquarters.” ‘Just’ headquarFor 2007 the Manfred Swarovski Group of Companies ters - Swarovski’s panoramic views of the Alps from his expects cumulated sales of about €320m with a total staff office window don’t really do ‘just’ justice. It certainly of approximately 2000 employees. In a fluctuating martrumps our view of the H3B Media car park. ketplace, this is no mean feat and is partly due to the performances of SWARCO Futurit and Limburger LackReflecting on the future fabrik, two of the 64 companies that SWARCO now owns In the recent past SWARCO was known as the company around the world, an impressive portfolio which also who manufactured reflective glass beads that were used includes the likes of Mizar Automazione, SWARCO Nordic, SWARCO America and M.Tech. in road markings and improved safety, but over the last Other companies have embarked upon similarly few years the company has really stepped up its activiambitious acquisition programmes in the past, but ties with the purchase of several well-known companies. somehow the stories never quite turn out to have as Thinking Highways wondered what, if anything, had prohappy an ending as the accompanying press releases voked this change of attitude? predicted. I wondered if the company’s reputation for “To be honest, SWARCO has been about more than playing a fair game and never seemingly being intent just glass beads since the 1990s. Glass beads are really on causing business havoc had anything to do with how an issue of the heart for me and remain one of the most successfully they have bought other firms and then efficient contributors to road safety. However, SWARCO

“China is rather obviously Swarovski’s bête noire”

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Climate Change Cover Feature

A man walks into a bar...

Photograph by Richard Neumann

When DAVID SCHONBRUNN read the April/May issue of Thinking Highways he felt compelled to write an article offering his own views on transportation’s impacts onm and solutions for, climate change

www.h3bmedia.com

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Cover Feature has to ensure its future existence by diversifying its products, services and solutions portfolio as our customers are demanding more and more complete solutions from a one-stop shop. Already our Materials and Traffic Management divisions each account for about 50 per cent of SWARCO’s turnover. I see overproportional growth potential in the ITS sector and system business. Also in road marking the system character has become predominant. “It is not enough to just buy well-known companies. They must be a good fit, they must add something, do something that we don’t do and have something that we don’t have they must. There must be a pragmatic and coherent philosophy behind the way you organize your business. We acquire companies but what we really do is build teams - we integrate them but at the same time allow them to keep their independence. Mizar and Futurit are perfect examples of that philosophy,” Swarovski points out.

Photograph by Richard Neumann

Big fish, little fish

“The Chinese have become a competitor with their own, although often poorly developed, bead production technology”

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Some companies that have been acquired by so-called bigger fish over the last decade have complained of being “lost”, “forgotten about” and “sidelined.” This is something that SWARCO are at pains to ensure never happens when they are performing the bigger fish role. “For us it means to keep pace with new developments in the road sector. So, what are these main trends? Let’s look at three. Glass beads are a component of road marking which is part of road safety. Nowadays you cannot increase infrastructural road safety without reaching out to other equipment and to traffic management. A holistic approach to road safety is needed to bring more safety for road users. The technological revolution brings more and more IT to our sector: ITS and traffic management technologies create more interfaces between traditionally separate “jobs”. “Secondly public-private partnerships: increasingly roads are managed and financed by the private sector. They are operated like a public utility, for example like electricity or phone networks. One consequence is to bundle more products and specialisations into one process, than with the traditional approach. We are keeping a very close eye on the prospects of engaging in PPPs in Eastern Europe. “And thirdly, even for publicly financed projects most governments’ tend to ask for overall solutions from one provider. Therefore, it is not sufficient to be a specialised manufacturer of one product only. SWARCO has to become a system integrator. This means, first, that we are able to offer a complete range of products and solutions in traffic safety and management. Secondly, we have to be able to offer services for the project life-cycle of the road, which exploit the long term quality of our products.” The process is not yet complete, but most of SWARCO’s acquisition projects will be finished by the end of this year. “The strong acquisition phase of the past two to three years now demands a phase of integration and consolidation.” says Swarovski earnestly. www.h3bmedia.com

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Cover Feature No laurel-resting here

Not content with leading with glass bead market, Swarovski has his heart (which would appear to be index-linked to his mind) set on expanding not only his company’s horizons, but those of the wider market and how they perceive this global player nestled neatly into the beautiful Alpine foothills. “SWARCO is developing into one of the major players in ITS, with the clear objective to become the leader in traffic management. The various SWARCO companies with its industry-leading partners are able to offer highest quality and complete turnkey solutions in urban, interurban, parking, public transport and infomobility.” Swarovski, like his great-grandfather, is a great believer in the idea that you get nowhere by sitting still. The electronic toll collection market has been identified as “the next big thing” in many boardrooms around the world and it’s no different in Swarovski’s. “We’re very interested in the revolution of electronic tolling. New charging systems and particularly satellite based tolling are not only a more sophisticated means of collecting money. With the onboard unit (OBU) an interface has been created which bundles a variety of services that did not exist before.Or they have been separate. Thus, the OBU provides real time traffic information to administrations and a communication link to drivers. Traffic information is also provided to users at one glance on the screen, together with several value added services. This can even include accident warnings, route information, etc. Let’s not forget vehicle to vehicle communication and vehicle to infrastructure communications, etc. We now observe the generalisation of tolling:from motorways to national and ordinary roads. There is also the rise of congestion pricing in cities. “Finally, all categories of roads will be “interfaced” by one onboard unit, see the planned road pricing project in the Netherlands. The OBU has to be well coordinated with all road side equipment.” (It’s worth noting here that SWARCO has shares in fellow Austrians Efkon AG.) The avuncular Swarovski continues: “Vehicle to roadside (and eventually vehicle to vehicle) communication opens the door for new ways of operation.These include data collection (cars can provide data on journey times; vehicle types etc.) tolling and congestion charging; and improved driver information in the vehicle (speed limits; information on road conditions and diversions) Vehicles will become an integral part of the system rather than something to be detected or signalled. “We can see how Public Transport has already started to be integrated in this manner and private vehicles will be next as they become more ‘intelligent’ with more and more on-board electronics.”

the world, China can be quite fairly described as an arch copyist. Firstly though, Swarovski is adamant that no Chinese company has ever offered to buy or buy into SWARCO and its glass bead technology. The rumour earlier this year that they had was indeed just a rumour. “No, I have never been approached by the Chinese with such an offer. They have become a competitor with their own, although often poorly developed bead production technology. They know that SWARCO is a quality producer of glass beads and they try to benefit from this by copying our brochures, using our pictures in Powerpoint presentations and websites, imitating our logo and so on. The most striking evidence was when one competitor was found to have a picture of me hanging on the wall behind his desk. I had never been in touch with that company before. “One of our guys out there asked him where he got the technology from and he said ‘From a man in Europe called Manfred. That’s my friend Mr Swarovski, we get the know-how from him. The Chinese copy everything and mostly they have no interest in whether or not the product they actually produce is actually reflective.They even copied me!” Swarovski shrugs, he is not laughing, despite the jovial comment.

Poor imitation

When a company with SWARCO’s reputation for quality is faced with such blatant plagiarism, and what appears on the face of it is endorsed plagiarism (which it clearly isn’t), what can they do? “Not very much. It’s not good but it’s too late once you get to that stage. We had 70 per cent of shares in a Chinese company but we pulled out. We can’t compete with the cost over there. Some 35 per cent of our costs are materials and energy. Even if we could get those down to zero we would not be able to compete. However, they don’t usually use our name, just our technology. But we sell systems, guaranteed for 5 or 6 years which of course they can’t match. They use the cheapest materials and have similar production values.” Swarovski has protested to the Austrian Trade Commission in Beijing and Shanghai about the copying. The Trade Commission acted immediately and got in touch with the respective Chinese companies but it’s uncertain whether such a protest will remedy the problem in the long run. “The only way to work there is to start a wholly foreign-owned enterprise or buy shares in a local company already operating and profitable. In the traffic management sector we bought a Chinese subsidiary from German Signalbau Huber and got further insight into the opportunities and difficulties of doing business in China.” Competition in the glass bead sector is also getting tougher. “The glass bead market is quite small worldwide, maybe 500,000 tons a year. Five years ago the Chinese produced absolutely nothing but in 2006 they produced

“One competitor had a picture of me hanging on the wall behind his desk. I had never been in touch with that company before”

The Chinese way

As I mentioned earlier, Swarovski is far from reticent about airing his views on China.With the best will in the world, and with due respect to our readers in that part of www.h3bmedia.com

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Cover Feature 130,000 tons, sometimes of doubtful quality. Analyses of Chinese beads exported to Europe partly identified significant heavy metal contaminations.”

A family affair

Thinking Highways was intrigued to know if coming from such a famous family (ask 10 people to name one company that makes crystal animals, for example, and I bet you seven would say Swarovski) had any advantages in the business world, or even on Swarovski’s approach to business himself Or disadvantages come to that? Thinking about it, that’s perhaps a rather difficult question to answer, seeing as he has not come from any other family (I once saw a black police officer asked in a TV interview if the colour of his skin made his job any more difficult than a white police officer’s and he replied: “I really don’t know, I’ve only ever been black.”) “Being born into a family with a long entrepreneurial tradition and professionality going back to Daniel Swarovski, my great-grandfather, I started my career in the family business. Ambition is a major drive for me so I started to set up my own business in a different field of activity 40 years ago, independently of D. Swarovski & Co. Family traditions are one thing, autonomy and one’s own achievements are another. It is a fact that the name Swarovski has positive connotations, and SWARCO is benefiting from this. The name is a door-opener. You might also imagine that the name is particularly interesting when it comes to business cooperation inquiries, fundings and sponsorings.”

five cows across the street from SWARCO HQ, armed with a camera and a container full of almost microscopic glass beads that it proved too windy to photograph. With the spectacular Alps at the end of the street and the gentle sound of tinkling cowbells at the other, it was very easy to forget that this was a business trip and we had a three hour drive to accomplish in two hours and a plane to catch. Typically Swarovski was keen to get moving. “OK, I’m ready for my close-up,” he said. “Where do you want me?” TH Thanks to SWARCO’s corporate communications manager Richard Neumann for co-ordinating the interview

In closing

Finally, the question I ask everyone: What do you consider to be the biggest technological breakthrough of the past 25 years? “LEDs becoming a viable solution for traffic signalling purposes as they are so energy-saving, reliable, durable, versatile in their application. The ability to network traffic devices so that roadside equipment can be connected together (e.g. Urban Traffic Control and Motorway Systems) and even the exchange of data from different central computer systems,” says Swarovski instantly. “We have moved from simple devices applied to single problems such as one intersection or a traffic black spot to fully adaptive traffic control systems covering complete cities or motorway networks. We expect this trend to continue with larger networks collecting more data and starting to integrate mobile elements including private vehicles.” Swarovski, his corporate communications manager Richard Neumann and I then head for the small patch of grass containing

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The Thinker

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

Critical mass productivity Actions speak louder than words – productivity can improve transportation agency effectiveness, says PHIL TARNOFF 18

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Climate Change When DAVID SCHONBRUNN read the April/May issue of Thinking Highways he felt compelled to write an article offering his own views on transportation’s impacts onm and solutions for, climate change

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The Thinker In his thought-provoking book “The World is Flat” , Thomas Friedman describes the efforts of businesses such as Dell Computer, WalMart, and UPS to ensure that their operations are managed as efficiently as possible. Obviously, their incentive for focusing on efficiency is improved profitability and improved service delivery in a highly competitive business environment. The success of these companies is achieved by establishing a supply-chain management process that minimizes costs through a number of actions, one of which is maximizing their employee’s productivity. The success of these companies is evidence of the effectiveness of their strategies. Efficiency improvements are not limited to the manufacturing or retail sectors of our economy. As described by Friedman, the Boeing Aircraft Corporation in its “head-to-head competition with archrival Airbus Industries, has incorporated Russian engineers into their aircraft design team. In addition to the fact that Russian salaries are about a third of their US counterparts, their participation has permitted Boeing to operate on a 24hour workday, using two shifts in Moscow and one shift in America. The availability of fiber-optic communications, modern data compression technologies,sophisticated work flow software and video conferencing has permitted the design teams to collaborate seamlessly. In other words, Boeing has creatively used modern technology to reduce the cost and time required for aircraft engineering and design. Efficiency gains can be achieved without relying on foreign outsourcing. JetBlueAirwaysCorporationhasdemonstrated the efficiency of creative staffing by allowing their reservation agents to work from their homes. (They call it homesourcing.) JetBlue President David Needleman has found that reservation agents working from home are 30 percent more productive – they take 30 per cent more bookings, just being happier” . Each of these examples demonstrates that the effectiveness of an organization can be improved through a focus on its primary resource; people. The competitive environment has compelled these organizations, and many others, to continuously examine their business practices and procedures in order to “squeeze” the last ounce of inefficiency from their operations. Obviously the public sector does not operate within the same competitive environment. Funding for public sector services is based on legislative appropriations, which in turn are based on perceived public demand for transportation services. To a greater or lesser extent, public sector employees have greater job security than their private sector counterparts. There are few rewards for efficiency within this structure. As a result of these cultural differences, the public sector rarely performs an introspective examination of its own efficiency. When faced with budget decreases, transportation

agencies often respond with a reduction in services (less frequent equipment and vehicle maintenance, degraded pavement quality, outdated signal timing, etc.). Many state legislatures impose personnel ceilings on their operating agencies. When faced with staff reductions or hiring freezes, the typical response is to either increase private sector outsourcing (if adequate budgets are available), or again, to reduce services. Rarely, if ever does a transportation agency consider actions that might be taken to offset these resource reductions with improved efficiency. Since most of their activities are labor-intensive, improved efficiency can best be achieved through increased staff productivity. Ironically, many opportunities for improved staff productivity exist, but only the obvious ones are given serious consideration.

What is productivity?

In economics terms, productivity is the amount of output created (in terms of goods produced or services rendered) per unit input used. For instance, labor productivity is typically measured as output per worker or output per labor-hour. Opportunities for improved labor productivity include: • Increased use of automation including technologies as computer aided design and engineering, optimization of maintenance cycles, dispatch and routing software, etc. • Improved management techniques including the use of performance measures for increasing the awareness of productivity as an agency priority • Reorganization to make better use of existing staff such as a review of the relative efficiencies associated with centralized vs. decentralized operations • Training to ensure that all employees are using the most effective and efficient procedures in the execution of their responsibilities • Outsourcing of agency functions that can be more efficiently performed by the private sector • Creative use of work schedules and locations (telecommuting). For example in some states freeway service patrol operators are allowed to take their state vehicles home. There are many instances of these drivers stopping to help motorists with disabled vehicles or assist in clearing an incident while they are on their way to work. Perhaps the most effective technique is the use of a process through which employees are encouraged to identify potential productivity improvements, and receive awards for those ideas that are accepted. A process of this nature increases the focus on productivity, and provides incentives for employees to improve their effectiveness. When considering the productivity of an organization, there is a temptation to make a distinction between productive and unproductive labor, in which the former is directly responsible for producing the needed goods

“Opportunities for improved staff productivity exist, but only the obvious ones are given serious consideration”

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ON THE ROAD TO FLOURISH

Like an unfolding blossom, the Swarco Group continues to expand its market presence and products, services, and solutions portfolio. Today, 40 companies in 16 countries account for more than 200 MEUR in sales related to traffic control materials and traffic management solutions. The blossom grows and gets new petals, for instance with transport telematics specialist Mizar Automazione in Italy and paint factory Swarco Vicas in Romania. The development of the blossom involves its change, but, similar to the solid roots of a plant, some things remain unchanged: our commitment to road safety with quality orientation, innovation spirit, and the partnership approach with you.

