Walking and Cycling
The Future of Public Transport Funding
28 February 2024
- Fund public transport as a crucial part of a sustainable, decarbonised and accessible transport system.
- Formulate integrated funding strategies for future public transport services.
- Ensure effective co-ordination between levels of government when funding public transport investments.
- Improve the efficiency of public transport infrastructure investments and service provision.
- Adopt explicit fare policies and implement them via formal processes.
- Use structured fare policies for more equitable accessibility.
Improving the Quality of Walking and Cycling in Cities
15 February 2024
- Focus on improving the quality (not quantity) of walking and cycling in cities.
- Democratise mobility space to ensure citizens can travel more safely, healthily and in comfort.
- Incorporate violence reduction as a critical transport policy goal.
- Remove car blinders from transport appraisal methods and consider a broader range of alternatives.
- Remove moto-normative policies to increase the effectiveness of new pro-walking and cycling policies.
- Decouple walking and cycling to focus on the different needs of pedestrians and cyclists.
- Ensure access to high-quality collective transport to enable better walking and cycling.
How Governments Can Bring Low-Emission Trucks to Our Roads – and Fast
13 December 2023
- Do not allow technological uncertainty to delay action. Postponing investment decisions due to technological uncertainty could cost more in environmental damages than acting proactively to support technologies that already have a high likelihood of success.
- Decide and provide. Policy makers should support only a limited number of promising solutions to guide the market and avoid diluting funds.
- Support for battery-electric vehicles is a low-regret policy. Electric truck technologies have the greatest potential to be low-carbon and cost-competitive.
- Invest in charging infrastructure with care, but without delay. Deploying depot chargers and strengthening grids pre-emptively of demand are essential.
Perspectivas del Transporte del ITF 2023
10 December 2023
- Desarrollar estrategias globales para la movilidad y las infraestructuras futuras.
- Acelerar la transición a flotas de vehículos limpios.
- Aplicar políticas de cambio de modo de transporte y gestión de la demanda allí donde sean
más eficaces. - Considerar los beneficios adicionales para las zonas urbanas al evaluar las políticas.
- Reformar la fiscalidad de los vehículos para reflejar los costes externos de los nuevos parques
automovilísticos.
Using Safety Performance Indicators to Improve Road Safety: The case of Korea
10 December 2023
- Adopt safety performance indicators to gain deeper insights into road-safety challenges
- Incorporate safety performance indicators in long-term national road safety strategies
- Identify and prioritise road-safety focus areas that reflect local circumstances
- Deploy tailored safety performance indicators for at-risk groups
- Introduce comprehensive data collection guidelines and maintain methodological consistency
- Use safety performance indicators to monitor road-safety progress regularly
- Establish clear targets and implement a robust mechanism to integrate safety performance indicators in the policy-formulation process
Transit-Oriented Development and Accessibility: Case studies from Southeast Asian cities
8 October 2023
- Ensure sufficient availability of public transport and infrastructure for active modes.
- Integrate transport planning with land use planning for co-ordinated implementation of measures.
- Embrace disruptive mobility trends in ways that ensure improved accessibility.
- Collect more and better-quality data on urban mobility to underpin transit-oriented development.
- Learn from international experiences with transit-oriented development and apply them locally.
Shifting the Focus: Smaller Electric Vehicles for Sustainable Cities
26 September 2023
- Shift the focus of policies that promote electric vehicles to end the dependency on large, under-used vehicles.
- Help make smaller electric vehicles an attractive choice for citizens.
- Ensure the transition to smaller electric vehicles goes in hand with adequate safety provisions.
- Fast-track the electrification of shared mobility services in complement with public transport.
- Ensure the availability of enough charging points to make electric mobility attractive.
Decarbonisation, Coastal Shipping and Multimodal Transport
10 September 2023
Include coastal shipping in national decarbonisation strategies.
Support the sector’s decarbonisation efforts by reducing investment uncertainty.
Harness the regional development potential of coastal shipping.
Strengthen competition enforcement while leveraging maritime cabotage regulations.
