Walking and Cycling
Navigating Towards Cleaner Maritime Shipping
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
15 November 2020
- Increase the energy efficiency of new and existing ships.
- Leverage public sector procurement to stimulate the electrification of short-distance shipping.
- Introduce regulations on lifecycle emissions of maritime fuels.
- Put in place carbon pricing for shipping and policies that can reduce the carbon content of shipping fuels.
- Advance the discussion on market-based mechanisms at the International Maritime Organization.
- Launch pilot projects to gain experience with new fuels and accelerate the adoption of safety guidelines.
Monitoring Progress in Urban Road Safety
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
4 November 2020
- Set ambitious targets to reduce the number of casualties.
- Create joint mobility and safety observatories in cities.
- Put the focus on protecting vulnerable road users.
- Measure the safety of vulnerable road users in cities with appropriate indicators.
Safe Micromobility
Corporate Partnership Board Report, Policy Insights,
17 February 2020
- Allocate protected space for micromobility and keep pedestrians safe.
- To make micromobility safe, focus on motor vehicles.
- Regulate low-speed e-scooters and e-bikes as bicycles, higher-speed micro-vehicles as mopeds.
- Collect data on micro-vehicle trips and crashes.
- Proactively manage the safety performance of street networks.
- Include micromobility in training for road users.
- Tackle drunk driving and speeding across all vehicle types.
- Eliminate incentives for micromobility riders to speed.
- Improve micro-vehicle design.
- Reduce wider risks associated with shared micromobility operations.
Adapting Transport Policy to Climate Change
Research Report, Policy Insights,
30 November 2015
- Uncertainty is different from risk.
- Climate effects are subject to uncertainty.
- There are techniques to deal with risk.
- There is currently no robust method to treat Knightian uncertainty.
- Risk, uncertainty and discount rate all affect carbon value.
Improving Safety for Motorcycle, Scooter and Moped Riders
Research Report, Policy Insights,
7 October 2015
- The powered two-wheeler population is increasing and plays a significant role in mobility.
- Powered two-wheeler (PTW) riders are at far greater risk than car drivers.
- Poor perception and control are frequent failures that lead to PTW crashes.
- A Safe System approach is required to improve the safety of PTWs.
- The helmet is the most important source of protection against severe injuries and death.
- Advances in car technology can also bring positive safety benefits to PTW users. There are a number of new technologies, such as forward collision warning, blind spot information and vulnerable road user protection systems, which can prevent collisions, including those with PTW riders, pedestrians and cyclists.
Road Infrastructure Safety Management
IRTAD, Policy Insights,
6 October 2015
- Benchmark road infrastructure against good practices in other countries.
- Implement new minimum safety standards for road infrastructure.
- Continue evaluation and research to quantify safety impacts of planning decisions.
- Implement suitable Road Infrastructure Safety Management procedures for each stage of road development including planning design, pre-opening and full operation.
- Make Road Infrastructure Safety Management procedures legally binding.
- Involve both road and health authorities when developing road accident data bases.
- Assure adequate institutional management capacity and investment levels.
- Use existing tools and guidelines; adopt second-best solutions where state-of-the-art solutions are not feasible.
- Identify the Road Safety Infrastructure Management procedures that fit specific needs and understand barriers to implementation.
- Share good practices of Road infrastructure Safety Management procedures and intervention measures.
- Monitor the safety performance of road infrastructure.
- Develop self-explaining roads.
Why Does Road Safety Improve When Economic Times Are Hard?
IRTAD, Policy Insights,
5 October 2015
- There is clear evidence that when economic growth declines, and particularly when unemployment increases, road safety improves.
- The financial and economic crises which started in 2007 were accompanied by marked falls in annual numbers of road deaths in most OECD countries.
- It is important to understand how much of the accelerated reduction in numbers of deaths during the downturn that began in 2008 was attributable to the changed economic conditions.
- The economic downturn in 2009-10 may well have contributed to about two-thirds of the decrease in fatalities from 2008.
- The recent downturn has had repercussions on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and unemployment rate and has influenced the number of road deaths through a reduction in vehicle kilometres driven, especially by young men and by heavy goods vehicles, a reduction in speeding and in drink-driving, and a reduction in learning to drive by young men.
- Policy makers need to take careful account of these results when setting road safety targets and when designing road safety strategies for the future.
The Impact of Mega-Ships
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
30 April 2015
- Cost savings from bigger container ships are decreasing.
- The transport costs due to larger ships could be substantial.
- Supply chain risks related to mega-container ships are rising.
- Public policies need to better take account of this and act accordingly.
- Further increase of maximum container ship size would raise ransport costs.
Cycling, Health and Safety
Research Report, Policy Insights,
19 December 2013
- Insufficient evidence supports causality for the “safety in numbers” phenomenon – policies increasing the number of cyclists should be accompanied by risk-reduction actions.
- Efforts must be made to harmonise definitions of bicycle accident terminology so as to be able to make reliable international comparisons on cyclist safety.
- National authorities should set standards for, collect or otherwise facilitate the collection of data on non-fatal cycling crashes based on police reports and, in either a systematic or periodic way, on hospital records.
- Authorities seeking to improve cyclists’ safety should adopt the Safe System approach - policy should focus on improving the inherent safety of the traffic system, not simply on securing marginal improvements for cyclists in an inherently unsafe system.
- Authorities should establish top-level plans for cycling and cycling safety and should ensure high-level coordination among relevant government agencies to ensure that cycling grows without aggravating safety performance.
- Speed management acts as “hidden infrastructure” protecting cyclists and should be included as an integral part of cycle safety strategies.
- Cyclists should not be the only target of cycling safety policies – motorists are at least as important to target.
- Where appropriate, traffic speeds should be limited to less than 30km/hr where bicycles and motorised traffic mix but care should be taken so that speed control devices do not create hazards for cyclists.
Better Regulation of Public-Private Partnerships for Transport Infrastructure
Roundtable Report, Policy Insights,
24 September 2013
- A mix of financing models spreads risks.
- A dedicated budget for PPPs, set in relation to the rate at which future liabilities will be accumulated, can provide such a limit.
- Explicit consideration of alternative financing arrangements should be employed in determining whether to proceed with PPP projects.
- It is recommended that governments require PPP projects to pass tests of affordability and to clear the hurdle rates of return generally applied to publicly financed transport projects.
- The expected cost of PPP projects should take account of cost inflation resulting from the propensity for projects to be renegotiated.
- At the individual project level, risks should be assigned to the party best able to manage them, along with rights to make related decisions.
- Assigning demand risk is not straightforward and risk sharing arrangements are therefore common.
- Continuity of resources and expertise is essential for addressing strategic behaviour and optimism bias more generally.
- Regulatory agencies are well placed to ensure transparency and accountability by publishing reports on the criteria employed to make decisions and publishing contracts.