SWARCO HOLDING AG, Blattenwaldweg 8, A-6112 Wattens • Tel.: +43-5224-5877-0, Fax: +43-5224-56070 • e-mail: offi[email protected], www.swarco.com

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The Thinker

and services (design engineers, service patrol drivers, maintenance personnel, etc.) and the latter is considered a support function (building maintenance, trainers, cleaning personnel, etc.). This concept was abandoned in the early 20th century both because of the difficulty of allocating activities to one of these two categories (for example is the human resources staff considered productive or unproductive labor), as well as the fact that all positions within an organization contribute to the productivity of the organization. However, these biases of the 18th and 19th century remain today. This is exhibited by the fact that, when required, reductions in staff tend to have the greatest impact on job classifications that may be considered unproductive labor. Obviously this can be a counterproductive action since, for example, employees who are worrying about the status of their health insurance due to cuts in the human resources staff, will not operate effectively.

ated. The conclusions of this second assessment were very instructive. Not surprisingly, the national results showed only very modest improvement in signal operations during this relatively brief time period. However, a relatively small group of jurisdictions responded proactively to their initial results, by instituting an aggressive signal management and operations program. The productivity impact reported by the City of Austin to this approach is so compelling, that the relevant aspects of its experience are cited here in their entirety from the NTOC final report. “According to Ali Mozdbar, city traffic signal engineer with the City of Austin,TX, USA,“We are constantly under pressure from the public to improve our signals. Once we got the self assessment tool, we concluded that the most important items are managing and maintaining a good system. When we received our grade, it was clear what areas we needed to improve.” As a result, the City began to put more emphasis on timing plans and updates and became more proactive in its approach. Mozdbar credits the self assessment with helping the City focus staff on critical areas. “We sat down and brainstormed,” says Mozdbar,“and decided to assign different zones to each person. This allows engineers to feel a sense of ownership for their signals. We provide incentives such as time off for engineers who manage areas that are doing well.” The City of Austin made its signal improvements with no additional funding, just a reallocation of dollars. Instead of spending money on the back side by responding to signals that have problems or receive a lot of complaints, the City spends money up front by proactively checking every signal for preventative maintenance. This has helped reduce maintenance calls from 5,000 to 2,500 in one year. From this description it is obvious that Austin was able to significantly improve staff productivity through organizational changes, employee incentives, and modifications to maintenance procedures. This is a vivid example of the manner in which productivity improvements lead to provision of improved agency performance. Example 2, North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT): While a few State DOTs mention productivity in their promotional material, most of these references are related to the productivity of the transportation system (vehicle miles of travel, tons of goods shipped, etc.) per mile of roadway. However, the NCDOT is a significant exception. In recognition of the importance of employee productivity, NCDOT established an internal management consulting unit whose mission is to bring “innovative approaches to process management improvement, problem solving and positive organizational change”. The Unit promotes continuous improvement in the effectiveness of NCDOT by influencing policy, processes and change. Two specific pro-

“While productivity of transportation agency staff is rarely considered, there are some noteworthy exceptions”

Success stories and other possibilities

While productivity of transportation agency staff is rarely considered, there are some noteworthy exceptions. Example 1, the City of Austin Texas: In 2007, the National Transportation Operations Coalition (NTOC) conducted its second assessment of the Nation’s traffic signal systems. The initial assessment was conducted in 2005. This self assessment was conducted to increase awareness of the impact of traffic signal operations on the transportation system, and to encourage agencies and their elected officials to provide adequate resources to ensure that these systems are being effectively oper-

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The Thinker

“The list of ways in which productivity can be improved is endless”

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grams serve as representative examples of the Unit’s activities: 1. An incentive pay pilot project has been authorized by the General Assembly for the purpose of improving staff productivity. This pilot project is currently being applied to the State Road Maintenance Road Oil and the Bridge Inspections Units. Financial incentives are well known techniques for improving staff productivity that are rarely applied by public agencies. 2. A continuous Process Improvement (CPI) program has been established to promote ideas and opportunities for the application of new techniques for improving the Department’s efficiency. This program includes CPI Awards for inventive ideas that lead to more effective performance. Among the 2007 CPI Award winners was the acquisition of robotic total station survey equipment for stadia surveys. A stadia survey is one that measures angle and distance, using a traditional transit and rod. The DOT had required the assignment of a spotter along with a rodman during surveys at high speed locations. The acquisition of the robotic total station survey equipment eliminated the need for the spotter at these locations and also led to an estimated 10 to 25 per cent reduction in survey time. This is an example of the application of technology to improved employee productivity. It is also an example of the manner in which employee participation in the process can lead to creative and useful techniques. The robotic survey equipment is just one of an entire range of ideas receiving awards from the NCDOT Productivity Unit, that include items such as enhanced database and processing for the State’s Adopt-A Highway program, and improved sign racks for the State’s sign trucks. One of the most visible and effective productivity improvements adopted by the transportation community is the use of electronic toll collection systems (such as EZPass) which have enabled significant toll collection productivity by reducing the need for toll collectors and increasing the throughput at toll plazas. So the list of ways in which productivity can be improved is endless. All that is required is the will and the focus to identify and implement these improvements on a continuous basis. The key to an effective program is continuous measurement, encouragement and incentives. There is little doubt that improved productivity is a more positive response to resource limitations than a reactionary cut in services.

Concluding thoughts

Productivity should not be considered the holy grail of the public transportation agency. It is possible to improve productivity while reducing the quality of life and morale of an agency’s employees. However, it is also possible to improve productivity by enhancing the work environment, and reorienting the priorities of the staff. A balanced approach is obviously critical to successful productivity enhancement. Based on the available evidence, the current public agency culture has a long way to go before it needs to be concerned about placing too much emphasis on productivity. TH Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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Road Pricing Special

The public supports road pricing if... JOHANNA ZMUD tackles the issue of public acceptability and examines just what, if anything, would make ‘the people’ embrace the idea of paying to use the roads

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

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RoadClimate Pricing Change Special The potential benefits of road pricing have been advocated for some time and the technology to implement pricing schemes has been operational for years. Singapore introduced its first congestion-pricing scheme in 1975. London has implemented a major scheme, and San Francisco and New York City may not be far behind. Public authorities in states across the US, from California and Texas to Virginia, are pushing forward with plans to implement high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes. Pay-asyou-drive pricing programs have been tested in Oregon,Washington, and Minnesota. But other public authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere have found it difficult to advance road pricing programs. If the benefits are good and the technology can deliver, why are not more public authorities around the world implementing road pricing as a source of infrastructure funding, a means to manage congestion and improve air quality, and as a way to expand traveler options?

When DAVID SCHONBRUNN Why have diverse attempts to introduce tolling and road pricing been successfully implemented, while read the April/May issue ofothers have failed politically? The bottom line is that the Thinking Highways feasibility of these efforts depended nothe only felt on public support but also on to elected officials’ compelled write anperceptions articleof public support. In many places, a gulf offering his own exists between elected officials’ perviews onthinks… and ceptions of what the public whattransportation’s the public actually thinks.

“A gulf exists between elected officials’ and Be impacts careful what onm you say... perceptions of The power of surveys to climate illuminate the solutions for, attitudes of citizens means that results what the public are often used change as the foundation for thinks… and policymaking. As aptly said by Earl American Petroleum Institute, what the public Newsom, nearly 50 years ago, “Today’s public actually thinks” opinion, though it may appear light as

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air, may become tomorrow’s legislation – for better or worse.” Ipsos MORI, a survey research firm in the UK, recently found that public opinion tended to swing in support of road pricing when people were informed about how the revenues could be used to bring

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Road Pricing Special Table 1: Public Opinion based on Type of Pricing Survey Results

Majority Support Majority Opposition Neither Majority Total Percent Total Cases

HOT Lanes

Type of Pricing Project Traditional Tolling Express Toll Lanes

73% 15% 12% 100% 26

71% 26% 3% 100% 35

benefits (1). A nonscientific web poll sponsored by the American Automobile Association (AAA) Mid-Atlantic in the latter part of this year found most respondents from six Mid-Atlantic States and the District of Columbia favored paying higher tolls to maintain roads and bridges – not higher gas taxes. These are singular public opinion events, and it would be easy to find surveys or polls that have found opposite results. Given the link between policymaking and public opinion, the quality of public opinion data is critical. But who controls the quality of the measures of public opinion that are communicated to public officials and policymakers? The quality of scientific research is typically controlled through the process of publication and replication. The way in which surveys or public opinion polls are reported often misses the checks and balances developed as part of the scientific process. So how does one know what the public actually thinks?

What does the public actually think?

NuStats recently conducted a systematic review of how the public feels about tolling and road pricing(2). Our synthesis provided a broad perspective on public opinions across the U.S. and internationally. It was based on a thorough review of the published literature, a scan of national and international media stories on the topic, and contact with organizations with interest in or experience with tolling programs and road pricing. Among the 110 polls and surveys reviewed in this “survey of surveys”, 56 per cent of them showed support for tolling and road pricing. Opposition was encountered in 31 per cent. Mixed results (i.e., no majority support or opposition) occurred in 13 per cent. As a point of comparison, NuStats also reviewed public opinion on tax-related initiatives for infrastructure funding and found almost the opposite pattern of support and opposition. The aggregate level of support for tax-related initiatives was 27 percent, with 60 per cent opposed. In the aggregate, the public supports tolling and road pricing. Popular discourse would have politicians and their constituents believing that the public is categorically opposed to tolling and road pricing. The reality is that, in the case of road pricing, the nuances matter. A lot.

The “If’s”

Public opinion was more supportive: • If a specific project was targeted or referenced in the poll versus general questioning on tolling or road pric-

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62% 23% 15% 100% 13

Cordon / Area Pricing

Private Ownership

32% 53% 16% 100% 19

0% 60% 40% 100% 10

ing with a specific reference. • If potential users of the tolled facility were surveyed rather than the general public. • If clarifying information or a description of benefits were presented to respondents as part of the survey question, such as “would you support tolls, if the revenues were invested in improving public transport?” An important finding of the ”survey of surveys” was that support varied according to the type of project on which public opinion was solicited. The notable standouts are cordon/ area pricing and private-ownership, both of which showed higher opposition than support. Public opinion was supportive in the vast majority of surveys or polls asking about HOT lanes, traditional tolling, or express toll lanes. See `Table 1.

So what does the public want?

Our research identified eight ideas related to building public acceptance. • The public wants to see value. When a concrete benefit to an acknowledged problem is linked to the idea of tolling or road pricing, public support is higher. • The public prefers tangible and specific rationales. When public opinion is measured in the context of a specific project as opposed to as a general principle, the level of support is higher. • The public cares about the use of toll revenues. When revenues are linked to specific uses (i.e., public transit improvements or local infrastructure improvements) and not to general pooled funds, support tends to be higher. • The public learns from experience. When the opportunity to use a tolled facility already exists, public support is higher than when it is simply a possibility for the future. Support from a majority of citizens cannot be expected from the outset. Building support is a longterm, continuous process that should not stop after implementation. • The public uses knowledge and information available. When opinion is informed by objective explanation of the conditions and mechanics of tolling and its pros and cons, public support is higher than when there is no context for how tolling works. This factor explains why members of the public may express negative opinion about tolling as a theoretical concept but will use a priced facility when it opens. • The public believes in equity and fairness. When there is perceived fairness in the application of tolling or road pricing schemes, public support is higher. This www.h3bmedia.com

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Road Pricing Special is why having an alternative cost-free route is so important to the public or why support is generally higher for tolling new facilities than for tolling existing facilities. In terms of equity, there is general agreement that decisions to use or not use a priced facility is a matter of individual choice – revolving around motorist’s situational needs and preferences. • The public wants simplicity. When the mechanics of tolling or other user fee programs are simple, and therefore, easy to understand, public support is higher than in situations where there is a high level of complexity in how the pricing scheme will work. • The public favors tolls if the alternative is taxes. When given a binary choice, most people prefer tolling to taxes. With toll revenues, the public is more assured of “getting a fair share,” since revenues are generally generated and applied locally.

Delivering the Goods

The political nature of a community and its interest groups can often shape the public debate on tolling and road pricing and tend to obscure the majority opinion on the issue. A very vocal minority can often transform the complex subject of road pricing into an object of politicking. Rather than stimulate discussion, the transformation of pricing into a political issue has in some places resulted

in policies that possess superficial majority appeal but fail to address the real issues of how to deal with infrastructure financing, congestion management, or global warming. An early pioneer in the science of public opinion measurement, George Gallup, suggested that, with the measurement of public opinion, politicians “will be better able to represent… the general public by avoiding the kind of distorted picture sent to them…by overzealous pressure groups who claim to speak for all the people, but actually speak for themselves” (3). The public may have little daily contact with many issues on the public agenda, yet their opinions greatly influence policymakers. What can we do about it? We need an informed public. The public needs to say, “We consent.” But, the public still lacks credible, available, objective information on the benefits and challenges in tolling and road pricing. The public needs to understand the problems so they can accept a solution. We also need to track public opinion over time, particularly in the context of regional or local initiatives – from the idea stages to implementation and ultimate usage by the public. It is important to track the nature of support and opposition across variations in project type and to document how public opinion can shift with changing values, new knowledge, or a new state of the world. TH

“When the mechanics of tolling or other user fee programs are simple to understand, public support is higher”

References

1 Ipsos MORI. http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/ 2007. 2 Report to be released by the Transportation Research Board in early 2008. 3 Gallup, G., and S. Rae. “The Pulse of Democracy: The Public Opinion Poll and How it Works.” New York: Simon and Schuster, 1940. Dr. Johanna Zmud, Ph.d, is president of NuStats – A PTV Company, based in Austin, Texas. She can be reached at [email protected] www.h3bmedia.com

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Road Pricing Special

You don’t have to queue if you don’t want to Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

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Following my rant in the last issue of ETC, etc on the hidden tolls imposed by modern-day trolls on both urban congestion pricing and on motorway tolls my thoughts have been several times drawn back to traffic congestion in general. Not the least of those ‘drawbacks’ was welcome feedback from Wiebren de Jonge from the Netherlands. In a nice ‘turn’ of phrase in his email he suggested that I had“missed the right exit” from my motorway story. He explained that metaphor by correctly pointing out that my traffic safety argument against motorway tolls (more fatalities overall because the toll diverts traffic to the less safe infrastructure of secondary roads) was too simplistic. It can only be strictly applied to situations in which motorways are more expensive than other roadways and thus is not an argument against congestion pricing in general. Following that idea led me to the thought that, sooner or later, someone with a limited understanding of economics (but much practical experience in politics) was going to declare traffic congestion a ‘tragedy of the commons’ (TOC) and thus amenable to ‘fixing’ through the ‘price mechanism’. That led me back to a presentation I made in RECYCLE ‘94 in Davos, Switzerland in which I www.h3bmedia.com

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RoadClimate Pricing Change Special

discussed the origins of the concept of TOCs. In the intervening years I have revisited the subject in various presentations and the text box below now includes ‘acronymical’ advice to governments on the careful extirpation of environmental TOCs (those acronyms allude to the ticking of the Doomsday Clock so often invoked by activists to encourage faster action on the environmental front). Having read that text box (admittedly it’s at the end of the article, so I’ll forgive you if you haven’t yet) you can now see that traffic congestion is not a TOC. The roadway infrastructure is not “overused to the point of extinction”. It will still be there for tomorrow’s commute. Indeed having disappeared beneath a sea of vehicles it will reappear in only a few hours. Moreover it is neither a natural resource nor in limited supply since more lane length could be added whether longitudinally or horizontally … or vertically!

Neither tragic nor common

The above shows that congestion is not a TOC but neither is it a case for “user pay”. In the lead-in to the previous rant I pointed out that it is a fundamental function of government to provide adequate (actually a small surwww.h3bmedia.com

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DAVID SCHONBRUNN feit When is better) transportation and communication (T&C) infrastructure to facilitate economic read the April/Maydevelopment. issue ofThe welfare, economic and otherwise, of every citizen is so Thinking Highways he feltless intimately bound up in efficient T&C that anything than perfection (which of coursean unattainable but compelled toiswrite article could be more closely approached with wiser governoffering his own views on ments) detracts measureably from that welfare. The impacts sign,transportation’s “Je roule pour vous.”, on the back of some trucks in Franceonm is absolutely true. and solutions for, The governmental responsibility for T&C thus imposed climate includes a duty to recognize change that, in an expanding economy/population, traffic is only going to increase and therefore roadway infrastructure must be built with an eye for future demand, including using that infrastructure to ‘suggest’ directions for urban expansion. Thus any restriction of access to the present infrastructure, including ramp metering and congestion charging, is an attempt to cover up an error of omission with an error of commission. Before suggesting some alternates to access restrictions it is perhaps useful to review briefly the economic concepts of the ‘price mechanism’ and monopoly. To economists the price mechanism achieves an optimum allocation of resources through, in a free market, balancing supply and demand. An increase in demand raises the price and the price increase encourages new producers to enter the market … and the increased supply lowers the price. In stark contrast a monopoly is, like a TOC, a “market failure” in that the price mechanism is inoperative and thus most governments have laws against monopolies, e.g. the just-concluded EU case against Microsoft. Although the provision of roadways is a ‘natural monopoly’ any government operating a congestion charging scheme is doing exactly the same thing as the muchdecried monopolist who takes the position that his profits are maximized if he limits production and charges an extortionate price. Alternatives to access restriction exist!

The first is to recognize the huge impact that busses have on traffic congestion. As an illustration I take you back to Toronto in the late 1970s when I was head of mobile sources emission control for Environment Canada. When a bus driver strike was announced I phoned my Ontario counterpart to see if, rather than waiting for the monthly report, he could get immediate access to the air pollution monitoring data so we could see how much of an increase in automotive-related emissions would result from the increased automobile traffic. To our surprise automobile pollution went dramatically down! It turns out that each slow-moving, multi-stopping bus has a congestion impact, and thus a pollution impact, equal to 30 or 40 cars! Thus considerable congestion relief can be had by re-arranging the allocation of existing laneways. In suburbia ‘bus only’ lanes can be designated for the two ‘rush hours’ each day. As the commuting traffic approaches the urban core, buses can (usually) be switched to alternate routes designated as “Local Traffic Only”. Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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30/11/07 20:50:41

Road Pricing Special No truck with India

Further to urban congestion I suggest something which was used to good effect in both ancient Rome and modern-day New Delhi (my childrens’ suspicions aside I have personal experience only with the latter): ban all trucks from 07.00 to 19.00. During the visit to New Delhi in 2000 (for an evening lecture/discussion on my research with SAE’s Northern India Section) I didn’t notice the absence of trucks until I saw, and asked about, large numbers in, mostly informal, parking areas outside the city during the day. Trucks are not a large percentage of total traffic but, like buses, each has a HUGE congestion impact. Although some extra pay for the night shift may be necessary I expect that driver’s time would be cut by a third and fuel consumption by half for the same tonnage delivered… and there would certainly be a longer term benefit to maintenance costs.