Decarbonisation and the Pricing of Road Transport
20 June 2023
- Reform fuel taxes
- Supplement fuel taxes with distance-based charges
- Consider opt-in arrangements for the introduction of new distance-based charges
- Introduce congestion charges where required
- Consider earmarking congestion charging revenues for improving public transport and active mobility
- Set the level of road-user charges to meet sustainable transport objectives
- Make introducing differentiated distance-based charges a policy priority
- Reform incentives for the uptake of electric vehicles to better align with policy goals
ITF Transport Outlook 2023
23 May 2023
- Develop comprehensive strategies for future mobility and infrastructure
- Accelerate the transition to clean vehicle fleets
- Implement mode shift and demand-management policies where they are most effective
- Consider the additional benefits for urban areas when evaluating policies
- Reform vehicle taxation to capture external costs of new vehicle fleets
Preparing Infrastructure for Automated Vehicles
3 May 2023
- Policy makers need new skills and partners to optimise the function and benefits of automated vehicles on their roads
- Automated vehicles will use existing roads in the near term, and are supported by good maintenance to a defined standard
- Developing “invisible infrastructures” offers greater opportunities for near-term benefits than upgrades to physical infrastructure
- A blueprint for co-operation can help traffic managers maximise the benefit of introducing automated vehicles as part of a wider transport network
- Standardised testing procedures across jurisdictions can accelerate the spread of automated vehicles
- Traffic laws and behavioural norms must be ready for automated vehicles
- There needs to be clear and coherent responsibility for ensuring automated vehicles work within a Safe System
- Developers and policy makers should co-operate on a research programme focused on key issues related to automated vehicles
How the war in Ukraine impacts aviation – and what to do about it
22 December 2022
- Investment and market reforms fueled Ukraine's aviation sector before the war.
- The war has shut down civil aviation in Ukraine and destroyed its airports.
- War-related airspace closures force international flights onto longer routes, resulting in longer travel times, higher fuel costs and added carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
- The energy crisis unleashed by the war drives up ticket prices, potentially reducing demand and threatening aviation's recovery from the pandemic.
- The war's short-term impacts on air travel could trigger long-lasting changes in international aviation.
- Restoring Ukraine's air connectivity after the war hinges on rebuilding destroyed aviation infrastructure.
- Ending aviation's dependency on fossil fuels can make the sector more resilient to future crises.
Carbon Pricing in Shipping
14 December 2022
- Introduce carbon pricing in shipping as part of a broader set of decarbonisation measures.
- Consider designing a carbon pricing mechanism for maritime shipping as a "feebate" system.
- Complement carbon pricing with a technical design requirement and a low-emission fuel standard.
- Use carbon pricing revenues from maritime shipping to facilitate an equitable transition to zero emissions.
- Make sure that these pricing schemes and standards cover well-to-wake emissions.
The Freight Space Race: Curbing the Impact of Freight Deliveries in Cities
6 December 2022
- Manage curb space with a focus on the needs of both passengers and goods transport.
- Apply access restrictions for delivery vehicles in urban areas while considering business practices.
- Use more logistics data to better monitor and manage freight flows.
Monitoring Progress in Urban Road Safety: 2022 Update
16 October 2022
- Ensure consistent collection of reliable urban road safety data.
- Create urban traffic observatories that collect both general mobility data and road safety data.
- Set ambitious reduction targets for the number of traffic crash casualties in cities.
- Focus on protecting vulnerable road users on urban streets.
- Measure crash risks for vulnerable road users with appropriate indicators.
- Adopt an integrated urban mobility plan based on Safe System principles.
Decarbonising Europe’s Trucks: How to Minimise Cost Uncertainty
4 September 2022
- Ensure that policies to promote direct electrification of trucks remain technology-neutral.
- Launch targeted studies and pilot projects to assess the merits of electric road systems for road freight decarbonisation.
- Further investigate decarbonisation technologies for particularly challenging road freight applications.
- Introduce policies that help zero-emission vehicles become cost-competitive sooner.
- Accelerate the deployment of zero-emission vehicle infrastructure.
- Strengthen regulations that make trucks more energy-efficient.
Broadening Transport Appraisal
31 August 2022
Develop long-term strategic infrastructure plans that explicitly identify transport policy objectives.
Broaden project appraisal to ensure its processes and practices take account of all transport policy objectives, as embedded in strategic infrastructure plans.
