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Photo: Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Smaller Projects
“We realized when we created the FUT programme that we would receive proposals that did not qualify for becoming CoE but that we nevertheless wanted to support. We also expected that some of the ideas in these proposals might provide bases for future CoE,” says Bengt Kasemo, chairman of VREF’s Scientific Council.
More than 40 Smaller Projects have been granted funding since the
FUT program was initiated in 2000. The next call for proposals for
Smaller Projects will target specific issues, and will require active
collaboration with at least one CoE.
The purpose of the FUT program’s Smaller Projects (SP) is to make use of ideas that VREF finds valuable but that do not justify the establishment of a new CoE. The projects must be relevant in the context of the FUT program’s overarching aim – to support research and education that contributes to the development of sustainable transportation systems – and are intended to complement the research performed at the Centres. Usually the projects receive funding for two years. “We realized when we created the FUT program that we would receive proposals that did not qualify for becoming CoE but that we nevertheless wanted to support. We also expected that some of the ideas in these proposals might provide bases for future CoE,” says Bengt Kasemo, chairman of VREF’s Scientific Council. Several of the current CoE developed as a result of Smaller Projects. These include: the Australasian Centre for Governance and Management of Urban Transport (GAMUT) in Melbourne; Sustainable Urban Transport in Less Motorised Countries: Research and Training in New Delhi; and the OMEGA Centre for the study of Mega Projects in Transport and Development in London.
One of the current SP – How policies can stimulate a sustainable modal choice for Beijing – is tied to the Beijing CoE and builds on a previous SP. The current project was defined against the background of conflict between the growing need for transportation services and the requirement to reduce emissions from the transportation sector. This is a dilemma for many of the world’s large and growing cities. Developing policies and strategies is an important first step toward achieving the goals of sustainable transportation. Researcher Haiyan Wu aims to quantify impacts of policies on modal choice, and to investigate ways to influence travelers to shift to more sustainable transportation modes. He is implementing a study within the project of travel behavior characteristics in Beijing. The survey results will provide input to a strategic policy optimization model, which will be used to calculate the degree to which transportation policy proposals for Beijing influence development in the sector. Another ongoing SP – In search of a mechanism for institutional coordination in the planning process: a strategy for improved public transportation in Sub-Saharan Africa – builds upon an earlier SP carried out in Dar es Salaam, which showed that persistent public transportation problems are partly due to lack of coordination between institutions in the planning process. The current project focuses on the importance of institutional coordination in the transportation planning process for achieving sustainable development.
“All of the various stakeholders, such as government departments, planning authorities and private sector interests, have been working in isolation from each other. As a result, the whole public transport scene in both Dar es Salaam and Nairobi is a mess. Now they have to decide what kind of framework will be suitable, based on the local context, so that public transportation planning will be effective,” says Ahmad Kanyama, project leader in the Department of Urban Studies at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. The ongoing project addresses questions such as: what coordination mechanisms can be used to help the institutions/sectors work together effectively, and how can doing so improve the quality of public transportation in cities in Sub-Saharan Africa? Kanyama has organized workshops to present results from the study to policy makers, researchers, transport operators and their associations, town and transportation planners, transport/traffic regulators and enforcers, and environmentalists. “We have presented our findings from the perspectives of the different stakeholders and talked about how applying the concepts of governance and leadership can facilitate effective coordination in the planning process for public transportation,” says Kanyama. As part of the study, output from the workshop is currently being analyzed.
In a previous SP – New evidence on public transport accessibility and its effect on car ownership – Carmen Hass-Klau at the Environmental and Transportation Planning Research Institute in Brighton studied the connection between private automobile ownership and public transportation in 17 urban areas in five countries. The study shows that in areas that have quality public transportation, car ownership has been reduced by about nine percent. In Germany reductions have been as much as 42 percent in some locations. The effects vary regionally. In some cases better public transportation attracts higher-income people to live there, without the high levels of car ownership they would otherwise choose. In other areas public transportation releases people with lower incomes from the pressure to buy a car. Underground systems have the strongest impact, then light rail/tram and rail. Bus lane corridors seem to have less effect, but the results are not yet conclusive.