To mitigate congestion during the two rush hours each day, I would suggest that city authorities abandon ‘extortionate pricing’ in favour of helping the private sector optimize ‘staggered hours’. City officials would try to balance commuter traffic between suggested start times of, say, 08.00 and 10.00, by maintaining a register of start-of-day times for the larger corporations. Office efficiency might even get a boost with two hours of internal ‘file maintenance and face time’, either before or after ‘core hours’, which would be relatively uninterrupted by client meetings. In closing I should mention that the latter two suggestions, alone or combined, will bring an environmental bonus. Both the total daily emissions and maximum daily pollutant concentrations will be greatly reduced. TH

“Each slowmoving, multistopping bus has a congestion and pollution impact equal to 30 to 40 cars”

Al Gullon can be contacted via email at [email protected]. Visit his website, www.alsaces.ca

Governments, the “Tragedy of the Commons” and a Ticking Clock “The tragedy of the commons” (TOC) is one of a small number of market failures recognized by economists. In a TOC at least one of the factors of production costs nothing or very little and thus will be overused to the point of extinction. In the dry, dispassionate (dismal?) language of economists,“ the price mechanism is partially or completely inoperative and thus the actions of economic agents result in an allocation of resources which is sub-optimal.” The classic example is one of cows on the commons.The herdsmen in the local village all have free access to a common grazing land. Milk production per cow remains steady over the years, yielding a profit of 10 per cent over the costs of production, as the herd grows to the maximum carrying capacity of the commons. Beyond that capacity however the addition of a half-dozen extra cows causes both a reduction of available feed and extra effort by each cow so that milk production falls by 2 per cent (but, since costs remain the same, profit falls by 20%!). With no better place to invest, the individual herdsman can still make a sound investment in additional cows but his additional income is now coming out of the pockets of his fellow herdsmen. Moreover, the natural human reaction to a reduction in income is to work harder, i.e. to increase his herd size! By now the nature of the “tragedy” should be clear to the reader but not necessarily to the individual herdsman.Without such a neatly measured overview he is much more likely to attribute the loss to the vagaries of weather or the age of the herd. In order that this concept can serve as a guide to proper government action one must examine the semantics more closely. In spite of both the lovely pastoral image called to mind by the classic example and the fact that it sometimes results in damage to the environment, the TOC is not an environmental tragedy. It was recognized and named at a point in history when humans had not yet harnessed sufficient energy to do irreparable damage to nature and, more important to our understanding, when the word ‘tragedy’ had not yet been banalized to mean any very sad or disastrous event.At the time the word alluded to ‘Greek tragedy’, a theatre play in which the central personage is inexorably impelled to destruction by a fatal flaw in his/her character. It is thus easy to see that the phrase might jump quickly and naturally to the mind of an early, classically educated, economist who suddenly understood that any factor of production which cost nothing would be over-used until it was destroyed ... and with it the truth and beauty of Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’.The ‘tragedy of the commons’ was, and remains, an economic ‘Greek tragedy’ ... but one which often leaves environmental tragedies (current meaning) in its wake. Governments and TOCs Since resource-related TOCs are caused by the actions of a group on what to them is ‘common’ property they can only be solved by group action. In a democracy this can only mean government action. BUT, just because government must be there doesn’t mean that they will do the right thing when they (finally) arrive at the scene of the ‘tragedy’ nor, and perhaps of more importance, that they will exit the scene on cue, i.e. immediately after the TOC has been fixed. [Most often, as in the offshore fishery, they arrive too late and then hang around meddling with this’n’that until their contribution is ‘net negative’ – pun intended.] The problems posed by pollution can also be fruitfully viewed as TOCs Although human activity impacts the environment most obviously at the two ends of the chain of production, i.e. resource extraction and waste disposal, it is the latter which most often carries no price tag and thus generates the most TOCs. Now the particular atoms, in various combinations, which we call ‘pollution’ in our air, waters and lands got there by a very complex route. It is only by detailed study of that route that the most efficient means of dealing with that pollution can be found. Therefore, as we move into the new millennium, the correct government action with respect to the environment, whether resource depletion or pollution, can be summed up as the ticking of a clock: TLC, TOC, TLC – Tender Loving Care of this planet requires correcting Tragedies Of the Commons by means of Total Life Cycle analysis … and then exiting on cue!

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On January 1, 2007 the Czech Republic’s electronic toll collection system for heavy vehicles started commercial operation. Just 70 days and 14 hours later, toll revenue reached 1 billion Czech Koruna. Electronic toll collection systems from Kapsch TrafficCom can work for you too | www.kapsch.net

Czechmate!

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16/3/07 12:27:21

Road Pricing Special

How it was and how it will Stunted never be

growth

RUTH BRIDGER looks back at road pricing’s often rocky relationship with the press

“There is more energy available than Iceland can possibly use”

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RoadClimate Pricing Change Special The media has always had much to say about road pricing in the UK. Take these examples, following the publication of a major report on advocating road pricing as a solution to the congestion problem: The Daily Mail said:“We have no faith that road pricing would benefit the motorists”. (Their main reason is the fear that road pricing would be used to extract more money from motorists.) Or how about this from The Daily Telegraph: “The report is dealing with an imminent crisis demanding radical measures at the earliest possible date.” And, not to be outdone by the nationals, The Liverpool Post wrote:“Provided that the principle is honoured that the revenue raised would not be an additional burden on motorists but would be offset by reduction in other forms of taxation of them, there is a good deal to be said for making the man whose car spends most time in an area where space is at a premium pay substantially more for his motoring than the man whose car is mostly used in less congested areas.” These quotes could have been made following any number of reports or government announcements on road pricing over the past few years, but they appeared on 11 June 1964, the day after the Smeed Report (or Road Pricing: The Economic and Technical Possibilities to give it its full title) was published. The history of the road pricing debate in the UK has been a long one.

When DAVID SCHONBRUNN The Times, Sunday Times Financial Times and The Economist were in favour of road pricing and The of Guardread the April/May issue ian concluded “the use of the price mechanism is not Thinking necessarily unfair.” Highways he felt compelled to write an article

Waitoffering for it, wait for it...own views on his

Two years later, in 1966, Barbara Castle MP (the-then transportation’s Minister for Transport) gave a pressimpacts conference after a visit to onm the USA. and She said “we are studying methods of solutions for, road pricing…. Now we are studying the technical feasichange bility of theseclimate schemes and we have not yet got the final report on them. But I think there is no doubt……we shall have to restrain the use of the private car in congested areas at certain times of the day. But I am not prepared to do that until I am ready with big improvements in the public transport system.” In 1968 J M Thompson from the London School of Economics, delivered a paper at a conference in Tilburg, Germany on 10 September of that year entitled “The development of Road Pricing in England” (and from where the newspaper comments post the Smeed Report were sourced). In his section on “Political Aspects” he says, “Perhaps the greatest difficulty with road pricing is the political problem of introducing it. There is no doubt that politicians are afraid of the idea because they suspect that the public will not like it.” Thompson also stated in his paper that “considerable literature on the subject now exists”, “a large number of papers and articles have been produced” and “in England several conferences have been devoted largely to this question.” His conclusion stated: “It was highly probable that prototype meters were going to be tested at the Road Research Laboratory and that a trial scheme would be introduced, either in Central London or in some other town, within a few years. Most transport professionals at the time thought that road pricing could be adopted in major cities in five years time”.

“By 1961, after many A congested history impracticable In 1909 Lloyd George introduced petrol tax (now called fuel duty) to pay for a proposals for road major programme of road improvement. pricing were By the time the Second World War broke out in 1939, congestion began to occur in considered” most towns and cities, plus some rural

roads. In the late 1950s/early 1960s people starting investigating ways in which congestion could be reduced, and road pricing was discussed. It was considered technically possible to charge people directly for the use of the roads instead of petrol tax and without resorting to physical toll gates. By 1961, after many impracticable proposals for road pricing were considered, it was thought that some sort of electronically-controlled meter could be used. A group of economists applied to the Ministry of Transport to look seriously into the feasibility of road pricing, so a working panel was set up under Dr (later Prof.) Smeed. The panel commenced their study in 1962 and the report was completed in 1964. Media coverage was extensive. In addition to The Daily Mail, the Yorkshire Post, New Daily and Punch were also hostile. Several papers were non-committal. The Daily Express had a headline that said “Buy-a-drive” and followed by a straightforward account of the proposal. The Daily Herald’s was “Pay-as-you-drive. Is this the answer to Britain’s Traffic Problems?” The Daily Mirror, Evening News and Evening Standard just printed a short account without comment. www.h3bmedia.com

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On the cards

The following year, 1969, the RRL had developed two systems of electronic road pricing technology (an offvehicle and an on-vehicle system). The Ministry of Transport prepared an internal briefing paper on road pricing and stated “the Ministry is studying the problems of devising and introducing such a system both for a limited area, e.g. a badly congested city centre, and on a national basis.” Ministry officials wanted a public trial of RRL’s technology to see how the equipment worked and also how the public would react to being billed for the amount they drove. They identified the second Mersey Tunnel for the trial. The tunnel would be tolled anyway, but the road pricing equipment trials would act as an alternative pricing system for up to 10,000 volunteers. The cost of the trial was £1m (€1.6m). Treasury officials told Ministry of Transport officials in 1970 that the system would be the ideal congestion tax and as well as helping to relieve congestion, Britain Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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30/11/07 20:58:08

Road Pricing Special A quiet quarter of a century

Over the next 26 years, the road pricing debate never went away, but nothing significant happened that would move road pricing any further forward towards implementation. After a generation, the first transport White Paper was published in 1998 “A new deal for transport: better for everyone”. It stated that legislation would be introduced to allow “road users to be charged so as to reduce congestion.” They would also “continue technical trials of electronic systems and how they may best be implemented. These trials will examine such issues as personal privacy, impact on different parts of society and diversion onto untolled roads.” On the 22 July, 2002 Alistair Darling (Secretary of State for Transport) considers “spy-in-the-sky” plans for road charging and said that “we are a long way down the road to looking at the technology.” He said the scheme could be feasible “within a decade.” Almost exactly three years later, in July 2005, he announced that a national road-user charging scheme would be implemented “within 10 years”.

Scrap value

could be at the forefront of urban traffic policy and have great export potential. The Mersey Tunnel trial proposals were presented to the Environment Secretary (Peter Walker) in March 1970. (Environment now included Transport following restructuring in 1970). He asked for further studies to be done, comparing road pricing with other methods of traffic restraint. If he felt that road pricing gave greater benefits then the tunnel trial could proceed. Treasury and Department of Environment officials worked on the comparisons. After more than two years since the Mersey Tunnel trials proposal was made, the Treasury finally received Walker’s reply in June 1972 which said “… was not convinced that a technical experiment of the equipment developed for road pricing would be helpful at the present time.” He suggested further desk studies on the implications of different restraint techniques in a selected town.”

On 1 December 2006 the Eddington Transport Study was published. Although dealing with all aspects of transport, his call for road pricing was the headline in the media. An on-line petition was started on 10 Downing Street’s new e-petition website “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy”. By mid-December, signatures had reached 50,000 and attracted the attention of the media which continued until the petition closed on 20 February 2007 with 1,811,396 signatures. Even other petitions on supposedly hot issues like scrapping inheritance tax only attracted 128,000 signatures. On 21 February, the Prime Minister sent a response to the petition signatories which included “ we have not made any decision about national road pricing. Indeed we are simply not yet in a position to do so.” and “That is why I believe we need to explore the contribution road pricing can make to tackling congestion. It would not be in anyone’s interests, especially those of motorists, to slam the door shut on road pricing without exploring it further.” On 20 September, Ruth Kelly (Secretary of State for Transport) said in a web chat :“We have no current commitment to introduce national road pricing but we are actively thinking about how to deal with congestion problems in the future.” She went on to say that they were looking for local authorities to take up funding for local road pricing intitiatives. In less than two years time, it will be 100 years since the introduction of fuel duty. Whether we will be any further forward with replacing it with road pricing revenues is still up for debate. TH [email protected]

“In less than two years time, it will be 100 years since the introduction of fuel duty”

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30/11/07 20:58:44

Freedom is key, how about safety?

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ATSO METER

3/12/07 11:10:20

Road Pricing Special

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

If not tolls, then what? As MIKE SENA explains, road tolling is hardly a new idea, but what better alternatives have been invented over the last 2000 years? 36

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30/11/07 21:03:24

RoadClimate Pricing Change Special The word “toll” has many meaning and most of them having negative connotations. As a noun it is a “fixed charge or tax for a privilege, especially for passage across a bridge or along a road”. It is also a charge for a service, such as a long distance telephone call. Toll as a noun can also mean “an amount or extent of loss or destruction”, as in ‘The storm took a heavy toll on life and property’. As a verb, it means “to sound a bell slowly at regular intervals”, or, “to announce an arrival with such sounds”. Toll, as in “Ask not for whom the bell tolls…” derives from the Middle English tollen, which means “to ring an alarm” derived from the Old English word tyllan in fortyllan, which means “to attract or allure”. The word toll as a “tax” comes from the Greek telos, tax, through to Old English, toln. Tax collector in Greek is telones. The Greek for toll booth is teloneion, in Latin it is teloneum, and in Medieval Latin it is tolonium. Toll as “tax” is translated into French and German as tribut, into Italian as tributo. Since there are Latin and Greek words for tolls and toll booths, one might naturally assume that tolls were collected back in ancient times. Rodolfo Lanciani, in his book Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries wrote: “Travelling on the great consular roads of Italy was always made disagreeable by publicans, or toll and octroi collectors.”

User pays (early version)

In earlier times, kings and local lords taxed their subjects to travel on their roads and across their bridges. Later, it was a building society or corporation that incurred the debt to pay for the road or bridge. Today, it is governments who take for themselves the privilege of imposing economic restrictions on movement to achieve a variety of goals, such as to channel that movement into collective forms of transportation. There are also tolls that are charged for entrance into a city, region or state. From ancient times and well into the 19th century, walls surrounding cities were built to ensure that trade routes passed through the cities’ gates. Tolls or customs were levied by the ruler of the city region on people and the goods they carried into the city. The records of customs for the City of London in 1260 are recorded in a volume called Liber Albus, which list the customs to be paid for goods passing into or through London. In 1856, there were 117 toll gates within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross, the official “centre” of London. Approximately 150 years later, in February 2003, London re-instituted a tolling system. Instead of bars and turnpikes, it consisted of cameras that photograph the license plates of vehicles entering the so-called Congestion Zone. Initial results during the first few months of the congestion charging scheme in London were all positive. Traffic was supposedly down by 30 per cent, with 65,000 fewer vehicles entering the charging zone. Transport for London was claiming that the large majority of these people had simply switched over to public transport. But 18 months later, The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry published their Third Survey of the effect www.h3bmedia.com

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Road Pricing Special on the retail sector painting a very different picture, one that showed a severe effect on business in the charging zone. It seems that instead of switching to public transport, many people just did not travel into London. The “non-essential trips” made by shoppers, tourists and some business people, were the reason the numbers had fallen, and it appears that these had the greatest effects on the businesses in the charging zone.

And so to Sweden...

A similar system to London’s was put into place in Stockholm on 3 January 2006 on a trial basis. The Environmental Charge (the opponents called it a Congestion Tax) would be tested for close to seven months and then put to a vote in the City of Stockholm to decide whether it would be scrapped or continued. The cost of this test was approximately €400m. As opposed to a single flat charge for entering the zone, as in London, there were variable charges based on time of day, and charges were incurred both when entering and exiting the zone. The system read the license plates of cars, as in London, and kept track of each car’s total toll for the day. After three months, the group responsible for the scheme reported that total road usage inside and around the charging zone dropped by 25 per cent. It seems that 15 per cent of the people who had been using up space on the city’s streets were there with no real purpose because they simply disappeared after the congestion charge was instituted. A total of 100,000 “vehicle passages” left the roads, but only 40,000 new riders showed up on the collective transport system. According to reports by the city authorities, they “have not detected any traffic diversion”. The 25 per cent traffic reduction in traffic is similar to the London reduction, and, as in London, it appears to be to the maximum number of cars that can be taken out of the pool of cars before the economic viability of the scheme becomes questionable. In other words, if the price is so high that more than 25 per cent of the drivers avoid the congestion area, the costs of managing the collection of tolls is much larger than the income generated by it, and the costs to businesses and individuals exceeds any benefits from traffic congestion reduction. Shortly after the trial closed at the end of July 2006, a report on the local economic effects of the charging scheme that had been commissioned by the authorities was released. Rich men paid the most congestion tax. It was reported that approximately 4 per cent of the private car drivers paid one-third of the total fees. These car drivers were men, high income wage earners, and residents of the inner city. Men in general paid twice as much as women; medium income wage earners were those who reduced their automobile usage the most. In other words, those who continued to drive were those who could afford to do so. They, along with commercial drivers and service vehicles, were the principal beneficiaries of the reduced traffic. Removed from rush hour traffic during the first days are all those who cannot afford to pay the tolls, or those,

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Photo by Robert Bain (www.robertbainphotography.co.uk)

A battle of the sexes

www.h3bmedia.com

30/11/07 21:04:30

Road Pricing Special who out of principle, refuse to do so. This has generally been around 15 per cent of travelers. They travel out of the rush hour times; they switch to bus, train, foot, cycle or pool car; or they take an alternate route that is not within the toll area. Another group who have been shown to remove themselves permanently from the tolled roads are those who make incidental trips into the toll zone. They represent between 10 and 15 per cent of the travelers. This group stop using the services inside the congestion charging zone, and they do not take public transport into the zone, so they are not recorded in the ranks. However, they do not just disappear. They do their shopping or conduct their business outside the zone, in part helping to fill the parking lots of suburban malls.

