Helping transport professionals fast track their success
We are in fiscally challenging times with demands for increasing public transport mode share and seriously constrained budgets.
It is evident that users perceptions are their reality.
So what is important to public transport users? And what are the low cost ways we can address concerns and improve the quality of service provided?
The US state of Oregon started consideration of alternative sources of road funding in 2001 when it became obvious that the existing gas tax – the primary source of US transport funding – was not future proof. Modern vehicles were becoming more fuel efficient (and new vehicles required to be more so) and a growing proportion using alternative sources of energy, e.g. electric vehicles.
After reviewing 28 different road funding options a distance based Road User Fee (RUF) pilot program was developed and findings reported in 2007. The pilot used a pay at the pump model.
A number of issues were raised, primarily about potential privacy in using a GPS based system, so in 2012 Oregon is about to trial a new model.
Two major challenges facing road agencies into the next decade will be dealing with increasing traffic congestion, and securing funding for infrastructure and services – hence the growing interest in road user and congestion charging.
As governments look for alternative sources of funding and give serious consideration to road user charging, then providing quality customer service will require a significant change in focus. Road agencies have limited opportunities for a direct relationship with their customers, the road users.
Road users, travelling in cars, buses and trucks, are being caught up in bigger traffic jams, with greater, unexpected traffic delays.
Governments are crying poor as they dont have the budget for any big fixes.
What can we do to help this problem?
Solving complex policy issues, such as improving travel time reliability, are challenges facing transport professionals. Problem analysis, however, is not a common skill among transport professionals.
Transport problems are complex and dynamic, making them difficult to comprehend fully. They usually don’t have a simple solution, and dealing with them may require a combination of solutions to resolve effectively. Consider three common mistakes and how to avoid them.
Imagine trying to drive a car where your entire view was a giant rear-view mirror. You have a great view of everything behind you, but you cant see a thing in traffic ahead.
What are the odds you will get where you are going?
Now while that may sound a little foolish, surprisingly it’s the way most people run their programs or projects.
In 2005, Professor Bent Flyvbjerg identified two main causes of misinformation in policy and management: strategic misrepresentation (lying) and optimism bias (appraisal optimism).
Strategic misrepresentation is the planned, systematic distortion or misstatement of fact—or lying—in response to incentives in the budget process.
Optimism bias or appraisal optimism is the demonstrated systematic tendency for people to be overly optimistic about the outcome of planned actions. This includes over-estimating the likelihood of positive events and under-estimating the likelihood of negative events.
Rising traffic congestion in urban areas has resulted in an increased focus on the economic, financial and travel reliability impacts. Understanding traffic incident causation and then an increased emphasis on prevention, has the potential to significantly reduce the number and impact of traffic incidents.
It is instructive to look at the extensive research in the causes of crashes and the development of a body of knowledge on traffic safety countermeasures and injury prevention. There is little published research into causes of traffic incidents.
Anecdotally causes of traffic incidents include such things as inattention, careless or reckless driving behaviour, excessive speed, poor judgement, impairment (alcohol, fatigue, drugs etc), distraction, poor loading of goods vehicles, insufficient fuel, unroadworthy vehicles, road works and adverse weather.
Traffic information services have evolved from delivering basic guidance to users (such as the location of specific incidents or major congestion) to offering real-time traffic flow data and now to helping drivers make better decisions by providing real time and predictive information.
As car drivers we don’t like everyday traffic congestion, but we become used to it and plan for it. We leave early enough to get to where we are going on time. But unexpected congestion is another thing. We hate it. As you approach a traffic jam that you were not aware of (and its too late to do anything about it!) – this is the first level of traffic information.
Congestion is a major economic, social and environmental issue in most large urban centres around the world. The inability to build sufficient new infrastructure to meet the demand results in recurring congestion. But significant congestion also occurs from temporary reductions in capacity, with an increasing number of major traffic incidents occurring in the high traffic flows, such as vehicle breakdowns, spilled loads and crashes.
