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Public transport innovation: changing structures to achieve ambitious targets

Posted: 16 December 2013 | Ivo Cre, Senior Project Manager, Polis and TIDE Coordinator, Tamas Matrai, Project Manager, BKK Centre for Budapest Transport and Marcin Wolek, TIDE Public Transport Activities Leader, University of Gdansk | No comments yet

The Transport Innovation Deployment for Europe project – also known as TIDE1 – looks at 15 innovative measures that can change European cities. Innovation is not only technological: smart policies and institutional reform can create the perfect environment for urban transport improvements. Public transport organisation is one of the areas TIDE focuses on and the BKK Centre for Budapest Transport is TIDE’s ideal partner to prove that changing the management structures can help to manage the change.

TIDE is funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission and runs from October 2012 until September 2015. The project aims to foster a more favourable climate for cities and regions to integrate innovations in their urban mobility policies. This should lead to increased acceptance and take-up of new urban transport solutions and technologies. TIDE will help cities and regions to address common challenges in a collaborative and integrated way.

Innovative ideas usually start in one or a few places before they reach wider coverage. TIDE will help cities and regions across Europe to shorten the path towards the implementation of innovative measures by showing that it is not necessary to re-invent the wheel but much more effective to exchange on innovation and transfer successful solutions from one European region to another. TIDE thus offers a cost-efficient way of spreading innovation throughout Europe.

The Transport Innovation Deployment for Europe project – also known as TIDE1 – looks at 15 innovative measures that can change European cities. Innovation is not only technological: smart policies and institutional reform can create the perfect environment for urban transport improvements. Public transport organisation is one of the areas TIDE focuses on and the BKK Centre for Budapest Transport is TIDE’s ideal partner to prove that changing the management structures can help to manage the change. TIDE is funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission and runs from October 2012 until September 2015. The project aims to foster a more favourable climate for cities and regions to integrate innovations in their urban mobility policies. This should lead to increased acceptance and take-up of new urban transport solutions and technologies. TIDE will help cities and regions to address common challenges in a collaborative and integrated way. Innovative ideas usually start in one or a few places before they reach wider coverage. TIDE will help cities and regions across Europe to shorten the path towards the implementation of innovative measures by showing that it is not necessary to re-invent the wheel but much more effective to exchange on innovation and transfer successful solutions from one European region to another. TIDE thus offers a cost-efficient way of spreading innovation throughout Europe.

The Transport Innovation Deployment for Europe project – also known as TIDE1 – looks at 15 innovative measures that can change European cities. Innovation is not only technological: smart policies and institutional reform can create the perfect environment for urban transport improvements. Public transport organisation is one of the areas TIDE focuses on and the BKK Centre for Budapest Transport is TIDE’s ideal partner to prove that changing the management structures can help to manage the change.

TIDE is funded by the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission and runs from October 2012 until September 2015. The project aims to foster a more favourable climate for cities and regions to integrate innovations in their urban mobility policies. This should lead to increased acceptance and take-up of new urban transport solutions and technologies. TIDE will help cities and regions to address common challenges in a collaborative and integrated way.

Innovative ideas usually start in one or a few places before they reach wider coverage. TIDE will help cities and regions across Europe to shorten the path towards the implementation of innovative measures by showing that it is not necessary to re-invent the wheel but much more effective to exchange on innovation and transfer successful solutions from one European region to another. TIDE thus offers a cost-efficient way of spreading innovation throughout Europe.

European cities have indicated on several occasions that innovation can be a way out of the crisis. Innovation can save costs and can help to reach urban policy goals. But cities lack resources to conclude a full innovation cycle. TIDE helps to shorten the innovation path.

TIDE will enhance the broad take-up of 15 innovative urban transport and mobility measures throughout Europe and will make a visible contribution to establishing them as mainstream measures. The TIDE partnership is making a range of new and feasible solutions more easily accessible to address key challenges of urban transport such as energy efficiency, decarbonisation, demographic change, safety, access for all and new economic and financial conditions.

TIDE focuses on fostering awareness, advancing expertise via tried and new tools, practical work with cities, and costs and benefits. The needs of practitioners in European cities are thereby a guiding principle. TIDE is actively supporting 15 committed cities to develop implementation scenarios for innovative urban transport measures, setting the example to an even wider group of take-up candidates. These measures cover the following five TIDE themes: new pricing measures; non-motorised transport; advanced network and traffic management to support traveller information; electric mobility; and public transport organisation.

How did we select the TIDE innovative transport measures?

TIDE covers three innovative measures per thematic cluster. Two of these innovative measures were identified by the TIDE cities and thematic experts, while the third innovative measure was selected through a consultation process with a wide range of external cities and experts. The aim of the consultation process was to find innovative measures for each thematic cluster that have a high innovation degree on the one hand and high potential for large-scale and mainstream implementation in the coming years on the other hand. The con – sultation included an online-survey and expert workshop. Based on the findings from the selection process, a third measure was selected that was a priority for the respective TIDE partner cities and fitted the criteria of the TIDE project consortium. The second purpose of the survey was to check with stakeholders whether the aforementioned pre-selected innovative measures were in-line with European cities’ innovation needs and appropriate to address local challenges experienced by these cities. This process resulted in the final selection of 15 TIDE innovative measures across five TIDE themes as shown in Table 1.