Left, right

It may seem remarkable that many of the strongest proponents of inner city road charging are politicians of the left, who should be, in theory, supporters of egalitarianism. Closing a street for all drivers is fair; leaving it open for all drivers is fair; but closing it for drivers who cannot afford to pay for the privilege discriminates against people with lower incomes. As a concept, “congestion charging” implies that people who can afford to pay the toll have a greater need to use the road, and therefore a greater right than people who cannot. One highway manager put it bluntly: “Not everyone can travel at the same time. Pricing is the means of rationing.” The fallacy of congestion charging it that it is a final solution to congestion. The reality is that in time, a new equilibrium is established. From the baseline established in the wake of congestion charging, traffic volumes increase along with population growth if, and only if, commerce and industry in the area increase as well; or, traffic volumes decrease if the population shrinks and/or if businesses move beyond the tolling zone. If traffic volumes increase over time, rates have to be made substantially higher to create a new shock to the travellers’ pocketbooks. If traffic volumes decrease to levels that either do not sustain the costs of collecting the tolls (if the scheme should be self-financing), or if reduced car usage has such a negative effect on the businesses in the tolled areas that they are forced to close, rates will have to be significantly reduced or eliminated altogether. If governments of any colour on the political spectrum insist on using road charging as a tax revenue option, then it should be a fair tax. Rather than basing the sizes of a toll on the time of day, or, worse, having a flat toll as in London, why not base it on ability to pay and the need to drive? Shouldn’t a low income, two-job wage earner who needs to get across town between her third and first shift, have priority to use the roads over a high-income executive? She should pay a lower fee, one that is commensurate with her income and circumstances. Does it really make sense to charge an executive earning a six or seven figure income the same amount to use the roads as a person making the minimum hourly wage? How could this differentiation on the basis of fairness be accomplished? Governments have no problems www.h3bmedia.com

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Road Pricing Special using income tests to gauge what its citizens should pay for certain services, including their state and federal tax burden and how much they are able to pay for their children’s higher education. Why not apply the same tests to road usage? If the toll payment technology can match license plates to people who have paid and people who have not, and to track the toll evaders down to their doorsteps in order to deliver a fine, that technology can surely keep tabs on a database that says what fee an individual should pay, and whether the fee has been paid.

Some alternatives

Are there alternatives to tolls? There are, and those cities that use them instead of tolls do so for sound reasons. In order to really compare these alternatives to paying directly for driving on a road, over a bridge or through a tunnel, or driving into a district, it is essential to be clear on the fundamental reasons for instituting any form of driving restriction. A list of possible reasons would include the following: • Provide a source of revenue to pay for the constructed infrastructure. • Provide a source of revenue for maintenance of the infrastructure. • Provide for economic transfer payments to subsidize collective transport. • Provide an economic advantage for the collective transport alternative by making private automobile use

prohibitively expensive. • Reduce the number of private vehicles to increase the average speeds and on-time arrival of buses or surface rail systems. • Reduce the overall number of vehicles in order to reduce CO2 or other emissions, accidents involving pedestrians or cyclists, space allocated to parking, noise related to heavy traffic. “Reducing traffic congestion” is not a valid reason on its own because it is a euphemism for getting the economically challenged drivers off the road in order to make more room for the economically advantaged.

Bolognese source

There are other ways to reduce the overall number of vehicles without instituting regressive taxes on all drivers. In 1972 one Italian city, Bologna, began to introduce restrictions in its historic centre. Areas were made pedestrian-only and bus lanes were added to streets, limiting space for private cars and trucks. In 1984, the people of Bologna voted in a local referendum to implement even further restrictions on private automobiles in the centre. Access to the centre became totally restricted between the hours of 07.00 and 20.00, except for certain vehicles, such as hotel guests, taxis, buses, residents and shop owners. Speed limits were reduced to 30 km/h on all roads and parking spaces were reduced. One of the main objectives achieved was the reduction of carbon

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Photo by Robert Bain (www.robertbainphotography.co.uk)

“There are alternatives to tolls and cities that use them do so for sound reasons”

www.h3bmedia.com

30/11/07 21:05:23

Roads Scholar

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Road Pricing Special monoxide levels by more than 75 per cent. Congestion reduction also improved the efficiency of businesses in the district and increased safety for pedestrians.

Another way of doing it

The City of Gothenburg, Sweden has attempted to make driving within the old city compound a nightmare without actually closing streets, instituting tolls or charging excessive prices for parking. Gothenburg is Sweden’s second largest city with approximately half a million residents. It is also home to two of Sweden’s vehicle manufacturers, Volvo Cars and Volvo Trucks. It has an old centre that has a design reminiscent of Amsterdam, with circumferential canals and radial streets. While traffic congestion in Gothenburg was never as severe as in the country’s capital, Stockholm, the city’s planners decided that they wanted to maintain the quiet, pedestrian-oriented environment that had existed before the advance of car and truck traffic. In the early 1960s, Gothenburg’s central district was divided into five traffic zones. Cars and trucks could drive into each of the zones, but driving between zones was highly restricted. To move between zones, it is necessary to drive out to a low-speed parkway that circles the district and then to drive into the next zone. Traffic was reduced inside the district by almost 50 per cent when the restrictions were introduced, pedestrian and bicycle accidents were reduced by 45 per cent, and buses and trolleys significantly improved on-time performance. The system is still in force. Restrictions on the number of parking places, sky-high parking fees for workers and free parking for shoppers have been the most common alternatives to congestion charging in the large northeastern US cities. This approach actually reversed the pre-1980s city planning recommendations for new tower offices in downtown areas to provide a maximum number of parking spaces for employees, usually beneath the building. One example of this is Boston, Massachusetts, one of the oldest cities in the US with a tortuous street pattern in its business and financial district. The city has had bridge and turnpike tolls since cows were grazing on the Boston Common. It has also had one of the most extensive public transportation networks in the country comprising underground, trolley, bus and commuter rail. Still, by the 1980s, following a construction boom in the city, congestion on the clogged arteries threading through the city of Boston seemed to be an intractable problem. Gradually, the parking rates in the central business district were raised from a few dollars per day to over ten times that amount by the mid-1980s. At the same time, large park-and-ride facilities were constructed at the fringes of the city where commuters could park for the entire day for free.They were patrolled and safe. Office building continued. The number of jobs in the city actually is higher than the number of residents, 671,000 versus 600,000, with services accounting for half of the total. Boston has succeeded better than other cities with getting commuters

to use public transit, and they have done it without instituting congestion charging schemes. Park-and-ride is the key. Almost 40 per cent of Boston workers use public transit to commute, either from their communities on the south shore, north shore or western suburbs, or from the park-and-ride facilities. Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority ridership has increased by 30 per cent since 1970. Around 15 per cent of residents of Boston walk to work.

Keeping the city alive

Cities and city regions are sensitive organisms. They are born, they grow and prosper. Sometimes they stagnate, decline, fall into decay and die. They have good periods and poor periods, depending on countless factors, including those that can be affected by humans and those that are completely out of human control. When city governments attempt to modify the movement behaviour of the people who live in, work in or otherwise use the city, they must be aware that their actions can have unforeseen effects. While the short-term results of instituting congestion charging schemes may be easy to measure in reduced traffic on the streets and reduced emissions in the air, the long-term effects may not be evident until after a long period has passed, after the mayor who pushed for them has gone on to another place. Before rushing into congestion charging, governing bodies should consider all the potential consequences, both positive and negative, and seriously test all of the other available options. In my book Beating Traffic: Time to Get Unstuck, four specific recommendations are made to help you and your family get unstuck from traffic. They relate to the daily school run, using the car for recreational trips, shopping, and trips to work. Practical steps are presented on how you can change your behavioral patterns to avoid getting into traffic jams in the first place. The final chapter provides a description of tools you can use when you are on the road to see potential congestion dangers well before you are in the middle of them, and to assist you in planning your journeys so that you reach your destination when you had hoped to get there. My goal with this book is to help you develop a plan that will accentuate the positive experiences of daily travel for you in the future, and, if not eliminate, at least minimize the negative effects of traffic congestion. Knowing the enemy, especially the one within, the one who gets in the car when it would be just as easy to walk, and turning the enemy’s weaknesses into your own strengths is the key to overcoming our over dependence on our vehicles and minimizing our risks of landing in a traffic jam. You can change how you get to all the A and B points during a normal day, and you can even change where those points are on your travel map. TH

“Cities are sensitive organisms. They are born, they grow and prosper”

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Mike Sena is principal of Michael L Sena Consulting AB, based in Asa, Sweden. He can be contacted via email at [email protected] Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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Road Pricing Special

Stunted growth

Are India’s almost uncontrollable traffic levels having an adverse effect on the country’s growth effort? MALAVIKA NATARAJ reports 44

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Photos by Krithika Srinath

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

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RoadClimate Pricing Change Special Often slated to be the next world superpower, India is now at the edge of a spectacular boom. However, in recent years, economic growth has been accompanied by a threatening rise in traffic levels. In the urban areas alone, traffic has more than doubled since the 1990s. With increased foreign investment and offshore outsourcing opportunities, India has also seen the expansion of an emerging middle class with an immense propensity to consume. Consequently, over 30 per cent of owned motorized vehicles in the country are in the urban areas. Walking on Indian roads has become hazardous and nearly impossible, with vehicles choking roads, crippling movement and increasing overall pollution levels.Without the capacity to accommodate the growing number of vehicles on the roads, India’s urban traffic situation can easily become a threat to the country’s growth potential. Despite Government efforts to introduce road-tolling initiatives on national highways, the urban roads have gone largely untouched. So has the time come for India to concentrate its development efforts on implementing a long-term strategy to combat traffic congestion within its cities?

Following the lead – the best way forward?

Possibly the best example of a successful urban congestion charging system is the one currently implemented in London. Initially run in central London, vehicles were charged for entering the charging zone, thereby discouraging motorists from using congested roads during peak hours. Although the scheme is now rapidly expanding its scope, raising protest amongst the city’s residents, the results have been promising so far - traffic in central London alone has reduced by 15 -20 per cent. With the success of this system, other cities in the U.K as well as on the continent are likely to follow suit. For instance, after a trial run in 2006, Stockholm has now been operating its own congestion charging system for a few months. The concept of charging for road usage in urban areas originally found its way into Asia over 30 years ago. Singapore’s Electronic Road Pricing system, similar to inter-urban road tolling systems in Europe, started in 1975. Gantries positioned on main streets and all vehicles are all equipped with tags, held inside the windscreen. As the motorist passes under the gantry, the charge is automatically deducted. Aside from emergency vehicles, all others are charged depending on their size. The Singapore system has seen immense successes. Much lower traffic levels in the business districts have improved overall congestion levels in the city. Although India has not yet attempted to run congestion charging within the urban areas, evidence indicates that some of its cities already possess a very basic infrastructure through which such a system can potentially be implemented. In 2005, the Commissioner of Traffic Police of capital city Delhi revealed plans to install detection cameras at several road intersections across the city to monitor the movement of vehicles. The captured, real-time images were available for public viewing on the Internet, enabling people to avoid the www.h3bmedia.com

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When DAVID congested areas and planSCHONBRUNN their journeys better. The scheme initially aimed at installing camerasof at key read the April/Mayten issue intersections, increasing the number to a hundred camHighways he felt erasThinking by 2007. With detection cameras already in place, Delhi is a good candidate for thean implementation compelled to city write articleof a more sophisticated road pricing system. offering his own views on The success of the London Congestion Charging sysimpacts tem transportation’s has been largely attributed to the fact that over 80 per cent of commuters were already using public transonm and solutions for, port prior to the implementation of the system. In the climate change Western Indian city Mumbai (formely Bombay), the intra-city rail system is the mainstay of a majority of commuters. But despite its strong public transport network, over a hundred thousand vehicles are added to its roads each year. A journey from North Mumbai to South Mumbai can take from anywhere up to three hours. Average vehicular speed on the roads has dropped from 38 km/h in the 1960s to 15 km/h today. If Mumbai were to implement a road charging system, it would rely heavily on the support of its public transport. With a strong, fully functional rail system in operation, Mumbai could potentially focus efforts on easing road congestion. Despite appearances, however, it is uncertain as to whether a system like the one in London could actually work on Indian roads. Yes, but would it work here?

Following the launch of the London congestion charging system in 2003, The RAC Foundation in the UK cautioned other cities within the island to consider the potential costs and improvements that they would have to make to their transport systems before congestion charging could be successfully implemented. In a country like India, where even basic infrastructural development is lopsided, can a system that requires a high level of infrastructural development actually be implemented? Technologically, the answer is yes. With India’s software and services exports growing by 30 per cent year on year, technological resources are far from scarce. In fact, several European and American transport projects have outsourced the development of IT systems to Indian companies. A case in point is of Capita - a specialist in business process outsourcing - which was contracted to manage the processes, databases and back offices of the London scheme (but whose contract will not be renewed, incidentally). Indian company Mastek, was further sub-contracted by Capita to develop solutions for customer interfaces to be incorporated into the overall system. Clearly, India does not lack the technological capability to create and implement a functional congestion charging system, but creating networks and the infrastructure is only part of the solution. There are other challenges the country needs to overcome before such a program can run successfully.

Hurdles to finding a solution

There are several factors - in addition to the growing number of vehicles - that cause traffic congestion within the country. Added to the 59m motor vehicles on its roads, India has to contend with 20 other varieties of vehicles. Many of these cannot even be classified. Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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Road Pricing Special Bicycles, tri-cycles, horse- and cow- carts are some examples. Often, these vehicles have no licence plates or registration numbers and are almost completely unidentifiable. Wandering cows, road works delayed by bureaucratic red tape and inefficiency can also often cause hour-long traffic jams on the narrower roads. Consequently, establishing congestion-charging zones is far from being straightforward. Local councils will first need to assess which roads are the most congested, and most importantly, why. The transport sector already accounts for over 10 per cent of the country’s total infrastructure expenditure and the annual road budget of nearly US$3,614 billion is far from adequate. If India were to implement a pricing system such as the one in Singapore, infrastructure construction alone would require huge investments. Such large amounts of capital can only be brought in by the private sector. But the Indian transport industry is heavily political and dominated by government parties, which severely limit the involvement of the private sector. Transport services also operate within a fairly corrupt government network. In fact, corruption can account for as much as 20 per cent of transaction costs in transport projects. Additionally, a congestion charging system that records personal details such as home addresses, vehicle and bank details, is highly vulnerable to breaches in security. In a country where everything has a price, personal information in the wrong hands could prove to be fatal. But if a system is indeed implemented, transport authorities will need to create a strict enforcement procedure. For example, the London system has detection cameras that record vehicle number plates in order to identify the vehicles to be charged.

Driving across the poverty line

With several types of unregistered vehicles running on Indian roads, this is a virtual impossibility. Units installed within vehicles that enable overhead gantries to monitor vehicle movement are also impractical for the same reason. Moreover, the majority of road users are already living below the poverty line. Further taxation is likely to drive many into deeper debt, defeating the purpose of the entire system. Driven by poverty, those that can evade payment will make all efforts to do so. An obvious benefit of a road charging system – other than a reduction in traffic levels – is that the revenue generated from the scheme can be re-invested to develop betterpublic transport systems and infrastructure. But if this results in widening the gap between the rich and the poor, will this system be sustainable in the long run? Although it is evident that there is a strong requirement for a congestion charging system to control the flow of traffic through India’s urban roads, authorities face the challenge of identifying the best possible solution despite existing hurdles. A system that has worked in more developed countries might not be the best way forward. In the future, the task may fall to European players entering the Indian transport market to work jointly with the government and find an optimal, holistic solution that meets all the objectives. TH

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30/11/07 21:12:10

CARE, COMPASSION AND CONCERN ON THE FREEWAY

Some of the differences between Samaritania Incorporated’s service patrol programs and others: 01 Our patrol vehicle operators have state and national public safety certifications. 02 We provide a complete turnkey program at not cost to motorists. 03 Provide Internet based Fleet Management Systems. 04 Provide public safety grade AVL/GPS incident recording/reporting systems. 05 Personnel, vehicles, equipment, AVL/GPS, patrol dispatch centers, and public relation programs. 06 The most experienced provider. Over 27 years providing service patrol programs throughout the U.S.

07 Provide the widest variety of quick clearance, motorist, and public safety assistance. 08 Provide a variety of different custom service patrol vehicles with and without tow capabilities. 09 Endorsed by Departments of Transportation and State Governments. 10 Endorsed by State Police, Fire/Rescue, and other public safety agencies. 11 National award winning programs. 12 Consistent media recognition. 13 Rural, remote area, and urban program applications.

14 All program service costs included in single patrol hourly billing rate. 15 Operators adhere to detailed conduct policies 16 Standard Operation Procedure Development 17 Local office and project management 18 Provide Complete Indemnification and hold harmless agreements. 19 Provide audited financial resources. 20 Operators have perfect no-fault safety records. Zero fatalities. 21 Private Sector funding available to offset costs.