Incorporate accessibility indicators, or other relevant tools, to assess equity impacts in transport project appraisals.
Provide detailed guidance on accounting for climate change impacts in transport project appraisals, incorporating clear linkages between shadow carbon prices and emissions reductions commitments.
Present the results of transport project appraisals in a transparent and concise format that highlights needs-case assessments.
Ensure decision-making processes for large investments in transport systems account for uncertainties and the need for broad stakeholder support.
Integrate technical assessment, process management and public engagement into decision processes for major transport infrastructure investments.
Undertake systematic ex-post evaluation for all transport infrastructure projects entailing expenditure above an identified level.
Consider the merits of the permanent observatory model as a means of maximising the quality of evaluations.
Performance of Maritime Logistics
11 July 2022
- Improve competition monitoring in container shipping.
- Reconsider the competition arrangements for liner shipping.
- Focus regulatory attention on fair competition in door-to-door container transport.
- Increase transparency of container shipping rates and charges.
- Collect performance information on the containerised transport chain.
- Secure the strategic value of container shipping.
- Charge users of public maritime infrastructure more to increase cost coverage.
Dealing with the War’s Impacts on Ukraine’s Ports: How to Get More Grain to the World
10 July 2022
- Ukraine is the world’s third-largest grain exporter but the war has rendered most Ukrainian ports unusable. Grain exports have plummeted.
- Many countries in Africa and Asia depend on Ukrainian grain. The drop in exports has driven up food prices and raised fears of shortages and hunger.
- Ukraine can shift some grain exports to European ports with spare capacity. However, rail transport is complicated because of different rail gauges.
- Exporting Ukrainian grain via foreign ports adds transport costs of USD 150 or more per tonne. This is triple the average intercontinental shipping cost.
- An international agreement creating safe maritime corridors in the Black Sea would best safeguard grain exports from Ukraine.
The Safe System Approach in Action
29 June 2022
- Commit to a long-term Safe System initiative
- Build Safe System initiatives on data and evidence of effectiveness
- Start at a manageable level of activity and then scale up
- Build capacity for practical implementation of the Safe System approach, especially in low- and middle-income countries
- Use pilot projects to further test and develop the Safe System framework
- Use the framework to assess projects, organisations and policies, identify gaps, and plan effective strategies
Mode Choice in Freight Transport
27 February 2022
- Apply integrated policy approaches to create coherent interventions across freight-transport modes.
- Focus on mitigating external costs associated with each freight mode, rather than on modal shift as such.
- Improve the evaluation of policy interventions’ effectiveness to better inform measures that influence the choice of freight transport modes.
- Create fair competition between freight transport modes.
Streets That Fit: Re-allocating Space for Better Cities
17 February 2022
- Adopt meaningful indicators for how urban street space is used.
- Re-allocate street space to account for diverse uses and users.
- Prioritise people over vehicles when allocating street space.
- Explore the benefits of dynamically re-allocating certain street spaces.
- Adopt Safe System principles to guide the re-allocation of street space.
Innovations for Better Rural Mobility
16 December 2021
- Formulate a countrywide accessibility policy and implement Sustainable Regional Mobility Plans (SRMP).
- Adopt a whole-of-government approach for rural public services and the local economy.
- Make regulations more flexible to allow for the development of innovative, cost-effective mobility solutions.
- Combine public mobility budgets to achieve cost savings.
- Fund pilot schemes to test innovative mobility concepts.
- Prioritise financial support for innovative services according to higher impact levels rather than use of high tech.
- Use innovative financing approaches to increase funding pools and viability of individual transport services.
- Increase central government funding for shared and active travel in rural areas.
- Provide technical assistance for rural mobility at the national or regional level.
- Promote mobility hubs to connect local services to the core network.
- Support the development of national or regional Mobility as a Service (MaaS).
Artificial Intelligence in Proactive Road Infrastructure Safety Management
15 December 2021
- Develop a competitive market for the sharing and monetising of traffic and mobility data.
- Do not wait for real-time data before developing risk maps.
- Mandate the sharing of aggregate vehicle data.
- Learn from other fields and best practice for data sharing and privacy protection.
- Support research and innovation towards trusted and explainable AI.
