Well-organised and efficient public transport services bring significant benefits to the economy, environment and society, public transport being an important factor that stimulates sustainable growth, cost cuts in cities (by reducing congestion etc.) and a healthy life style for every citizen. Worldwide, every state, and therefore, every city has, or tries to have, a long-term strategy to meet mobility needs. As around 60% of the world’s population will choose to live in urban environments by 2025, this means transportation will develop its efficient and eco-friendly transport systems, by encouraging public transport. Also the structure of the mobility demand will change.
To encourage an efficient and eco-friendly transport system and, therefore, to increase the use of public transport, UITP launched in 2009 the PTx2 strategy which seeks to double the share of public transport worldwide by 2025. Projects to meet this objective have already been implemented and this has led to the elaboration and continuous application of other programmes aimed at promoting and increasing the use of public transport. According to UITP, if the objective is attained (worldwide), the number of journeys will triple; regarding the developing countries, public transport journeys could increase by 250%, while in developed countries, growth is estimated at 110%. Doubling public transport market share will help save 170 million tonnes of oil which is the equivalent of 550 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, while fatal incidents would reduce by 15%. Also, public transport will significantly reduce congestion and therefore costs: every year, around EUR 100 Billion (or 1% of the EU’s GDP) represents losses of the European economy resulted from congestion. Moreover, public transport provides energy-efficient solutions: if the number of journeys by motorised transport modes in urban areas increases over the next years, governments will depend on fossil fuels, and therefore they will have to find new efficient mobility modes. Thus, by doubling public transport market share (by 2025), energy consumption could be stabilized at the 2005 level, resulting in savings of 170 million tonnes of fuel (the equivalent of USD 140 Billion per year).
Related to the PTx2, in 2012 UITP launched the “Grow with Public Transport” Campaign to support this objective. The campaign seeks to determine decision-makers to increase the awareness on the importance of a better public transport, underlining the positive effects of sustainable mobility. It also provides guidelines to decision makers, public authorities and transport companies on the optimisation of public transport and instruments for implementing transport solutions for every city or region. Over 90 cities, regions and related industry segments participated in the campaign (September 2013).
A successful public transport system begins with policies. National authorities and governments have to acknowledge the importance of urban and national mobility and to make sure these are on the agenda and therefore, provide adequate resources.
National and regional authorities should supply an integrated and coherent political framework that supports local authorities in adopting their decisions, although the chain of decision-making varies from one country to another. It is essential to have a national regulatory framework for urban transport, as well as clear and stable policies.
Apart from policies, urban transport services need financing to preserve quality. Massive investments will be necessary in the future to modernise and develop the infrastructure and vehicles/rolling stock. An innovative financing and investment method is the use of local fees and interests and another alternative could be to levy a charge on those who benefit most from public transport supply, such as employers, retailers and real-estate owners. Meanwhile, charges can also be levied on those whose mobility habits are most harmful to society. These charges can include urban tolls, congestion and or/pollution charges, parking charges and fuel taxes. This would not only mean financing sources for public transport, but also encouraging citizens in choosing a more sustainable transport mode. Innovative assessment methods to reveal the social and economic benefits of public transport can help create a taxes and charges system especially created for public transport financing.
Most countries worldwide set their public transport priorities for 2020. 2014 is a starting point to creating a real choice.
“In this context, first and foremost, I’d like to stress that we have to offer public transport services of high quality standards, particularly having in mind changing mobility patterns of urban citizen as well as pressures that relatively high individual motorized transport ridership generates towards our sector. What grabs an increasing attention of local governments is a better control of car usage and parking in cities in order to support alternative modes of transport, most notably public transportation”, explains Alain Flausch, Secretary General UITP.
UITP focuses part of its activity in Central and Eastern Europe, a region which greatly needs to reinforce its public transport economic segment and to prove they way in which transport contributes to creating jobs, local economic attractiveness and competitiveness. For UITP, but also for increasing interested parties, investing in public transport means investing in the city!
To find out more about the new image of UITP, adopting measures to increase public transport share, the importance of public transport in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the challenges faced by regional authorities, operators and industry with the development of the segment, Railway Pro has interviewed Mr Alain Flausch, Secretary General UITP.
We inform that the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) and the Association for Metropolitan Mobility – Club Metropolitan (AMM) organise in March 2014 the workshop “Financing and modernising light rail in Central and Eastern Europe 2014-2020”, where light rail, mobility and financing experts will discuss solutions for modernising and financing tram and light rail transport in Central and Eastern Europe.
Railway PRO: UITP has recently launched a new visual identity. What is the strategy of the new brand and the message sent to the public transport community? How should it be interpreted by the decision makers?
Alain Flausch: Actually, our new look and logo reflect our role as the only worldwide network bringing together all public transport stakeholders, with a core aim of ‘Advancing public transport’. Also, our new logo and visual identity illustrate what we stand for: interconnection, exchange, innovation, intermodality and the international nature of UITP.
This is of course reflected in our new vision which is to work on enhancing quality of life and economic well-being by supporting and promoting sustainable transport in urban areas worldwide. Also by our new mission we want to make a change in the sector: every day we want to make a difference for our members and for the wider sustainable transport community.
Railway PRO: As most countries in the world set their priorities for 2020, for the public transport system 2014 is a starting point to developing a real choice. What measures should be adopted, not just by the authorities, but also by operators and passengers to increase public transport share?