Samaritania Incorporated, 10 Riverside Drive, Lakeville, MA 02347, USA Tel: +1-508-947-3700 Fax: +1-508-947-5544 www.freewayservicepatrol.com [email protected]

Nataraj (3).indd 49

30/11/07 21:12:40

Road Pricing Special

A Deutsche vignette Stunted

growth ANDREAS KOSSAK presents the background, history and perspectives of road pricing in Germany

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RoadClimate Pricing Change Special When DAVID SCHONBRUNN read the April/May issue of Thinking Highways he felt compelled to write an article offering his own views on transportation’s impacts onm and solutions for, climate change

All levels of the German road network were financed and operated exclusively based on the general budgets until recently. The actual length of the interurban classified roads in Germany is 232,000 km. About 53,000 km Federal Highways (12,000 km Expressways/”Autobahns”, 41,000 km “Bundesstraßen”, the second level of Federal Highways) , 87,000 km State Highways, and 92,000 km County Roads. The length of the Community Roads is about 500,000 km. The first official considerations regarding tolling of heavy trucks started in the late 1980s. In 1994 a site for testing tolling technologies was established near the city of Bonn (A555). In 1995 the time-related “EuroVignette” for heavy trucks using Autobahns was introduced. Early in 1999 the German Government decided upon distance related tolling of heavy trucks using Autobahns, starting 1 January 2003. The schedule aimed at awarding the contract mid-year 2001; in other words, the period of time for establishing the system was determined to be 18 months. The main political goals in this context have been stated to be: (1) Additional money for financing the Federal Transport Infrastructure; (2) Shifting freight transport from road to rail and inland waterways; (3) Improving the competitiveness of the German Logistics Industry. Recognizing that tolling heavy trucks on Autobahns alone will not solve the transport infrastructure www.h3bmedia.com

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financing-problems, in October 1999 the government appointed a High Commission on “Financing the Federal Transport Infrastructure” (the so called Paellmann Commission, named after its chairman).

The Paellmann Commission

The high ranking Commission was fully independent regarding its approach to the subject as well as the type and scope of its recommendations. On 2 February 2000 it submitted an “Intermediate Report” to the Minister of Transport. The report included statements regarding the already-started procedure to introduce the distance-related tolling. The commission recommended changing the existing schedule to allow for a considerably longer period for the establishment of the tollingsystem. It was convinced that at least 24 months (or even better, 36 months) would be needed. The Final Report of the Commission was submitted on 5 September 2000. It started with basic findings - including the following regarding the road sector: (1) Germany faces a latent maintenance crisis and numerous bottlenecks. The longer it is delayed, the more costly the settlement will be. (2) On the basis of the valid budget and long-term budget plans there is a financing gap of at least DM4 billion (equal to €2 billion now) per year compared to the needs of qualified maintenance, reconstruction and development of the Federal Road Network. (3) The existing legislation comprises no safe source for financing the Federal Highways. In Germany the fuel Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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Road Pricing Special and vehicle taxes are principally common taxes; there is no obligation to use even parts of them for the transport infrastructure. (4) An essential relief of the Federal Highways by the Railways is impossible. (5) The traditional tax financing has proven not to be suitable to achieve qualified maintenance and development of the Federal Transport Infrastructure. These findings were the background for the following (selected) recommendations: (1) The financing of the Federal Transport Infrastructure should gradually be converted from financing on the basis of the Federal Budget to financing by the user, profiteer and/or causer as much as possible under the boundary conditions of the single transport sectors. Regarding the Federal Highways the commission was convinced, that a full conversion is possible! It primarily saw the following advantages: • Direct link between use of the road, payment of the charge and deployment of the revenue; • No dependency of the changing impacts on the Federal Budget; • Efficient instrument of traffic management; • Foreign users pay the same as German users. (2) The revenue from the user-charges is to be used exclusively for the sector of the infrastructure from which it derived. Exceptions are to be made only in clearly defined cases (for example, multimode high priority corridors or facilities for combined transport). (3) The amount of the charges is to be oriented at the “internal” costs of the infrastructure; “external” costs should also be covered by other means. (4) The whole Federal Transport Infrastructure and all tasks associated with it are to be given into the hands of private management. The responsibility for the infrastructure and the control of its development remain with the Federal Government. (5) The existing (extensive) restrictions regarding the involvement of private financing are to be removed. The conditions for PPP are to be improved substantially. (6) The limits of responsibility between the Federal Government, the Federal States, Counties and Communities are to be redefined.

(2) The system for charging the distance-based toll on Autobahns should ensure upward-compatibility and interoperability. The commission explicitly recommended GPS/GSM and the integration of the on-board tolling components into a platform for all electronic incar services. Main reasons for the respective recommendation: • Option to expand tolling to all types of vehicles and all kinds of roads. • Option to take full advantage of the traffic management potential of tolling. • Interoperability of interurban and urban road pricing. (3) Heavy trucks (with a maximum laden weight of 12 tons and more) should be charged an average toll of Pfg25 (€0.126) per vehicle-kilometre on Autobahns. This was the result of Pfg30 per vehicle-km based on calculations in compliance with the EU-TollingDirective minus 5 Pfg as starting signal for a compensation on the tax side. (4) At the same time that the distance-based toll collection for heavy trucks using Autobahns starts, timebased tolls for small trucks and passenger cars should be introduced if the transaction costs are acceptable. (5) Charging of distance-based tolls should be introduced on all Federal Highways and for all types of cars, as soon as the technical means are available at acceptable costs. (6) The charging should gradually consider additional components with regard to traffic management (congestion pricing) and environment. (7) Beginning at the time, at which the net-toll-revenue exceeds the financing gap on the basis of the actual federal budget and budget plans, traffic related-taxes should be reduced; the compensation should be 1:1. (8) Private financing of Federal Highways should be allowed in all areas of highway-construction and maintenance. Once the recommendations were published, the whole transport and logistics community fully agreed. Even the ‘yellow’ press applauded and the Automobile Lobby urged the government to implement the recommendations “scale 1:1” as soon as possible. However, the political handling of the subject in the subsequent years caused a rapid change in this position.

Selected details regarding the road sector

Status and political handling

“Once the recommendations were published the whole transport and logistics community fully agreed with it”

(1) A special “Highway Financing Agency” should be established immediately. Beginning in 2001 the Agency should be provided with all user charges (starting with the revenue from the Euro-Vignette) for exclusive employment in the construction, maintenance and operation of the Federal Highways. The Financing Agency may be converted to one or more Management/ Operator Agencies later on. The construction of the Agency should allow acquiring money on the private money market in order to be able to take advantage of the so-called “leverage potential”.

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More than six years later we have the following situation: (1) No official plans for a systematic conversion from tax financing to user financing on government level. Part of the agreement of the reigning black-red coalition is not to implement road pricing for passenger cars. (2) Tolling heavy trucks on Autobahns started on 1 January 2005. In terms of the technical solution the decision was made according to the recommendations of the Commission. www.h3bmedia.com

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Road Pricing Special The circumstances of the establishment of the TollCollect System have been denounced to be a disaster for the German Industry as well as from a technical point of view. At the end of the first year of operation the system was celebrated as the “highlight of the year for made in Germany”. Immediately after it proved to work properly, the political discussion revived regarding an expansion of the tolling. However, that was not discussed as next steps of a gradual conversion to user financing, but exclusively as an instrument for getting additional money for the general budget – meaning: additional burden for the road user, no improvements of the road network. That caused immediate reactions by the lobby; it started a campaign against an expansion of the tolling and called for a roadrelated purpose-dedication of a certain amount of the fuel taxes. However, that has already proven not to work. In Germany tolls or charges are fees, not taxes; by law there has to be a direct relationship between fees and their employment. The barriers for misusing fees are much higher than those for cancelling a purpose-dedication of taxes. Since 35 years a traffic financing law is in force, which mandates 50 per cent of the fuel-tax to be used for the Federal Highways; however the respective passage has been cancelled every single year by budget law. Another important argument is the potential of tolls in regard to traffic management. (3) The average toll was decided to be €0.124 per vehicle-kilometre, differentiated with regard to the number of axles and environmental standards. The calculation according to the relevant EU-directive resulted in an average of €0.15 per vehicle-kilometre (exactly the same as was recommended by the “Paellmann-Commission”). The reduction to €0.124 has been the result of negotiations with the logistics-industry and is declared to be a compensation for disadvantages of German logistics companies compared to operators from other European countries. (4) The net toll revenue was finally decided to be used exclusively for the “transport sector”, not for the road sector; only 50 per cent is allocated to the Federal Highways, the other 50 per cent to the Federal Railways and the Inland Waterways. The cross-financing was claimed to be evidence for an “integrative transport” policy. However, the revenue is not used for filling the undisputed financing gaps but to compensate for a further reduction of the budget. This undermines the approach of a gradual conversion towards user-financing and thus diminishes the acceptance of the pricing policy by the public. (5) In 2004 a “Transport Infrastructure Financing Company” was established to distribute the net toll revenue and to control its use. However, the structure of the company does not (yet) allow for the acquisition of money on the private money market. (6) The restrictions in the “Private Financing Law” remained untouched.

Toll Collect

The decision for the operator was first made in late 2001 in favour of the “Toll Collect Consortium”. The runnerup-consortium appealed against the decision; the appeal was accepted by the court. After about a one year delay the contract was finally awarded on 20 September 2002 - again in favour of the “Toll Collect Consortium”. Charging was now aimed at starting at the end of August 2003. The Euro-Vignette was cancelled effective that date. The new schedule was driven by the upcoming elections and by severe budget problems; the expected revenue had already been included in the Federal Budget. In comparison: In Austria the operator was given 18 months to establish a conventional, proven technology on a network of 2,000 km of Motorways. In Germany, the operator was now given 11 months to establish a complex, innovative technology on a network of 12,000 km. As expected, the schedule did not work. After complicated discussions early in 2004 it was decided to change neither the operator nor the tolling technology. The new schedule aimed at starting the toll collection on 1 January 2005. This time the schedule worked. The system has performed without any problems since it was launched. Its main principles are: • No impact on the traffic flow, no special toll plazas, no compulsory tolllanes, no speed-limit caused by toll collection, non-discriminatory access for foreign vehicles. • Dual tolling system (Automatic, manual), dual enforcement system (Stationary, mobile). • A private operator runs the tolling system; a governmental agency is responsible for the enforcement.

“After complicated discussions early in 2004 it was decided to change neither the operator nor the tolling technology”

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Key figures:

• Length of tolled Autobahns: 11,500 km (out of a total of 12,174 km); • Number of intersections (with the secondary road network): 2,213; • Number of internal junctions: 251; • 3,500 payment points for manual booking; • 300 gantries for automatic monitoring (stationary enforcement); • 150 checkpoints (the second element of stationary enforcement); • 280 vehicles for automatic monitoring (mobile enforcement); • 650 persons control personnel (Federal FreightTransport Authority); • 150 beacons for additional determination of truck positions (in areas where toll-free alternate routes run close to tolled Autobahns).

Selected facts and figures (31 December 2006) • About 120,000 companies and about 840,000 trucks are registered for the system; • About 550,000 trucks are equipped with onboard units (more than 35 per cent foreign); Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 3

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Road Pricing Special

• The share of automatic booking accounts for more than 90 per cent of the transactions – compared to only 72 per cent, when it was first introduced; • Gross-revenue in the first year of operation: €2.86 billion. The result for 2006 was €3.08 billion; first results for 2007 show another reasonable increase; • About 200,000 heavy trucks use the Autobahns every single day; • About 25 billion tolled vehicle-km per year (2006); • System reliability in 2006: 99.75 per cent; • Toll-violator-rate: < 2 per cent; • More than 2m bills dispatched; rate of complaints: 0.003 per cent.

Selected impacts/non-impacts

• No traceable increase of the freight charges. • No traceable impact on the consumer prices. • No significant impact on the structure of the logisticindustry. • No traceable shift from road to rail or inland waterways (caused by the tolls). • Only a limited amount of trucks use alternate tollfree routes .(After some roads had been closed for heavy through traffic) • Significant tendency to buy trucks with higher environmental standards. • No significant shift from heavy trucks to light trucks. But significantly more trucks in the 10-12 ton range. • Significant tendency to a higher average loadfactor. • Significantly less truck-kilometre without cargo on Autobahns. Starting 1 January 2007, tolling was expanded to three secondary federal highways, which have been used to avoid tolled Autobahns to a considerable extent.

DSRC or GPS /GSM or …?

One of the most crucial issues of road pricing is the question of the appropriate tolling technology and tolling scheme. In discussions and studies related to the respective subject very often apples and oranges are compared - by mixing up different goals, objectives, and purposes, different requirements to be satisfied, different legal, regulatory or environmental conditions,

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different project-types and project-sizes, different tolling schemes, etc. A comparison should include the options, perspectives and potentials of the alternatives. Not at least the fast decrease of the prices for electronic equipment should be taken into consideration; one does not need much imagination to anticipate that this will be similar in regard to the technical components of innovative approaches like GPS/ GSM. Regarding the German TollCollect System over and above, the special requirements of the German government should not be neglected; it had to be designed and operated as a dual system including a comparably lavish and thus expensive enforcement system. The manual booking system had to be designed for full operation in case that the (military) GPS is not available.

Outlook and obstacles

Taking this background into account it is not overly bold to make the following predictions: 1. Tolling heavy trucks using Autobahns is only a first step; a gradual expansion to all types of vehicles and all kinds of roads will take place in Germany within the next decade. 2. City-pricing or congestion-pricing in metropolitan areas will be introduced within the next decade in numerous major German cities. The main problems and obstacles are: 1. Next election/ideology/lobby-driven actions/nonactions of politicians. 2. Lack of harmonization regarding traffic/logistic related taxes and regulations in Europe. 3. Misuse of the revenue (the user must experience benefits in terms of reduced taxes and/or improved traffic conditions). A consistent, fair and long term-oriented road pricing policy has a viable chance to be accepted by the public (even by the lobby). A prerequisite for the success is a consistent, convincing and reliable transport policy. TH Dr Andreas Kossak is principal of Dr Kossak Consulting based in Hamburg, Germany and can be contacted via email at [email protected] www.h3bmedia.com

30/11/07 21:19:46

How Europe Works 31 March to 4 April 2008

H3B Media & Intertraffic Amsterdam present four Think Tanks over five days at Amsterdam RAI

Cooperative Vehicle Infrastructure Systems 31 March-1 April in association with • How Cooperative Systems can create a unified technical solution

allowing all vehicles and infrastructure elements to communicate with each other in a continuous and transparent way using a variety of media and with enhanced localisation;

• How Cooperative Systems will enable a wide range of potential

cooperative applications and services to run on an open application framework in the vehicle and roadside equipment;

• How Cooperative Systems is to define and validate an open

architecture and system concept for a number of cooperative system applications, and develop common core components to support cooperation models in real-life applications and services for drivers, operators, industry and other key stakeholders; and finally

• How Cooperative Systems will address issues such as user

acceptance, data privacy and security, system openness and interoperability, risk and liability, public policy needs, cost/benefit and business models, and roll-out plans for implementation.

For sponsorship details please contact Luis Hill on +44 208 254 9406 or [email protected]

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highways

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How Europe Works 31 March to 4 April 2008

H3B Media & Intertraffic Amsterdam present four Think Tanks over five days at Amsterdam RAI

European Road Pricing: Public Acceptability Forum 1-2 April

in association with SESSIONS:

• Policy & Politics • Finance & Funding • Problem Solving • Innovation & The Future • Public Acceptance & Positive Spin.

SPEAKERS & DELEGATES:

As with H3B Media’s UK Think Tank, the speakers will not largely correspond to the list of sponsors - members of European Parliament, national parliaments across Europe, council and authority officials, senior European Commission figures and representatives of ASECAP members will rub shoulders with national and international tolling authorities, groups who are against the idea of road pricing, spin doctors, public affairs specialists, market analysts and industry experts. For sponsorship details please contact Luis Hill on +44 208 254 9406 or [email protected]

H 3 B Media

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How Europe Works 31 March to 4 April 2008

H3B Media & Intertraffic Amsterdam present four Think Tanks over five days at Amsterdam RAI

GNSS Technology in the Road Transport Sector 2-3 April in association with

This Think Tank will look at how Europe’s Global Navigation Satellite System, and in particular the much-vaunted Galileo project, will affect and effect the road transport sector. Most of the news relayed by the media revolves around the political dimension of the project so it is important to recall that Europe’s satellite navigation programme constitutes an enabler of European transport policy and will provide significant business opportunities for all road sector stakeholders. GIROADS is a project commissioned by the European GNSS Supervisory Authority to aggregate the road community’s proposals facilitating the take-up of Europe’s satellite navigation programme by the road sector and the Speaker Programme, which will be put together by ERF and H3B Media, will draw heavily but not exclusively from the GIROADS partners. These partners recognise the reality of data privacy concerns but believe these can be overcome through harmonised European initiatives that protect the individual position data collected for use while enabling services providers to compute and charge the users for the services provided.

