Rail
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Establishing Mexico’s Regulatory Agency for Rail Transport
29 February 2016
- Any reform of the rail concessioning system must preserve the current high level of performance.
- Accept price discrimination to ensure efficiency, with the regulatory agency to adjudicate what prices are reasonable.
- Focus regulation on cases where effective competition does not already exist.
- Collect adequate financial and operating data on the rail companies as the basis for effective regulatory decisions.
- Consider cutting the cost of regulation by including an arbitration mechanism in any further regulatory reform.
- Consider inter-switching rules in any further regulatory reform.
- Interchange traffic rights should not be expected to be used for shippers to specify routes.
- Resource the new regulator with sufficient expertise to convince the courts that its decisions are sound.
The Competitiveness of Ports in Emerging Markets: The Case of Durban, South Africa
1 November 2014
- Create an inter-departmental freight unit within the city of Durban that can bundle expertise and act as a one-stop shop for freight-related issues in the city. This unit could act as a vehicle to improve coordination on freight transport and engage in joint planning, aligning various actors including Transnet, SANRAL, the national and provincial departments of Transportation and the various departments within the city of Durban.
- Increase the autonomy of TNPA and streamline decision-making procedures within Transnet. This includes more financial autonomy, e.g. by creating a separate fund at the disposal for TNPA for port infrastructure and maintenance.
- Focus performance indicators on the performance of the whole supply chain. Currently much focus seems to be on part of the picture (e.g. crane productivity) without much consideration for (and sometimes even at the detriment of) other indicators.
- Undertake a comprehensive environmental port impact study and implement green-port mitigation policies if necessary