TIDE on public transport organisation

Public transport is facing the strong com – petition of private cars. Public transport systems that want to be successful and competitive in 2020 should take into account the following four main trends: public debt increase; the ageing society; the increase of oil prices; and the expansion of metropolitan areas. These trends will result in a growing demand for public transport and a possible lack of capacity on many public transport systems. The organisation of public transport includes the programming of its operation and development in a given geographical area. For an efficient opera – tion, it is necessary to determine the form of market relations, the market structure and the scope of its regulation, as well as the financing system.

TIDE looks at the following three measures in this area:

Creation of public transport management bodies for metropolitan areas

The integrated planning of public transport should be the responsibility of specialised bodies which focus on strengthening both the integration and competition within transport systems in order to provide maximum value for money and to balance spatial and environ – mental issues. Such metropolitan public transport management bodies should respect different needs and financial possibilities of urban, suburban and rural communities and their residents. They should also be responsible for strategic and tactical planning. The detailed scope of their activities should be discussed on a case-by-case basis, as there are many different practices in Europe.

Contracting of services focused on improving passenger satisfaction and efficiency

Contracting (tendering) public transport to external operators can improve efficiency – achieving lower costs and better quality. A key success factor is the proper development of a contract, focused on motivating an operator to deliver optimal levels of quality – features that customers desire and are willing to pay for. Many cities have introduced a new generation of contracts – so-called ‘gross-cost contracts with incentives’. The operator receives full cost coverage, with extra bonuses and fines, depending on the achieved quality level. Revenues and revenue risks are taken over by the public authority.

Marketing research as optimisation tool in public transport

Marketing research is widely used in the business sector. It includes the collection of data and information about the market and its environment and enterprises. In public transport, it could be used for evaluation and improvement purposes and for predicting future changes in transport behaviour. Carrying out such research on a regular basis can also be seen as an effective way of recognising future and current market needs. Marketing research is also used to recognise the volume and structure of demand and incomes for public transport when different partners (cities) are involved in the organisation and financing of public transport services (metropolitan dimension). Marketing research data provides valuable input for transport modelling (especially qualitative data on transport behaviour and preferences) and could be used together with sophisticated ITS solutions as well for sustain – able urban mobility plans, which have become common practice in some of the old EU Member States and are currently being introduced in the new ones.

TIDE in practice: the BKK approach

BKK is the fully integrated urban transport managing authority of the Hungarian capital, Budapest. Within the new city governance model, BKK is a new entity between the local government and transport providers and operators. Within this framework (controlled by Public Service Contracts) strategic planning, development, management, ordering and control functions are integrated into one organisation. The institutional integration process started in November 2010. The main organisational changes have finished during 2012, however due to the steadily growing number of tasks and employees there is still room for fine tuning. The further major step on institutional level should be the improvement of regional integration in transport services on the Budapest metropolitan region. Besides the creation of a more transparent and cost effective urban transport management, the aim was to create an urban transport knowledge centre. This role can be strengthened with the implementation of research and development projects such as TIDE.

Market research is a widely-used method in the business sector but it is rarely used in transportation. It could be used more widely to improve the efficiency of the transport services. Carrying out research on a regular basis can effectively help to recognise current and future market needs. In Budapest, development of an integrated multimodal transport model is currently under process and market research could provide valuable input concerning qualitative data on transport behaviour and preferences. Based on the experience in this project, the use of market research techniques in the public transport development might become an everyday practice in Budapest.

References

1. www.tide-innovation.eu

2. www.polisnetwork.eu

 

Biography

Ivo Cré has been Project Manager at Polis since May 2006. Before joining Polis, Ivo was Policy Officer for mobility at EUROCITIES, Assistant to a Member of the European Parlia – ment, Advisor to the Belgian Minister of Environment, and Project Leader at Langzaam Verkeer. He has been involved in a wide range of European transport projects and also coordinates the POLIS Working Group on economic and social aspects of transport. Polis is a network of European cities and regions working together to develop innovative tech – nologies and policies for local transport. Since 1989, European local and regional authorities have been working together within Polis to promote sustainable mobility through the deployment of innovative transport solutions. Our aim is to improve local transport through integrated strategies that address the economic, social and environmental dimensions of transport. To this end, Polis supports the exchange of experiences and the transfer of knowledge between European local and regional authorities. It also facilitates the dialogue between local and regional authorities and other actors of the sector such as industry, research centres and universities, and NGOs.

Tamás Mátrai joined the Transport Strategy Department at BKK in December 2011 after his graduation from the MIT-Portugal Programme. He has extensive experience in cost-benefit analyses, feasibility studies and transport modelling for development projects. Tamás has been involved and managed several transport-related research and development projects funded by the European Commission.

Marcin Wołek has been an Assistant Professor at the Uni – versity of Gdansk in the Department of the Trans – portation Market of the Faculty of Economics since 2006. Marcin got his Ph.D. in 2005. He has extensive experience in the implementation and management of sustainable urban transport projects. Marcin has managed the TROLLEY project (Central Europe Programme) within the University of Gdansk. His scientific research focuses on sustainable mobility within cities, passenger railway transport and market research of the transport marketplace.

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