For sponsorship details please contact Luis Hill on +44 208 254 9406 or [email protected]

H 3 B Media

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How Europe Works 31 March to 4 April 2008

H3B Media & Intertraffic Amsterdam present four Think Tanks over five days at Amsterdam RAI

Climate Change: Transport’s Impacts & Solutions 3-4 April in association with

Experts estimate that all forms of transport are contributing roughly 28 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions that are creating climate change, more popularly called global warming. On the positive side, many types of traffic technologies can assist in reducing emissions. There are technologies designed to mitigate highway, road and toll congestion that lead to idling – a well-known cause of emissions. Real-time traffic warning systems are evolving, as are many new approaches to merging lanes to avoid traffic backup, supported by ever-evolving uses of electronic mapping and global positioning systems. The auto industry is spearheading development of networked vehicles that will not only improve fuel efficiency but, contain a variety of built-in wireless communication devices that will allow for passthrough at tolls and other bottlenecks, along with guiding drivers away from congested zones. This Climate Change Think Tank, looking at Transportation’s Impacts and Solutions and jointly hosted and organised by H3B Media and POLIS, will involve academic, industry and government leaders in a far-ranging discussion of the impact that transportation has on climate change. The second portion of the programme will explore the solutions that a variety of technologies provide for mitigating emissions.

For sponsorship details please contact Luis Hill on +44 208 254 9406 or [email protected]

H 3 B Media

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Congestion Pricing Think Tank McLean, VA 20 May 2008

OBJECTIVES • Examining diverging viewpoints and questioning basic principles of Congestion Pricing will constitute one of the objectives of this Think Tank, jointly organised by H3B Media and Booz Allen Hamilton. • Reviewing the ways the US administration can tackle this subject at the national, state and local levels as well as analysing any political impacts that such a transport policy approach may incur will mark a second step of the discussion. • Speakers will then question the existence of any prevailing factor (political, financial and environmental) before assessing the potential contribution of side-activity sectors to finding solutions. • Real-life success stories will demonstrate how multi-faceted the debate can be and how it may modify significantly the consumers’ habits for the next decades. • This first class event, held at Booz Allen Hamilton’s McLean, Virginia conference facilities, will gather knowledgeable stakeholders acting in the industrial, economic or political arena, all aware of what Congestion Pricing embraces and poses as challenges.

For sponsorship details please contact Luis Hill on +44 208 254 9406 or [email protected]

H 3 B Media

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VII Deployment Workshop McLean, VA 21 May 2008 in association with

“Completing the picture...”

For sponsorship details please contact Luis Hill on +44 208 254 9406 or [email protected]

H 3 B Media

thinking

highways

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Green ITS

Everything’s going

green

and the protection of natural resources has continued to Green seems to be the new black, as every vehicle grow in importance, reflecting the concerns of many manufacturer rushes to develop new technologies European citizens. to reduce CO2 and pollutant emissions and improve A range of measures have been made available to fuel economy. Member States ranging from legislation to financial Toyota offers their Prius and Lexus hybrids, SAAB has Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET instruments, while Member States are facing new ‘BioPower’, BMW features new models with ‘Efficient PETTIT looks at the European requirements to meet stringent limits regarding CO2 Dynamics’, and is co-developing a hybrid engine Territorial vehicle together with General Motors, Daimler and and emissions and airborne Cooperation Programme finds that likepollutants with within their cities. Chrysler.The list of manufacturers lining up to announce Indeed, Member States are obliged to respond when any other major programme, it’s a matter of new systems and technologies to reduce the environemissions exceed defined limits, and must draw up priorities mental impact of their products seems endless. action plans indicating the measures to be taken to The voting public’s increasing awareness of environreduce that risk and to limit the duration of such an mental matters is already starting to change the political occurrence. atmosphere. Despite growing consensus, that ‘someLess is more thing needs to be done’, authorities still need figures to Reducing CO2 emissions from new cars has emerged as justify deployment of potentially energy-saving measa key priority of European climate ures. How much CO2 could be reduced in emissions? What will be the environmenchange policy. The aim is to limit and protal impacts of smoother traffic flow mangressively reduce average CO2 emisagement? What would be the economic sions from new passenger cars sold in impact of restraining mobility in favour of the EU, and the European car makers environment. have agreed voluntary CO2 targets as Not only is the commercial sector taktheir contribution to an “integrated ing initiative, European and national govapproach”. As part of the European Cliernments are increasingly targeting the mate Change Programme, the European environmental impact of transport, and Commission carried out a review in 2006 are bringing both financial, fiscal and of the strategy and progress to date. The legislative tools to bear in the fight for review concluded that the voluntary sustainability. approach has delivered a solid CO2 reduction but that the target for 2012 In its Green Paper “Towards a new culwould not be met without additional measures. These ture for urban mobility” issued on 25 September 2007 , complementary measures include efficiency improvethe European Commission sets a new European agenda and strategy to ensure greener towns and cities. The text ments for car components with the highest impact on states that: fuel consumption, such as tyres and air conditioning “…the main environmental issues in towns and cities systems. are related to the predominance of oil as a transport fuel, Some government authorities have already implewhich generates CO2, air pollutant emissions and noise.” mented measures that reward “green” behaviour and European policy towards the environment and climate penalise polluters. The best known European scheme is

“Authorities have already implemented measures rewarding green behaviour and penalising polluters”

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Climate Change ERTICO’s GARY BRIDGEMAN and When DAVID SCHONBRUNN JAMES BURGESS examine how read the April/May issue of ITS is playing a significant role Thinking Highways he felt in improving the environmental compelled to write an article impact of transport offering his own views on transportation’s impacts onm and solutions for, climate change

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Green ITS probably the London congestion charging zone. This was introduced to improve mobility in the central area of London, but is now widely presented as an ecomeasure to promote the use of “clean” energy. Under the scheme, drivers of alternative fuelled and electric powered vehicles can claim a discount of up to 100 per cent of the charge if the vehicle meets required conditions - the motivation is clearly environmental rather than mobility-driven, as even an efficient vehicle would contribute to congestion.

Hybrid theory and practice

This ‘hybrid’ approach can lead to certain anomalies – for example, a large SUV with a hybrid three-litre engine could have stated CO2 emissions of over 190g/km whereas a small efficient (but not hybrid-powered) diesel car equipped with a start-stop system can produce less than 100g/km. The driver of the SUV could save over £1700 (€2500) in congestion charges during a year’s commuting compared to the driver of the more efficient vehicle! This year the Mayor of London released a proposal to re-shape the charging scheme based on CO2 emissions, leading to vehicles producing up to 120g/ km of CO2 emissions qualifying for a discount of up to 100 per cent. This follows the EC ‘Polluter Pays’ principle for air quality management - the potential polluter should in general bear the costs of pollution prevention and control measures as well as remediation. The European citizen must have confidence in the systems implemented to effect this principle - charging users by distance or on predicted emissions based on ideal test conditions does not truly reflect the way the average citizen uses the transport infrastructure today. To meet these challenges we need to adopt a holistic approach to a transport user’s impact on the environment, not one based on isolated applications and single journeys. The time is right for a new approach to mitigating the impact of mobility on the environment, without limiting mobility itself. Co-operative systems have a role to play by enabling the collection and sharing of relevant vehicle-based data to support a host of new applications that: • allow road network managers to understand the impact of vehicle emissions in near real time • offer fairer means of emission charging • empower the user to control his or her own CO2 emissions, by monitoring and adjusting travel behaviour to reduce environmental impact. To promote this “green” aspect of ITS, ERTICO – ITS Europe Partners have proposed a new European collaborative R&D initiative to bring cooperative ITS tools to the aid of environmentally sustainable mobility. If successful, this proposal would move substantially beyond existing approaches by defining a number of innovative applications such as integrated traffic and environmental monitoring, eco-optimised traffic management and control, web-based eco-information services for travel-

lers and eco-guidance for journey planning and navigation. The goal is to validate a number of new “green” tools for the use of travellers, fleet managers and road operators.

The outlook for “Green Mobility”

In recent years significant advances have been made in increasing vehicle efficiency and reducing emissions, and it appears that vehicle-based technologies still hold major potential for improvement. Further contributions towards sustainable mobility are also expected from future technologies such as alternative fuels (biofuel, hydrogen) or electric drive systems. However, there is clearly enormous potential for environmental gain in improving the “green” behaviour of drivers and traffic systems - typically today neither of these is optimised according to environmental criteria (except where this happens to coincide with minimumdelay optimisation). The “eco-management” field is less developed than vehicle-based technologies, and could offer greater incremental benefits beyond the status quo.With appropriate planning and taking advantage of existing and near-future communications and telematics capabilities, these benefits could also be realised without expensive changes to vehicles themselves, and could therefore be deployed much sooner. We list here some of the technological advances possible in the areas of cooperative systems, advanced sensors, sophisticated data fusion and improved vehicle performance which could help reduce the environmental impact of mobility: • Standards for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-toinfrastructure communication needed for a truly ‘always connected car’; • Traffic management centres with real-time traffic and environment data monitoring, analysis and modelling, as a background for tactical traffic systems control; • Vehicle applications which can use mobile communications to affect journey and operating parameters (e.g. eco-adaptive cruise control, eco-engine management or eco-routing optimised for emissions reduction across the whole road network); • New possibilities for cross-modal journey and operational support - bringing together private car and public transport, such as gateways for supplying environmental charging, public transport data for multimodal trip planning etc. Standardisation of this data interchange still has some way to go but toolkits such as TPEG offer a suitable framework. These technological advances have the potential to support policy actions such as preferential access, “green” incentives or travel pricing - but governments and road operators don’t necessarily know what tools are available and how to deploy them most effectively. Hence the need has become urgent for a “Green ITS” toolkit of proven technologies and measures. To illustrate how this could all work in the future we might imag-

“Achieving the holy grail of sustainable mobility is the focus of much new research”

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Green ITS

ine an “eco-journey” exploiting these possibilities: • Pre-trip eco information is the start of your eco-journey. By checking the current on-line pollution bulletin you know the hot spots to avoid and find out the ecocharges in force today. • You get a message suggesting the most efficient alternative routes to your destination, with the lowest congestion charge costs and avoiding possible access restrictions along the way. • You are told the expected cost of your journey based on actual emissions and CO2 footprint, and can receive rewards if you car-share or use public transport for part of your journey, in the form of carbon credits or permission to use your low-emission car on another occasion. • Cooperative communications provide you with a continuous stream of eco-data from the traffic centre as well as from nearby vehicles, providing you with on-trip guidance concerning emission hot spots and access limitations. As these change, your on-board multimodal journey planner can suggest different and more efficient routes, or even to park the car and take a bus or tram. The city traffic managers can at the same time better manage total emissions across the transport network, and allow travellers to reduce the environmental and monetary costs of their journeys. • Your vehicle also acts as an ‘eco-probe’, providing

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the traffic management centre with real-time data on its own and ambient emissions, pollution and other parameters. Your car’s levels are recorded, allowing you to manage your complete emissions for journeys and checking your personal “carbon balance”.

Green wave

While such comprehensive ‘eco-management systems’ are still something of the future, the tools required to enable them are already in development, and in some cases starting to become available. Achieving the holy grail of “sustainable mobility” is the focus of much new research - watch out for “Green ITS” special sessions at the 7th European ITS Congress and Exhibition in Geneva next June, as a key element of the Congress theme, ‘ITS for Sustainable Mobility’. With our increasing awareness of global warming and interest in all aspects of the environment, sustainable mobility could take over from safety as the key focus for research and development. To misquote Henry Ford, you can have your new car in any colour you like, as long as it’s green. TH Gary Bridgeman and James Burgess are project managers at ERTICO-ITS Europe and can be contacted via email at [email protected] and [email protected] www.h3bmedia.com

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South Africa Human nature, being what drives us, will see the desire of people to own private cars continue without any let-up. This will see a growth in the number of drivers and as a consequence traffic safety will become an even bigger issue. Intelligent Transport Systems have a major role to play in using technology to safe lives. South Africa can – in transport terms – be described as a “New World Economy”. The essential characteristics include a mixed economy (where first and third world economies co-exist), rapid urbanization, a growing population, insufficient public transport and overreliance on private cars. There are many reasons why South Africa can expect to see private car ownership growing very fast. Two sides of this coin are the current absence of public transport as a mode of choice and the freedom and mobility it provides. In addition, owning a car is also seen as elevating the status of its owner.

The older, not the better

The very nature of a mixed economy with its large poor segments means that older vehicles are often not scrapped and components and materials recycled, but sold on to a person desperate to own a vehicle, irrespective of its condition. This results in a disproportionately old vehicle park with many vehicles of questionable roadworthy status. Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET This is one of the driving forces between the South PETTIT looks at the European Territorial African Government’s €1 billion Taxi Recapitalisation programme to have old, Programme 15-seater minibus taxis Cooperation and finds that like with scrapped and replaced with modern, custom-designed any other major programme, it’s a matter of vehicles. priorities South Africa shares with other new world economies a bad road safety record, but is taking some great strides in addressing this. One such step has been the establishment of the Road Traffic Management Corporation, PAUL VORSTER, CEO of ITS commonly referred to as the RTMC. South Africa, looks at the In addition to elements of the road safety challenge such as road and environmental conditions, educational country’s impending campaigns and training and driver attitude, law enforce“Demerit” points system ment has an important part to play – and law enforcement is an area in which the ITS industry can make a (the exact opposite to the significant contribution. French scheme) to promote ITS South Africa believes that the RMTC must be supported in proposing a demerit system as part of its proroad safety gramme of action. The proposed ‘demerit’ points system is due to be The good, the bad and the... demerited introduced in Pretoria from February 2008, with a full In developing the business case for the demerit systems national roll-out expected to follow 18 months later. and recruiting the support of the insurance industry it is The system has been on the cards since 1998, when said that the demerit system will allow insurers to distinthe Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences guish between good and bad drivers, which will in turn (AARTO) Act was passed.The Act provides for a demerit enable it to charge more appropriate premiums to indisystem, encompassing the demerit points system vidual clients. whereby a driver accrues points on his or her licence Insurers say that customers also stand to gain as those for any traffic offences committed. drivers who obey the rules of the road should find that It has been delayed for several years pending a feasitheir insurance premiums become more affordable. bility study and other requirements, including an assessAccident rates should decline as people become ment of technological requirements, law enforcement more cautious in their driving habits in a bid to keep criteria and an analysis of human resources needed to their premiums low. Reduced accident rates should lead get the system up and running.

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Climate SouthChange Africa

An African meritocracy

When DAVID SCHONBRUNN read the April/May issue of Thinking Highways he felt compelled to write an article offering his own views on transportation’s impacts onm and solutions for, climate change

to more affordable insurance premiums. Delays in implementing the system have made the insurance industry skeptical. Stakeholders such as the Automobile Association of South Africa (AASA) are concerned about how the system will be implemented and Ayanda Vilakazi, the AASA director of public affairs argues that a demerit point system will penalise law-abiding citizens further, while increasing the problem of unlicensed and uninsured drivers. The demerit system is heavily dependent upon the maintenance of databases of information. In South Africa such systems would include the eNaTIS system, as well as a database to be developed www.h3bmedia.com

Vorster (3).indd 47

by insurers, which the authorities would be entitled to have access to. Databases require constant maintenance and accurate updating and this alone will prove to be a major challenge. eNaTIS refers to the newly launched National Traffic Information Systems that suffered some hiccups when it went live in the second quarter of this year. In countries where the demerit system has been introduced, such as the United Kingdom, and the underlying database of information is being used, insurers are beginning to increase premiums for delinquent drivers. ITS South Africa strongly supports the call for improved and consistent law enforcement, part of the mandate of Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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South Africa the RTMC. Efficient law enforcement requires a good balance between visible hands-on policing on the roads by properly trained law-enforcement officials and the appropriate use of technology to support the overall process.

How it works

The AASA estimates as many as 50 per cent of motorists are either unlicensed or driving with fraudulent licences. More focus should be applied to correcting and preventing such illegal practices. Without using ITS technologies, within an overall policy and guiding strategy, success will be limited. The ITS industry has an excellent opportunity to contribute through processes such as that of the RTMC. How will the demerit points work: • Each driver will start with no points. • Points are allocated according to infringements or offences committed. There are different values for different infringements and offences and the number of demerits will be recorded on the National Traffic Information System (eNaTIS). • Points are allotted on the date a fine is paid or when the person is convicted of the offence in court, as in the case of traffic offences, such as drunk driving. • When a person exceeds 12 points, his or her licence is suspended. • The suspension period is calculated in months equal to the number of points exceeding 12, multiplied by three. • A driver who is disqualified must hand over his or her licence to the issuing authority for the duration of the disqualification. • Anyone caught driving while under suspension faces a fine and/or imprisonment for up to one year. • The driver may apply for the return of the licence at the end of the disqualification period. • A driver disqualified for the third time will lose his or her licence permanently and will have to apply for retesting and issue at the end of the disqualification period. • Demerit points will be reduced at a flat rate of one point for every three months that pass without any more traffic infringements.