A Manual for Social Impact Assessment of FUT Projects has been developed in close collaboration with the CoE in New Delhi. The design and planning of different transportation systems must take people’s varying abilities to utilize public transportation into account. Anita Anand studied how socioeconomic variables influence both access to and use of public transportation. The objective of the study, which was presented in Anand’s doctoral thesis, was to design a tool that enables the integration of Social Impact Assessments into FUT projects.
Developing policies
One of the current SP – How policies can stimulate a sustainable modal choice for Beijing – is tied to the Beijing CoE and builds on a previous SP. The current project was defined against the background of conflict between the growing need for transportation services and the requirement to reduce emissions from the transportation sector. This is a dilemma for many of the world’s large and growing cities. Developing policies and strategies is an important first step toward achieving the goals of sustainable transportation. Researcher Haiyan Wu aims to quantify impacts of policies on modal choice, and to investigate ways to influence travelers to shift to more sustainable transportation modes. He is implementing a study within the project of travel behavior characteristics in Beijing. The survey results will provide input to a strategic policy optimization model, which will be used to calculate the degree to which transportation policy proposals for Beijing influence development in the sector. Another ongoing SP – In search of a mechanism for institutional coordination in the planning process: a strategy for improved public transportation in Sub-Saharan Africa – builds upon an earlier SP carried out in Dar es Salaam, which showed that persistent public transportation problems are partly due to lack of coordination between institutions in the planning process. The current project focuses on the importance of institutional coordination in the transportation planning process for achieving sustainable development.
Suitable framework
“All of the various stakeholders, such as government departments, planning authorities and private sector interests, have been working in isolation from each other. As a result, the whole public transport scene in both Dar es Salaam and Nairobi is a mess. Now they have to decide what kind of framework will be suitable, based on the local context, so that public transportation planning will be effective,” says Ahmad Kanyama, project leader in the Department of Urban Studies at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. The ongoing project addresses questions such as: what coordination mechanisms can be used to help the institutions/sectors work together effectively, and how can doing so improve the quality of public transportation in cities in Sub-Saharan Africa? Kanyama has organized workshops to present results from the study to policy makers, researchers, transport operators and their associations, town and transportation planners, transport/traffic regulators and enforcers, and environmentalists. “We have presented our findings from the perspectives of the different stakeholders and talked about how applying the concepts of governance and leadership can facilitate effective coordination in the planning process for public transportation,” says Kanyama. As part of the study, output from the workshop is currently being analyzed.
Automobile ownership
In a previous SP – New evidence on public transport accessibility and its effect on car ownership – Carmen Hass-Klau at the Environmental and Transportation Planning Research Institute in Brighton studied the connection between private automobile ownership and public transportation in 17 urban areas in five countries. The study shows that in areas that have quality public transportation, car ownership has been reduced by about nine percent. In Germany reductions have been as much as 42 percent in some locations. The effects vary regionally. In some cases better public transportation attracts higher-income people to live there, without the high levels of car ownership they would otherwise choose. In other areas public transportation releases people with lower incomes from the pressure to buy a car. Underground systems have the strongest impact, then light rail/tram and rail. Bus lane corridors seem to have less effect, but the results are not yet conclusive.
Social development
A Manual for Social Impact Assessment of FUT Projects has been developed in close collaboration with the CoE in New Delhi. The design and planning of different transportation systems must take people’s varying abilities to utilize public transportation into account. Anita Anand studied how socioeconomic variables influence both access to and use of public transportation. The objective of the study, which was presented in Anand’s doctoral thesis, was to design a tool that enables the integration of Social Impact Assessments into FUT projects.
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2010