All Transport
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.
Urban Planning and Travel Behaviour
19 December 2022
- Improve co-ordination between transport planning and other policy areas.
- Foster effective metropolitan governance of transport.
- Develop and implement sustainable urban mobility plans.
- Move beyond planning based on demand forecasts towards vision-led, strategic transport planning.
- Use relevant indicators to monitor the performance of transport systems.
- Rectify biases in policies that favour car travel over alternative transport options.
- Prioritise investments that improve the use of low-range and sustainable transport modes.
- Reallocate road space to sustainable, efficient and safe transport modes.
The Freight Space Race: Curbing the Impact of Freight Deliveries in Cities
5 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.
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.
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.
Streets That Fit: Re-allocating Space for Better Cities
16 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.
Cruise Shipping and Urban Development: The Case of Venice
21 December 2016
- Create certainty about the future of cruise shipping in Venice.
- Develop a tourism strategy for the city including guidance on which tourists to prioritise.
- Develop instruments to contain the number of tourists in the city of Venice.
- Develop an action plan for extracting more value from home port passengers.
- Give a more structural character to environmental policies that have a discontinuous nature.
Adapting Transport to Climate Change and Extreme Weather
14 December 2016
- Act now to preserve the value of transport infrastructure and maintain network performance.
- Protect transport infrastructure against climate impacts through good maintenance.
- Prepare for more frequent and unexpected failure of transport infrastructure.
- Account for temporary unavailability of transport assets in in service continuity plans.
- Assess vulnerability of transport assets and networks from climate change and extreme weather.
- Focus on transport system resilience, not just on designing robust infrastructure.
- Re-evaluate thinking on redundant transport infrastructure.
- Do not rely solely on cost-benefit analysis for appraising the value of transport infrastructure.
- Develop new decision-support tools that incorporate deep uncertainty into asset appraisal.
Airport Demand Forecasting for Long-Term Planning
6 July 2016
- Use quantitative methods to analyse the key drivers of airport demand.
- Use expert guidance to help interpret the quantitative results.
- Quality-assure the analysis and counter the risks of optimism bias.
- Reflect the risks and uncertainties that arise in even the best forecasts.
- Make better use of demand forecasts in airport infrastructure planning.
Regulation of For-Hire Passenger Transport: Portugal in International Comparison
9 June 2016
- Steer policy development towards mobility services that allow efficient achievement of public policy objectives regarding the needs of consumers and society.
- Encourage innovative and more flexible regulation of for-hire transport services.
- Embrace data-led regulation to improve societal outcomes.
- Keep the regulatory framework of for-hire passenger transport services as simple and uniform as possible.
App-Based Ride and Taxi Services: Principles for Regulation
9 May 2016
- Focus policy regarding for-hire passenger transport on the needs of consumers and society.
- Keep the regulation framework of for-hire passenger transport services as simple and uniform as possible.
- Encourage innovative and more flexible regulation of for-hire transport services.
- Embrace data-led regulation to improve societal outcomes.
Shared Mobility: Innovation for Liveable Cities
9 May 2016
- Shared mobility benefits depend on creating the right market conditions and operational frameworks.
- Shared mobility has significant environmental benefits, even with current engine technology.
- Shared mobility will radically change public transport and most traditional bus services will disappear.
- Public authorities must guide the deployment of shared mobility systems and anticipate their impacts.
Capacity to Grow: Transport Infrastructure Needs for Future Trade Growth
8 May 2016
- Develop planning tools to adapt to uncertainties: Good port planning means planning for uncertainties.
- Increase port capacity by optimising existing terminals.
- Take a holistic planning approach to improving port capacity needs as part of the entire supply chain.
- Use funding as a balancing tool in port capacity development.
Adapting Transport Policy to Climate Change
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.
Road Infrastructure Safety Management
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.
The Impact of Mega-Ships
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.
Urban Mobility System Upgrade
31 March 2015
- Self-driving vehicles could change public transport as we currently know it.
- The potential impact of self-driving shared fleets on urban mobility is significant. It will be shaped by policy choices and deployment options.
- Active management is needed to lock in the benefits of freed space.
- Improvements in road safety are almost certain. Environmental benefits will depend on vehicle technology.
- New vehicle types and business models will be required.
- Public transport, taxi operations and urban transport governance will have to adapt.
- Mixing fleets of shared self-driving vehicles and privately-owned cars will not deliver the same benefits as a full TaxiBot/AutoVot fleet - but it still remains attractive.