Nature of demerits

• The number of demerits depends on the severity of the offence. • Failure to license a motor vehicle: €50 fine and one demerit point. • Excessive speeding in an urban area (travelling 86 to 90km/h): €125 fine and four demerit points. • Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs: six demerit points and a court appearance. • Learner drivers driving unaccompanied by a licensed driver: €125 fine and four demerit points. • Overloading a vehicle by more than 12 per cent to 13 per cent of SABS specification: €150 fine and five demerit points. TH Paul Vorster can be contacted via email at [email protected]

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International trade fair for infrastructure, traffic management, safety and parking

Amsterdam RAI The Netherlands

1.2.3.4 APRIL

2008 Intertraffic com ®

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30/11/07 21:28:06

Human Factors

Stunted growth Max factor DR TARA KAZI explores why it is vital to integrate human factors within ITS Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

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Climate Change Human Factors In today’s hectic society we face increasing transportation challenges. More people, cars and trucks competing for limited space and a growing awareness about the environment, financial and time value of travel, as well as our own comfort, safety and security. Using public transport is also challenging with different information systems, interchange facilities and charging and payment systems. Intelligent Transport Systems are helping to address some of these issues by harnessing technology to make our transportation safer, more efficient, easier to use and more environmentally acceptable. ITS services provide greater returns when end users have confidence in the information and acceptance and compliance levels are increased. Understanding the adverse effects of placing users in a position where they feel uncomfortable confused or isolated which severely limit the level of use and acceptance is an important part of system specification and design. Introducing ITS often impacts on the organisation and institutional responsibilities and creates new challenges for management. Good design can help reduce the problems associated with introducing such systems and can accelerate returns due to improved acceptance and efficiency.

Pay attention

Whether it be an urban jungle of traffic systems, or a traffic control room or some in-car system, specialists argue that users can experience an attention deficit if traffic solutions do not factor in the human element. Often users experience visual and cognitive distractions, mental overload and a reduction in awareness of their surroundings. This of course can have negative connotations for safety. Travellers are faced with competing demands for their attention and understanding the make up of human behaviour and the way that we interact with our environment calls for the application of Human Factors techniques which have now moved from academia to become prerequisites for good design.

Product Concept

Requirements definition/ user needs Design and development (Prototype) Evaluations

Implementation and compliance

Figure 1: A typical model of human factors integration within ITS

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When DAVID SCHONBRUNN Engineers read the April/May issue of Thinking Highways he felt compelled to write an article offering his own views on transportation’s impacts Computer Human Scientists Factors onm and solutions for, climate change

Designers

Figure 2: The make-up of a typical ITS mutlidisciplinary team

Human factors integration into ITS

ITS interfaces with humans at all levels, whether this be in the form of human-machine interaction or in the form of road user behaviour. When designing and introducing new ITS services, Human Factors Practitioners suggest that such systems are assessed on three dimensions; safety, comfort, and usability. This is also reiterated by the European quality standard for the design and approval of the Human–Vehicle Interface (HVI) for motor vehicles and International Standards (ISO standards). Human Factors draws roots from Psychology, Ergonomics and Computer–Science. The main goal of a Human Factors Specialist is to produce functional and usable systems that support people to carry out activities productively and safely. Human Factors provides an understanding of human capability and applies this understanding to the design, development, evaluation and implementation process within a project, service or system. For effective Human Factors contributions a specialist requires a holistic view of the project. It is standard practice to involve Human Factors through out the project or service life-cycle, integrating within each developmental stage. Figure 1 demonstrates a conceptual model of a standard product development life-cycle where Human Factors is used for each individual stage of the life-cycle to ensure it is integrated throughout. This process reflects Human Factors involvement from the very beginning which is at the concept stage all the way through to evaluation and implementation stage: as reflected in International Standards ISO 13407 and ISO 13407. A user-centred approach is at the heart of this process and it seeks to involve the users throughout the design and evaluation process. Human Factors contributions tend to be within a multidisciplinary team and are unlikely to be successful without parallel input from Engineers and Designers (Figure 2). Human Factors is not meant to replace these other skill sets but to compliment them so the end design for the user is deemed usable, safe and efficient. Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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Human Factors

The right time and the right place

A potential hindrance to effective Human Factors contributions lies in the improper involvement of Human Factors in projects. It is paramount that Human Factors is applied at all these stages since these stages are not interdependent. Not applying Human Factors from the outset for a project and all the way through each development stage of the life-cycle can reduce the overall effectiveness of the contribution, impact the final delivery of the system and not only influence the user’s acceptance but potentially effect their safety. Sometimes due to budget restraints, lack of understanding of each others disciplines, or not being able to convey to the client the importance of integrating Human Factors and ITS together can result in the displacement of Human Factors from some of the key stages of the project. What needs to be understood is that it can be potentially too costly not to involve Human Factors at the right time and these key stages of the project. Especially since it is argued by practitioners that this is likely to produce systems that are not effective, efficient, safe or derive the appropriate response from the user. Ultimately this can lead to a dissatisfied user and at worst this can cost a human life. Either way, it is the end user of any ITS solution that is likely to lose out.

The right questions to ask

It is estimated that human error is the sole cause of 57 per cent of traffic accidents. Questions can be asked as to whether such incidents can be improved by ITS solutions? Researchers in the past have argued that ITS solutions could increase the comfort and convenience of the modern driver. The make-up of what is defined by an ITS solution is changing and it has become important to understand when and how to integrate Human Factors into ITS. This

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process can be facilitated by asking the battery of questions at the start of every project: What’s the objective? How will this be achieved? What time and cost constraints apply? What are the potential solutions? Which standards apply? What are the consequences of each solution? How will we judge success? How predictable are the outcomes? What if it goes wrong? How do we evaluate and understand the results? How do we best achieve understanding, acceptance, and compliance? What organisational and institutional impacts are there? As specialists we should not only consider that we will be offering the client an enhanced service by synergising Human Factors and ITS together but also consider that we could potentially be saving lives by producing effective, safe and usable transport systems. The current generation of technology can be evaluated not with just a view to modify if need be but to promote new design ideas. This in turn facilitates next generations of technology that can further enhance the safety of ‘end’ users. Understanding our make-up is the foundation for good design.

The right answer

So to get the most out of ITS implementation incorporate Human Factors to help make sure that benefits are maximised, and the outcomes are predictable, reliable, and comfortable to use. It’s people we address, not systems of machines. TH Dr Tara Kazi is a human factors engineer with WSP. She can be contacted via email at [email protected] www.h3bmedia.com

30/11/07 21:33:22

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30/11/07 22:01:46

Active Traffic Management

A shoulder Allowing drivers to use the hard shoulder was never going to be welcomed with open arms, but following success elsewhere in Europe, the UK Government decided to try out the idea as Thinking Highways’ financial analyst part of a concept called ‘Active Traffic MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Management’. Twelve months after the start Cooperation Programme and of Territorial a high profile trial it’s been so successful finds that like with anyhave other major that transport ministers announced that the scheme is to it’s a matter ofUK. priorities beprogramme, rolled out elsewhere in the PETER PLISNER reports It’s probably been one of the most highly controversial projects to happen on the UK motorway network in many years. It was a scheme that would let drivers use the hard shoulder on the M42 in the English Midlands at peak periods. The motorway was probably one of the most congested highways in the country and, as such, it was seen as an ideal test bed for what the Highways Agency, the organisation that manages the UK road network, called ‘Active Traffic Management’ or ATM. The concept is a more advanced version of a concept already used in places like Holland and Germany. ATM brought together a whole variety of technologies, all designed to help reduce congestion But inevitably it was the hard shoulder running that got people talking!

Confusion reigns

Some members of the emergency services were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to get to an accident. Motoring organisations were worried that drivers would have nowhere to go if their vehicles broke down. There were also concerns that confusion, about when the hard shoulder was and wasn’t in use, would lead to serious accidents. The British media had a field day. One newspaper said the scheme would turn the M42 into a “high-

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way to hell”, while another maintained that opening up the hard shoulder was “gambling with people’s lives’’. But twelve months after the trial began, the doomsday scenario, that so many were predicting, just hasn’t happened. In fact that motorway is now carrying more traffic with less congestion. What’s more the Government appears to be so pleased with it that motorway widening schemes around the UK could now be scaled back in favour of ATM solutions. The M42 trial has been taking place between junctions 3A and 7 of the M42 east of Birmingham.The project includes use of variable mandatory speed limits, dynamic use of the hard shoulder during peak periods, the provision of dedicated ‘Emergency Refuge Areas’ where drivers can go if they break down and the installation of gantries with signals and variable message signs. In addition, the slip roads now have ramp metering, where sets of traffic signals regulate the number of vehicles entering the motorway at the busiest junctions. Also, variable speed limits are set to be enforced by new digital cameras mounted above all lanes of the motorway. Construction of the ATM scheme started in March 2003. Following completion of the work there was a phased introduction of the system starting with the setwww.h3bmedia.com

30/11/07 21:36:39

Climate Change

to drive on

When DAVID SCHONBRUNN read the April/May issue of Thinking Highways he felt compelled to write an article offering his own views on transportation’s impacts onm and solutions for, climate change

www.h3bmedia.com

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Active Traffic Management

ting of non-mandatory variable speed limits when the level of traffic levels passed preset limits. In November 2005 the speed limits became enforceable with the introduction of what became known as ‘Variable Mandatory Speed Limits’ (VMSL). The concept, previously tried in the UK on the M25 south-west of London, meant reductions in the speed drivers were allowed to travel. The theory was that if all drivers were going at the same rate there would be less need to change lanes and therefore improvements in the flow of traffic in all lanes. After less than a year of what highway engineers have termed ‘3 Lane Variable Mandatory Speed Limits or 3L-VMSL’, in September 2006, ministers finally decided to unleash their trump card and the more controversial part of the project, the hard shoulder running or ‘4 Lane Variable Mandatory Speed Limits (4L-VMSL)’.

A passing phase?

“Observed capacity increased on the motorway under 4L-VMSL by an average of 7-10%”

Some have posed the question, why did the Highways Agency opt for a phased implementation, rather than introducing everything at once? David Grant, the HA’s Head of Active Traffic Management Project says; “We wanted to bring the benefits for each regime to the public as quickly as possible. By introducing variable advisory speed limits to start with it got drivers used to that form of operation. We then made them mandatory in the same way as the M25 controlled motorway environment. This got drivers used to the smoothing of the traffic and speed harmonisation. Following that we introduced the use of the hard shoulder, having gained confidence in how drivers were using the scheme.” Traffic Consultants Mott MacDonald were appointed to analyse the results of the trial after six months of operation and its report was published in October 2007. It compared data from operations of 4L-VMSL between

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October 2006 and April 2007 with 3L-VMSL operation between January and April 2006 and the case of no variable speed limits prior to construction of ATM. The authors of the report maintain that the comparison between 3L-VMSL and 4L-VMSL offered a short time frame between the two operational regimes, which enables data to be analysed that is less affected by the time lag and traffic growth between the ‘Before and ‘After’ periods. However, the report focuses mainly on the comparison between no variable speed limits and 4L-VMSL, as this appears to provide the best direct estimate of the benefits from the installation of ATM. According to the report, observed capacity increased on the motorway under 4L-VMSL operation by an average of 7-10 per cent and it also reduced average journey times in severe recurrent congestion. Drivers were able to better predict their journey times on the M42-ATM section with a 27 per cent reduction of journey times observed. Says Grant: “We had a feeling it could be quite high, but that has exceeded my expectations.” The reliability improvements have provided a welcome boost to business and industry. Groups like the Freight Transport Association and the Road Haulage Association, which represent UK haulage companies, have applauded the project. In effect ATM has prevented the occurrence of severe congestion that costs the economy of any country a great deal of lost time and ultimately money. The report also suggests that the motorway has become safer with fewer accidents. Compliance rates were also surprising with, on average, more than 90 per cent of drivers observing the mandatory speed limits.

Nothing serious

Although much more data is required to reach definitive conclusions about safety, (industry standard requires www.h3bmedia.com

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Active Traffic Management

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Active Traffic Management three years worth of data), the analysis of the initial six months shows that the ‘Severity Index’ for 3L-VMSL and 4L-VMSL is below the national motorway average for the UK at 0.12. Crucially there were no serious accidents. The evidence runs directly against the scenario many had been predicting following the opening up of the hard shoulder. Noise and pollution levels also fell during the trial. Most emissions, according to the report, fell by between 4 per cent and 10 per cent, meaning the fuel consumption improved by 4 per cent. Cars were burning fuel much more efficiently. Carbon-dioxide levels were down 4 per cent, similar to that obtained from two studies on the impact of variable speed limits on the M25. In line with the safety results, authors added a caveat that there were also a number of other factors which influenced the changes in ambient air quality. Although ATM was one of the influencing factors, it was not possible to isolate its impact on air quality. As if the impressive data from the project weren’t enough, when compared with the way things were on the motorway in 2003, prior to the installation of ATM, the feedback from drivers was also better. Thirty per cent of long distance users classed the M42 as ‘better’ or ‘much better’ than other motorways. Twenty seven per cent of users also perceived that it was easier to join, change lanes and exit the motorway, when compared to 2003. The understanding of the way the motorway operated was also high with 95 per cent understanding the purpose of the ‘Emergency Refuge Areas’.

Keep it simple...

The Highways Agency’s Grant isn’t surprised that drivers have taken to the new concept so quickly and easily. He says: “ATM was designed with safety being the most important factor. When we did the analysis of safety we identified over 2000 hazards, both already existing motorway hazards and possible ones resulting from the ATM.” The key for the project team was to find mitigation techniques for each hazard, while at the same time not making it any more complicated for the driver to understand.” The team designed mitigations that were as intuitive to the driver as they could be. Grant adds “Drivers don’t need to be educated about ATM in order to know what to do, the signs and signals tell them.” Despite the short period of operation the analysis of the results contained in the report appears to have been enough for ministers to make the decision to roll out the concept on other motorways. In a statement, the UK Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly said: “The M42 trial shows that using innovative thinking to help drivers beat motorway jams really works. New traffic management techniques, like hard shoulder running and varying speed limits, offer practical and cost-effective solutions to cutting congestion and I now want to explore whether other motorways could benefit from similarly creative measures.” In addition to announcing the location for the next ATM schemes, the Department for Transport launched a

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Location of the M42 ATM scheme in the UK’s West Midlands (images courtesy of the Highways Agency)

feasibility study into extending motorway signalling and traffic management systems on a wider scale. Studies will concentrate on whether new systems can offer additional lanes and traffic flow capacity within the land corridors of existing motorways. There will also be analysis of ideas for lane reservation, such as high occupancy vehicle lanes, heavy vehicle lanes and through traffic lanes. Concepts for better separation of slower and faster moving traffic and the provision of better and more timely information to drivers will also be considered. Trial of ATM in the English Midlands clearly shows that 4 Lane Variable Mandatory Speed Limits can go a long way to alleviating the daily grid of congestion and make predicting journey times much easier. Head of the project, David Grant is delighted with its success. It could also now be exported to other countries. Grant says “It’s something that has huge international interest. I have just recently been approached by the Americans who are looking to introduce ATM in the States.We have interest from Japan and Scandinavia and we’re presenting in Paris. It has become a global solution to a global problem.” Putting in an ATM system is certainly cheaper than widening a motorway, although some have suggested that while it might reduce congestion it does nothing to help reduce the level of traffic on the roads or encourage public transport use. Unfortunately, that’s another global problem for which, at the moment, there is no apparent solution. People just love to use their cars! TH Peter Plisner is the BBC’s Midlands Transport Correspondent and can be contacted via email at [email protected] www.h3bmedia.com

3/12/07 14:05:23

Active Traffic Management

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Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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The Thought Process

Chris Skinner

ITS consultant, adjunct lecturer at the University of Sydney’s Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies and member of ITS standards committees and working groups in Australia and the International Organization for Standardization {ISO) ITS architecture does matter a lot and furthermore, as I tell my students, it delivers a positive return on investment in a business case. ITS architecture is really a special case of business architecture, a subject that has been recognised recently as critical to develop and then to maintain complex information and communication technology (ICT) systems for business applications of all kinds. The critical issue about ICT architecture is that while it does require a modest extra investment, this is paid back many times over by the reduction in issues as the system evolves and changes are made internally and in the integration of the systems with other systems that are themselves also evolving. The benefits become very clear when the cost of ownership is considered. In particular the sustainment of the system architecture will postpone the time when the system becomes unmaintainable and must therefore be replaced. ITS standards are critical and are being developed across most of the areas of need, but too slowly. The standards development activity is not universally recognised as vital so in some countries and in some industry sectors there is not the necessary financial and intellectual support. I have always said that standards will only ever happen in a timely manner if either government or industry wants that to happen. If neither of them then the development will be undertaken by a small bunch of enthusiasts and never deliver on time. The need for standards is to minimise the need for reinvention of the wheel as still happens far too frequently in ICT systems. Of course we don’t want to stifle innovation but that should be about creating new standards, not making every proprietary solution unique. The first developer to a new standard always has a competitive advantage so there is no real point in attempting to keep solutions proprietary.