Alain Flausch: First and foremost, I’d like to stress that we have to offer public transport services of high quality standards, particularly having in mind changing mobility patterns of urban citizen as well as pressures that relatively high individual motorized transport ridership generates towards our sector.
Moreover, please don’t forget that strong public transport within 5, 10 or 15 years is also about developing partnership with employers and retail to strengthen the position of public transport in daily mobility. I’m talking here about company mobility plans, combined tickets or localization strategies to name just a few.
Finally, what grabs an increasing attention of local governments is a better control of car usage and parking in cities – including green zones or congestion charging – in order to support alternative modes of transport, most notably public transportation. I think that all of these points sum up to a relatively good set of measure that will be responsible for a sound development of public transport in a near, or rather foreseeable, future.
Railway PRO: To what extent the increase of mobility alternatives, customer-oriented services and new solutions for boosting public transport attractiveness can become a business model?
Alain Flausch: Please note that offering higher quality services enables to charge higher fares based on a fact, showcased by a number of UITP studies, that passengers are more sensitive to quality than to price. It will also help to attract people who would otherwise not use public transport as a mode of choice.
Besides, diversifying the public transport offer and developing additional services are yet other sources of extra revenues. For instance, developing retail in stations brings revenue from the rent of the space, but also attracts more passengers to public transport.
Also, don’t forget that if we better identify the indirect benefits of public transport to car users, employers and land owners, than it would be more acceptable to earmark the charges coming from those indirect beneficiaries to public transport. It all could be a part of well-functioning business model in public transport.
Railway PRO: UITP focuses part of its activity in this region (CEE). What is UITP’s strategy to encourage and promote the concept of sustainable public transport concept and the modernization of the entire system in order to increase public transport share?
Alain Flausch: I think that in Central and Eastern Europe it is extremely important to strengthen the economic case for public transport and show how it contributes to jobs and growth policies, how it makes the local economy more attractive and competitive. And that it drives the innovation too! In other words, we plea for highlighting the benefits for the city system organically, as a whole. For us, but I also believe for a growing number of stakeholders, investing in public transport means investing in the city!
Another issue of substantial importance for the CEEC region is to secure a resilient funding mix for public transport, based on a stronger revenue strategy as well as on the contributions from indirect beneficiaries – in addition to traditional sources of funding that is. Here, I’d definitely refer all urban stakeholders and politicians to take a look on our latest Policy Brief on “Better public transport fare policy for more resilient funding” published in February.
We’re also eager to profile public transport in the region as an integrator of urban mobility services, mode of choice and a hype, convenient, comfortable and sometimes fun –for instance thanks to social media initiatives – way of moving throughout the city-space. But again, there is a certain level of quality required here in order to meet this end.
Railway PRO: Although discrepancies are obvious between the two regions, Central and Eastern Europe countries try to remediate the situation to reach western levels. What are the elements that should be presented in CEE to stimulate public transport?
Alain Flausch: It’s obviously not that easy to mention them all one by one, given that there are very often serious discrepancies in municipal spending for public transport, different financing models, finally differences in development, quality of infrastructure, fleet and so one, and that not only between countries of the CEEC region but also within them!
Nonetheless, as I have mentioned already earlier, operators and authorities should definitely re-think two major aspects or elements as you like: financing and business model for public transport of today and tomorrow; and the quality of services, including customer-orientation, what also envisages a different management style, less public company-oriented, but more customer-driven.
At the end of the day, public transport should not be reduced to a sole passenger-kilometre provider. It has a major role to play in urban development and economic life of cities and regions – I believe that understanding this is a key to success for PT in Central and Eastern Europe, but also among citizens looking for a mode of choice other than car.
Railway PRO: EU’s new programming period began with over EUR 181 Billion directly transferred to Central and Eastern Europe region. 5-8% of the amount would go to integrated public transport development projects. How could this amount be used efficiently? What do you think the right directions would be?
Alain Flausch: I fully support the conditions under the Structural Funds for the programming period 2014-2020, which oblige all those who wish to apply for EU funds not only to combine vehicles or rolling stock purchases with necessary infrastructure modernization, but also that require from authorities to create SUMPs and showcase in detail their urban mobility vision and philosophy behind each and every project, each and every euro to-be-spent.
Europe has seen a number of misfortune projects being financed by the EU, which have turned out to be economically unfeasible even in a mid-term. CEEC region has to avoid such spectacular, vision-less failures and think in more sustainable terms, taking into account changing mobility behaviours, planned infrastructure developments but also urban development and city planning.
Once you have this process done, you will find hundreds of interesting projects to support, from traffic management systems, metro automation solutions and green IT to trolleybuses, light rail and smart energy deployment mechanisms. Plenty to choose from if you plan and managed things right according to your real needs and most-probable mobility scenarios.
Railway PRO: As the CEE market deve-lops, what would be the challenges faced by authorities, operators and the industry?
Alain Flausch: As far as operators and authorities are concerned, I believe the issue of grave important will be public transport financing and finding the right funding mix, particularly as free public transport experiments are not booking any major breakthrough in terms of increasing the share of public transport.
In turn, for industries from Central and Eastern Europe I would say that the key words are, believe it or not, innovation and perseverance. There is a steadily growing number of manufacturers in each and every country in the region that regularly show that they are able to compete and win with the world’s biggest industries in open tenders. It’s not any more where you are from, but what you have to offer – I believe that the CEEC region holds command of necessary resources to make a breakthrough on the European PT manufacturing scene. It is a big chance that Central and Eastern Europe cannot miss.
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