Tim Busscher

Revisiting a programmatic planning approach: managing linkages between transport and land use planning

The body of knowledge on transport and land use planning shows considerable overlap with management theories and practices. Notable examples can be found in project management and strategic management. Recently, in the field of management theory, the idea of programme management has gained prominence in response to the need to coordinate on a tactical level. Programme management links to both strategic management and project management, as it focuses on the coordinated management of related projects in order to realize strategic objectives. In line with the tradition to integrate management theories into spatial planning, the aim of this paper is to explore the power of a programme management approach in a transport and land use planning context. We investigate whether and how a programme management approach when applied in transport and land use planning can deal with three important interrelated challenges that emerge between the strategic and operational level in transport and land use planning: (1) linking strategic goals to operational projects, (2) developing the accompanying joint organizational structures, and (3) moulding fixed and separate procedures into more adaptive joint decision-making processes. To do so, we conducted an in-depth case study of two recent programme management approaches in Dutch transport and land use planning. We show that both programmes function as platforms where different parties come together and where a wide range of management and monitoring tools are used to guide the programme in a specific direction.

Bridging gaps: governing conflicts between transport and environmental policies

Developing new road infrastructure can be problematic in the face of environmental quality ambitions. These conflicts can even undermine the development of such new infrastructure, as occurred, for example, in the Netherlands in the mid-2000s as a result of European Union air quality standards. To govern the conflict between transport policies and air quality regulations, a National Cooperation Programme on Air Quality (NSL) was developed in The Netherlands. This programme relies on a collaborative governance approach between various government agencies on national, regional, and local levels. As such, it involves a relative shift away from central government coordination towards a reliance on more decentralized governance networks. Within these networks, coordination is expected to result from bottom-up self-governance processes by interacting actors that emerge from either competition and market processes or active actor participation. Theory shows two important risks of such a shift: (i) actors might behave opportunistically, and (ii) in case of problems, assigning problem ownership and responsibility to specific actors may be difficult. This paper aims to gain insight into the NSLs response to these risks. We monitored the NSL from 2009 to 2012, mainly through a series of interviews and expert workshops. Our research shows that the NSL contains the kind of ‘checks and balances’ that allows it to respond to the first risk. However, we will show that these mechanisms are merely expressions of intent. Furthermore, the NSL proves to be prone to the second identified risk, in that it is unclear who is responsible for the follow-up on these intentions, while rewards or sanctions are nonexistent. As it is, the NSL teaches us that, in order for more collaborative and decentralized forms of governance to function, involved actors on both central and lower levels of government paradoxically require coordinative instruments to enable coordination, to hold each other accountable for their performance, and to establish rules and sanctions.

Anticipating water infrastructure renewal : A framing perspective on organizational learning in public agencies

Water authorities in Western countries are increasingly confronted with waterway renewal. Ageing waterway infrastructures put the reliability of the existing network under pressure. Similarly, they open up the need to anticipate long-term uncertainties to ensure network performance. Aligning organizational practices to this new context can be considered an organizational learning process, which concerns improving current practices as well as reconsidering underlying values. Against the background of public management reforms, we aim to understand the organizational learning process in a case study of the Dutch authority Rijkswaterstaat, which is facing a major waterway renewal challenge. By developing a framing perspective on organizational learning, our analysis theoretically provides more insight into agencies anticipating change and empirically into waterway renewal in practice. Our research demonstrates that waterway renewal is primarily framed from a New Public Management viewpoint in which change is approached rather pragmatically. Accordingly, we observed a refinement of existing practice that protects the agency’s mission. Higher levels of learning were discarded as potentially disruptive to waterway management, leaving more fundamental change untouched. We therefore question to what extent water authorities are capable of fully addressing waterway renewal. Nevertheless, the repositioning process resulted in opportunities for reflecting on dominant frames and introducing new concepts. To better seize such opportunities and thus improve alignment to waterway renewal, water authorities can, in addition to improving existing practices, re-interpret dominant frames and construct a new narrative in which future, long-term uncertainties are acknowledged as inherent conditions for agencies to cope with.