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However that is not the biggest problem with standards, which is harmonisation.There is a great deal talked about the need to harmonise standards from different sources but when the process is attempted the result has been pathetic – either people give up or only get the simplest and most straightforward issues resolved. The ITS data registry is a prime example; the concept was hailed as a means to achieve harmonisation and years of effort went into writing standards but there has been minimal progress in achieving effective harmonisation. The IEEE tried to harmonise the data concepts from all 14 or so standards development organisations (SDO) in the USA but gave it up as unachievable. We made a preliminary attempt in Australia but then nobody wanted to be the guinea pig.The best effort I know of is the registry operated for the UK Highways Agency. There has been some talk of registries in East Asia but I haven’t seen any results as yet. Another key line of potential solutions for harmonisation is the use of semantic technologies that have arisen from further development of the semantic web. Basically this technology looks at the meaning of concepts in a logical way rather than a strict physical specification. However, the development of semi-automatic harmonisation using this approach is still a research subject. Furthermore the researchers in semantic technologies have been attracted by greater funding available for health research compared with transport and logistics. Consequently ITS is not getting the attention that it deserves, with some notable exceptions, for example the work by the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (CEFACT). To me, the technology with most to offer is wireless communications but not the familiar cellular or trunked radio systems. I am most impressed by the rapid progress being made in direct communications www.h3bmedia.com

30/11/07 21:40:53

“ITS is not “What ITSgetting can do the is attention that it deserves, support policy objectives someknowledge, notable andwith improve exceptions, for example information and the work by the United management” Nations CEFACT” www.h3bmedia.com

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The Thought Process between vehicles and between vehicles and roadside infrastructure, as well as networking between nodes. In the wireless communications area, the WAVE approach for 5.9 GHz DSRC is maturing rapidly. However, neither Japan nor EU are getting fully behind it and so the progress is being hindered by lack of international standardisation. The WAVE approach is being developed in the USA by the IEEE with SAE under the aegis of ASTM and the approach is being very well supported by a number of field operational tests and evaluations. Where the EU has taken a very impressive lead is defining the architectural framework for this wireless communications in the form of CALM. This can embody WAVE so there will be compatibility if harmonisation occurs. Unfortunately what sometimes happens is the EU decides to do something different because it is better rather than adopting a compromise that can become the world standard. However there is a further area of wireless communications still to be developed and that is satellite-based communications. Now the delays in transmission to and from satellites will never equal the low latency for line of sight direct transmission by DSRC but for many of the use cases developed for DSRC that doesn’t matter.What does matter is the geographical coverage. For a country like Australia the cost of roadside infrastructure in the manner that VICS has in Japan would be quite prohibitive. So we need to work on satellite based WAVE systems as well. The other aspect of DSRC is networking. The roadside infrastructure can be networked in a traditional manner for high data rates and low latency. It is now also possible to network via mobile wireless nodes using an approach called ad hoc networking that is maturing rapidly. The most critical capability is for any node to network with any other node without the need for preassigned addressing or controls. This can be done quickly enough by direct communication, for example, high-speed vehicles approaching each other can establish a link and complete a data communication session before they reach their closest point of approach. This can be extended by a process of each receiving vehicle becoming a relay point to other further vehicles out of range for the first vehicle. So the message – such as the warning of an obstruction on a roadway – can be rapidly transmitted upstream from vehicle to vehicle without any prior arrangements or controls. The other advantage of this is that the spreading of the information does not rely on roadside infrastructure. The need for many roadside nodes and all the connecting network amounts to a sizeable investment. The pay-off for DSRC is enhanced road safety - every other benefit (traffic management and traveller information) is icing on the cake, but the major pay-off will be significant improvements in road safety statistics. That alone should encourage governments to make necessary investments in the infrastructure. However nothing will be achieved without the vehicle fleet being suitably fitted too. Here I think the object lesson of how the vehi-

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cle fleet in Japan has steadily adopted VICS is appropriate for DSRC worldwide. It will be important for the business model to address the enormous investment in roadside infrastructure and there may be benefit in a public-private partnership model. The private sector would be able to use the network for non-priority subscription services that would be instantly overridden by any priority traffic management or safety information messages. As I understand it the improvements in safety for road vehicles have diminished and it therefore needs some radical new approach to make further improvements – DSRC is such an approach. ITS is still not widely known in the community, let alone understood. I often joke that if a technology needs to describe itself as intelligent then there must be some doubt about that attribute, but really this is a serious problem. And I don’t think the general population understands the term ‘Telematics’ either so we are losing both ways. What might work a lot better is to start again and call them travel information services, vehicle safety systems and traffic management services, all of which are terms that people can relate to. The ITS body-of-knowledge should be formulated as the basis for ITS professional competence in the same way that the software engineering body of knowledge (SWEBOK) and project management body of knowledge (PMBOK) has been formulated. Then there should be further articulation of core curriculum topics that are required for practitioners in these fields. At the same time there needs to be a greater acceptance of the multi-disciplinary nature of the professional practice domain. This can best be done by the ITS community facilitating the collaboration of such bodies as IEEE, SAE, ITE, ISO, ETSI to develop the ITSBOK. Then there will be further efforts needed in academia and professional organisations to provide the necessary professional development programs. Finally technology is only the start of ITS. There also needs to be a multidisciplinary. team-based approach to design, development and deployment - the classical systems engineering approach is essential to apply the technology effectively. This has been recognised in some places but this should become much more widely understood. TH Christopher J Skinner BSc(Eng) MEngSc MIET MIEAust MACS CPEng is also Principal, DISplay Pty Ltd and can be contacted via email at [email protected]

Chris Skinner’s suggested further reading

Bishop, Richard (2005) Intelligent Vehicle Technology and Trends. Artech House. ISBN: 1-58053-911-4 Miles, John C. & Chen, Ken (Eds) (2004) The Intelligent Transport Systems Handbook (2nd Ed) PIARC ISBN: 2-84060-174-5 Sussman, Joseph M. (2005) Perspectives on Intelligent Transportation Systems. Springer ISBN: 0-387-23257-5 www.h3bmedia.com

30/11/07 21:41:42



  
 


 

 


 





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Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

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30/11/07 21:44:20

POLIS Network When DAVID SCHONBRUNN HANNAH BUDNITZ of POLIS Reading readmember the April/May issue of Borough Council looks at the authority’s Thinking HighwaysITS he felt programme and plans compelled to write an article offering his own views on transportation’s impacts onm and solutions for, Reading is a concentrated urban community of over climate change 200,000 people in the southeast of the UK, some 60km west of London. As a major employment and retail centre, with an extensive travel to work area, Reading is a regional transport hub, attracting daily trips from a wide hinterland. Reading also boasts the second busiest railway station in the UK outside of London and offers key public transport links to Heathrow and Gatwick airports, making it a major transport interchange. Effective traffic and transport management and efficient use of transport infrastructure is essential to Reading’s ability to accommodate the volume of trips which come into and through Reading on a daily basis. Reading has therefore long embraced the use of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in various forms to help manage traffic and reduce congestion, to keep travellers well-informed, to improve road safety and to encourage change in travel behaviour.

UTMC Demonstrator Project

Reading Borough Council introduced an Urban Traffic Management and Control (UTMC) system in the early 1990s and was one of four demonstrator projects funded by the Department for Transport (DfT) between 1997 and 2003. This has enabled Reading to use UTMC to integrate different aspects of ITS in a common database, providing real-time, multi-modal information to promote network management and Reading’s transport information strategy. ITS elements of Reading’s UTMC system include: • Traffic Signal Control; • SCOOT congestion and car park occupancy monitoring and signal optimisation; • CCTV for network monitoring and road safety; • Travel/Traffic Information (provided through www.reading-travelinfo.co.uk and via mobile phones and email to registered users); • Variable Message Signs (VMS) along key radial routes; • Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) at bus stops, on buses, at Reading Station and available through the travel traffic information system; • SmartCard products for all bus services; • Bus Priority through traffic signals; • Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) for bus lane enforcement.

Reading is perfectly situated in the UK with excellent transport links to the North, South, East and West ... and to Europe

These ITS elements are linked back to a control centre, where the database is programmed to feed information from one system to another. For example, if SCOOT detects that a car park exceeds a certain occupancy level, the VMS on the relevant routes to that car park will automatically be triggered to display a message indicating that the car park is full and motorists should divert to an alternative car park. Trained members of staff are also on hand to monitor the system and put out relevant information when it is needed by travellers, transport operators and event managers. A workstation of the UTMC database is set up at Reading Football Club’s Madejski Stadium, where fans can quickly be diverted between car parks as queues increase and fans arriving by public transport are guided onto dedicated buses to shuttle them between the stadium and Reading station.

“These ITS elements are linked back to a control centre, where the database is programmed to feed information between systems”

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Travel/traffic information

While ITS can offer obvious benefits for traffic management and road safety in terms of camera enforcement, traffic signal control and bus priority through traffic lights, Reading Borough Council believes that the best way to manage the network is to give travellers the information to manage their own behaviour. If motorists know that there is an accident or congestion in time, they can take an alternative route. If they Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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POLIS Network

have information before they begin their journey, they may even switch to an alternative mode. If they can access information in any location before or during their journey, then they can make travel choices on the move. Reading’s travel information website is extensive and comprehensive, including real time information on all modes, such as: • Live information about bus departures from stops across Reading; • Live ‘departure board’ information on trains from Reading station; • Up-to-date information on the number of car parking spaces available in central Reading car parks; • Traffic flow and journey time information on routes to and from Reading; • Links to the South East regional journey planner; • TrafficCam images providing snapshots of current traffic conditions at junctions in Reading and the M4; • Warnings of incidents, accidents or roadworks currently underway. The website also includes more typical travel information, such as bus timetables and car park charges. Travel information can be accessed for free from a WAP-

enabled mobile phone handset (WAP being an application allowing internet access from a mobile phone). Registering with the website allows travellers to request travel alerts sent to their mobile phone or email address.

SEEDA WiMax Project

Reading is now participating in the development of the Reading Area Transport Information Network. This project is being led by Reading’s term consultants, Peter Brett Associates and is funded through a grant from the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA). At the core of the project is an enhanced communications network which will use emerging WiMAX wireless communications technology in combination with Wi-Fi and the use of the latest mobile phone 3G communications services. This technology will further integrate Reading’s ITS, creating a metropolitan network which will communicate with traffic signal controllers,VMS, CCTV, bus location Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and RTPI. Another part of the system will allow for web-based (and mobile

“The system will allow wireless transfer of more detailed and personalised travel information to mobile phones and PDAs”

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30/11/07 21:44:55

POLIS Network ners to extend the project beyond the pilot stage. Future applications of the technology may include use in enforcement, as the system is expanded to work with ANPR, vehicle location detection and secure payments.

Conclusion

Reading was one of four UK UTMC demonstrator projects

phone-based) payment for SmartCard top-up and car park payments. Again, however, travel information is a key objective of the project, and the system will allow wireless transfer of more detailed and personalised travel information to mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), computers and GPS systems, giving real time network performance and location/navigation directions. This will allow even pedestrians to receive advice on the optimum route between locations, no matter where they are in Reading. Installation and trials are underway, and Reading will be looking to work with its business part-

Intelligent Solutions for Traffic Surveillance

Reading Borough Council’s ongoing innovation in the use of ITS and UTMC is one of the key reasons why we are recognised as a Centre for Excellence in Transport Planning by the UK government. Reading was one of the first authorities outside London to manage its own bus lane enforcement using bus lane cameras and ANPR. Reading was one of the four UTMC demonstrator projects in the UK, resulting in more inter-connected ITS elements, a better UTMC system and a high standard of travel information. Now Reading is involved in a unique project to further improve UTMC and travel information provision through the use of cutting edge technology. Therefore, Reading is the home of the Intelligent Traveller. TH Hannah Budnitz is a Senior Transport Planner at Reading Borough Council in the UK. She can be contacted via email at [email protected] Simon Beasley, Network Manager can also be contacted at [email protected] For more information about POLIS and its activities go to www.polis-online.org

VITRONIC product range • PoliScansurveillance Acquisition and identification of vehicles for crime prevention • PoliScanspeed Digital speed measurement - mobile and stationary • PoliScandigital Evaluation of speed and digitally recorded red-light offences • TollChecker Free-flow and multi-lane toll enforcement

Meet the digital future

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Funding and Finance

Opportunity knocks Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

Thinking Highways’ funding analyst MARGARET PETTIT turns her attention to Poland. Land of plenty or land of plenty to do? 86

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Climate Change Funding and Finance Poland can boast a number of ‘greats’ in its transport sector, which should offer opportunities for ITS. It is the largest recipient of EU aid, has the largest EUfunded transport budget over 2007-2013 in the EU, including the largest budget for its numerous borders, and has the highest percentage of road accidents with fatalities in the entire EU. Car transport still remains the leading means of municipal transport in Poland, which is unable to cope with neglected and insufficient investments made in road infrastructure. The introduction of integrated road traffic management systems and ITS to improve road safety is deemed essential by the government. The country has a dense, outdated transport network of motorways and expressways of low standard, considered to be the main barrier to economic growth. It lacks a coherent network of highways and fast traffic roads and has a disastrous road traffic safety situation. It also has insufficient links on the main transport corridors (TEN-T networks). Poland’s National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) includes a significant commitment to the Lisbon strategy for jobs and economic growth. The NSRF (the basis of the new EU package) aims to provide missing infrastructure to boost economic development by linking major cities by road, especially on the TEN-T networks.

The missing link

One of the targets in the development strategy includes tripling the length of motorways from 554 to 1,754 km. The NSRF is focussed on having all the major Polish urban centres linked by 2013 through a system of motorways and expressways, with the construction of bypasses, as well as the modernisation of other national roads, which join minor economic centres into the basic national system. Also, there will be provision for transport links within the TEN system connecting Poland to the European transport system. This should assure links between Western Europe and the Baltic States, as well as Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and also between the Scandinavian and Baltic region countries and countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The NSRF will be implemented in five national programmes and 16 regional programmes for each voivodship under the Convergence Objective (the Convergence Objective supports inter alia transport, research and innovation interventions). The largest programme is the national Operational Programme for Infrastructure and Environment, which will include investments of nearly €28 billion - €5.7 billion from the European Regional Development Fund and €22 billion from the Cohesion Fund, of which around 50 per cent will be spent on transport infrastructure. In addition, there will be investments under the European Territorial Cooperation Objective (providing for cross-border networks, trans-national transport and telecommunications services and advanced information and communication technologies) but a financial breakdown for infrastructure is not currently available. www.h3bmedia.com

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When The new EU DAVID package of SCHONBRUNN the Convergence Objective for read Poland isthe to start at the beginningissue of 2008 and April/May ofwill include €295m for intelligent transport systems; €200m he felt for for Thinking information and Highways communication technologies the Trans-European Networks (Transport); €672m for compelled to write an article information and telecommunications technologies; offering his own views on €1,600m for infrastructure connected to the R&D techtransportation’s nologies, €1,871.3m for motorways;impacts and €7,614.7m for motorways (TEN-T networks). Specific projects onm and solutions for,are currently in the process of final approval by the European Commission.climate change Contact point: Ministry of Regional Development, 2/4 Wspolna Street, 00-926 Warsaw, Poland. Tel:(+48 22) 461 30 00, website: www.mrr.gov.pl. In addition to the above EU package, the European Investment Fund (mainly owned by the European Investment Bank) is involved in investments in large-scale transport networks, particularly in financially risky areas vital for economic growth. RUC for the MOT

Turning now to road pricing, in June 2007 a Road User Charging Systems Workshop was held in Warsaw jointly organized by the Polish Ministry of Transport (MOT) and the World Bank. The World Bank has been lending in the transport sector involving road user charging for probably over 30 years, so it will be interesting to see what their lending plans are for this region. The workshop’s main objective was to share experience in the design and implementation of modern road charging systems and make this experience available to Poland, as well as other countries that are considering introducing new road user charging systems. The World Bank reports that during the workshop agreement was reached between MOT and representatives from Hungary and Slovenia on a visit by MOT staff to these two countries for Poland to learn more, in the field, about the results of their experience in implementing charging systems. The speakers were asked to present the existing road charging system in the country they represented, as well as the development plans regarding the prospective European interoperability of electronic fee collection systems. Private sector representatives discussed the state-of-the-art in technology and possible future improvements. There were several UK companies represented at this workshop. On the subject of the World Bank, their only current project in Poland is (Revised) Transport Infrastructure Rehabilitation. The objectives are to (a) improve the main national road and rail infrastructure and (b) build institutional capacity of rail and road sector institutions to manage network assets efficiently and effectively. Negotiations took place at the end of October 2007. Proposed loan of US$180m (IBRD). Consultants will be required. Exec. Agency: Ministry of Transport, 4/6 Chalubinskiego Street, 00-928 Warsaw, Poland, Tel: (48 22) 630-1359, Fax: (48 22) 630-1188. Contact Tomasz Bochenski, Deputy Director, e-mail: [email protected], . TH Margaret Pettit is principal of Clematis Consulting. [email protected] Thinking Highways Vol 2 No 4

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Advertisers Index Aselsan ..............................................................................................75 Computer Recognition Systems ..................................................77 Gatsometer ......................................................................................35 GMV...................................................................................................17 H3B Media/Intertraffic 2008 Think Tanks ................ 53. 57, 65, 63 H3B Media Transportal ..................................................................88 Image Sensing Systems ...................................................................05 International Road Dynamics .......................................................41 Jupiter Systems ................................................................................42 Intertraffic Amsterdam 2008 ........................................................67 Kapsch TrafficCom ..........................................................................31 Noptel ...............................................................................................77 PTV AG..............................................................................................75

Q-Free ASA .......................................................... inside front cover ROBOT Visual Systems GmbH ....................................... 07 and 09 Samaritania .......................................................................................47 Satellic Traffic Management ...........................................................11 Siemens AG München...................................................... 02 and 03 Swarco ...............................................................................................21 Telegra .................................................................outside back cover TranspoQuip 2008 ..........................................................................81 Truvelo ..............................................................................................81 Vitronic .............................................................................................85 White Willow Transport Intelligence ..........................................88 World ITS Directory ......................................................................71 WSP ........................................................................inside back cover

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