- Align new tools with precise policy objectives.
- Develop new skills and digital infrastructure.
- Clarify regulatory frameworks for data protection and digital security.
- Design user-friendly risk-mapping tools.
Motorway Safety in Korea
6 December 2021
- Develop a proactive approach to motorway safety.
- Promote work-related road safety in road haulage companies and in other sectors.
- Review the cost-benefit evaluation of road safety investment.
- Create an observatory to map and monitor unsafe situations and behaviours.
- Review the legal and operational frameworks for speed enforcement.
- Set high vehicle safety standards inspired by those developed in the European Union.
- Upgrade the physical and digital infrastructure for the adoption of connected and automated driving.
- Set guidance and standards for the rapid deployment of Co‑operative-ITS services in Korea.
- The KEC should invest in solutions that protect road users, from the most traditional to the most innovative.
Container Port Automation: Impacts and Implications
7 October 2021
- Put more focus on flexible labour arrangements.
- Better identify the costs and benefits of port automation projects.
- Stimulate social dialogue and co-operation between employers and workers on port automation.
- Address social costs of automation.
Data-driven Transport Infrastructure Maintenance
12 September 2021
- Scale up and speed up the deployment of data-driven approaches to transport infrastructure maintenance.
- Update regulation and guidelines for transport infrastructure maintenance to facilitate the introduction of more data-driven approaches.
- Ensure data-driven infrastructure maintenance approaches follow good practices in data governance.
Cleaner Vehicles: Achieving a Resilient Technology Transition
20 July 2021
- Support the adoption of clean vehicles with targeted policy action and by increasing transparency of their carbon footprint.
- Prioritise a transition to direct electrification of vehicles and renewable energy.
- Address challenges in resource efficiency and sustainable supply chains.
- Prepare for a transition from fuel duties by seizing opportunities arising from increased connectivity and accelerating enabling regulatory actions.
- Include infrastructure for easy access to clean energy and digital connectivity of road transport in Covid‑19 recovery packages.
- Prepare for the impact of the sustainable mobility transition on jobs, required skill sets and social equity.
- Accelerate the development of other low-carbon technologies.
Developing Strategic Approaches to Infrastructure Planning
22 February 2021
- Governments should adopt a strategic approach to infrastructure planning. This should be communicated clearly via an explicit, detailed and periodically updated strategic infrastructure plan.
- Strategic infrastructure plans should be linked to explicit infrastructure funding envelopes, with project pipelines identified, at least in broad terms.
- Governments should consider the merits of establishing independent infrastructure advisory bodies to provide transparent, expert advice on long-term, cross-sectoral infrastructure strategy, planning and policy development, as well as priorities for medium-to-longer-term infrastructure investment.
- Arrangements for the establishment of independent bodies should address key governance principles, such as those identified in the OECD’s Principles for the Governance of Regulators.
- Infrastructure project appraisal should, as far as possible, be based on a consistent and transparent methodology.
- The OECD/ITF should publish a review of government and private sector infrastructure-related responses to the Covid‑19 pandemic.
- A formal policy framework should guide decisions on the stewardship of major infrastructure assets.
- Governments should review their infrastructure regulatory frameworks.
- Ex post performance assessment should be undertaken for all major projects.
- National infrastructure institutions and statistical agencies should co‑ordinate internationally to develop consistent infrastructure performance measures.
- Where cross-border infrastructure projects are adopted, they should be managed by a specific-purpose body with all parties represented. Policy objectives and performance standards should be clearly specified and governance, funding and accountability mechanisms established.
How Urban Delivery Vehicles can Boost Electric Mobility
10 December 2020
- Prioritise electrification of vehicles with high mileage and regular daily activity, including LCVs in last-mile delivery.
- Promote electric light commercial vehicles in cities and tightly regulate combustion-engine vehicles.
- Strengthen fuel economy standards, zero-emission mandates and economic incentives for light commercial vehicles.
- Define regulatory requirements and clarify costs for upgrades to the electricity grid needed for electric vehicles.
- Use vehicle design and components of electric passenger cars to unlock price reductions of electric light commercial vehicles.
- Strengthen co-operation among stakeholders to reduce investments risks for the manufacturing of electric light commercial vehicles.