Stephen Glaister

Road Traffic Demand Elasticity Estimates: A Review

A brief summary of road traffic‐related elasticity estimates as reported in the international literature is given. An indication of the orders of magnitude of these elasticities is outlined and the variation in estimates commonly found is emphasized. The results of previous extensive surveys are collated, but a wider scope of traffic‐related research is provided by reviewing recent work and including research that has received less attention. A variety of elasticity measures related to car travel, car ownership, freight traffic and fuel demand are reported. Based on the review, some important themes underpinning the demand for road traffic are revealed.

Spatial Variation in Road Pedestrian Casualties: The Role of Urban Scale, Density and Land-use Mix

This paper examines the role of urban scale, density and land-use mix on the incidence of road pedestrian casualties. It develops a spatial model at a disaggregate level that attempts to understand how the nature of the urban environment, with its associated traffic generation characteristics, affects the incidence of road pedestrian casualties. The results show that the characteristics of the local environment have a powerful influence on pedestrian casualties. The incidence of pedestrian casualties and KSIs is higher in residential than in economic zones and a quadratic relationship is found between urban density and pedestrian casualties with incidents diminishing for the most extremely dense wards. Distinguishing broad land-use effects, the paper explores the ways in which population and employment density influence pedestrian casualties.

Past Abuses and Future Uses of Private Finance and Public Private Partnerships in Transport

The article explains the origins of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and the way the policy has evolved under the present Labour administration into Public Private Partnership (PPP). The author gives an assessment of the future prospects for the PFI/PPP in the transport sector. He believes that PPPs can make a considerable contribution towards efficient transport service delivery and this will be maximized if there is a better understanding of what the policies are seeking to achieve. Much of the action in the immediate future in transport PPPs will be with the local authorities, including the new Greater London Authority.

ECONOMIES OF SCALE AND DENSITY IN URBAN RAIL TRANSPORT: EFFECTS ON PRODUCTIVITY

This paper examines economies of scale and density in urban rail transport. It isolates the effects of constant and non-constant returns on output and productivity growth using data relating to 17 rail systems in cities around the world. Estimates reveal constant returns to scale but increasing returns to density. The productivity model shows that total factor productivity change has been of great importance in differentiating the output performance of urban rail systems. Our analysis of average labour productivity confirms the importance of shifts to other factors of production and technological change in explaining changing levels of output per worker.

Decomposing the determinants of road traffic demand

This study presents a decomposition of the basic fundamental determinants of road traffic and fuel demand. A general framework is proposed as a means of analysing the impacts of changes in prices and income on the demand for fuel and traffic volume. The objective is to provide a general basis for comparing different road traffic elasticity estimates and for understanding how a variety of different factors work together to create overall road traffic and fuel demand responses. The study emphasizes relationships between different price and income elasticity measures and uses estimates from the literature to evaluate the main determinants of demand including some previously unobserved effects.

Getting Public Private Partnerships Going in Transport

This paper is a contribution to the debate about appropriate financing mechanisms for public investment in Britain. The paper examines the governments plans for the London Underground Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), against the experience offunding the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), and examines alternative funding mechanisms, including bond financing. The keyfindings are that whilst the PFI is a usefulfinancial toolfor certain types of projects and to fill certain types of financing gaps, an alternative option of funding Underground investments by way of a bond issue is preferable, with project management and construction work being undertaken by the private sector. Should the Government go ahead with the PPP in its present form, it is essential that the commitment to undertake a Public Sector Comparator be seen to be a genuine test for good value for money against the best realistic alternative, namely one using the cheaper financing offered by a bond issue. The comparison should be undertaken by an independent agency such as the National Audit Office, and be in the public domain. But the PPP is not the only way forward. The arrangements for the PPP cut across the Governments own desire to return local democracy to London. There is still an opportunity to deliver a cheaper, more democratic, alternative.

Competition and Investment

The policy of the Conservative governments between 1979 and 1997 was to use market forces to improve the delivery of transport services — driving down fares, costs, charges and subsidies and increasing the quantity and quality of investment — by releasing it from the restraints of public-sector control. Competition has been increased in the provision of air, bus, rail and road freight services. The regulatory arrangements have been adjusted accordingly to secure the public interest within the new structures. This chapter assesses the extent to which these goals have been attained, particularly in road and rail transport.

National Road Pricing in Great Britain: Is it Fair and Practical?

This chapter aims to inform the debate by illustrating the potential winners and losers and equity implications of two national road charging scenarios. The authors have modeled a fully revenue-additional scheme as well as a revenue-neutral scheme to examine how changes in traffic, charges for road use and speed would differ by region, levels of deprivation, urbanization and other aspects of driver behavior. By evaluating the distributional consequences of two “polar policies”, this chapter discusses whether road pricing can be made to work effectively in the United Kingdom (UK) context.

London: Crossing London: Overcoming the Obstacles to CrossRail

Londons main transport modes are over-loaded. An important part of the solution is CrossRail, a new east-west underground railway. It was agreed and fully planned all of ten years ago; but the obstacles to its construction are severe and have become worse as time has passed. While the value of CrossRail is clear and generally recognized, a large number of direct interests have both the incentive and the power to object to it as a specific proposal, in an attempt to secure a better outcome for themselves. Many commercial, public and governing institutions will have to be persuaded to make a sacrifice in the interests of the project going ahead.

Sources of Finance

When Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative government came to power in 1979 the road haulage industry and private vehicles were paid for by the private sector, as was shipping and much of the civil aviation industry; but large parts of the transport sector — buses and trains, roads and railways, ports and airports — were still wholly or largely owned and operated by agents of central or local government. In the case of roads construction and maintenance, finance also came from central or local government, and central or local government made substantial financial contributions to subsidize users of public transport. The Conservative administrations sought to disengage government from the transport sector: to privatize, to deregulate and to put residual administrative control in the hands of new, single-purpose bodies such as the Highways Agency and the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising. There has been a parallel policy of shifting responsibility for funding from the public to the private sector. Chapter 3 discussed the new administrative arrangements. This chapter outlines the responsibilities for funding that remain with central and local governments, and the new sources of privatesector finance.