bgcolor="white" Transport Economics & Sector Policy: Sustainable Transport
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Sustainable Transport

Overview Social Sustainability
The Need to Refocus Transport Sector Policy Redefining the Role of Governments in the Transport Sector
Economic and Financial Sustainability The Role of the Bank Group
Environmental Sustainability Selected Bibliography

Overview

The knowledge base for this topic is based on the document, Sustainable Transport: Priorities for Policy Reform.. The purpose of this document is to distill the lessons of Bank experience and relate them to the emerging problems of developing and transitional economies. There is a wide diversity of problems and experience; no simple solution fits all countries. But there are some generally applicable principles and best practices which can be identified as the basis of a policy for more sustainable transport. The simultaneous achievement of long term economic, environmental and social sustainability is the key to meeting these challenges. To see a table of contents for this document, click here (MS-Word document).

Areas covered under the knowledge base mirror the structure of the document and include identified key issues. To read an executive summary for this document, click here (MS-Word document).

Click below for two Powerpoint presentations covering this knowledge base topic:

Sustainable Transport: Part 1
Sustainable Transport: Part 2

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Key Issues

  1. The Need to Refocus Transport Sector Policy

    World Bank operations have contributed to the creation of essential transport infrastructure in developing countries to improve access to jobs, education and health facilities and to facilitate domestic and international trade. To learn more about the role transport plays in development, click here (MS-Word document). The Bank has substantial experience in the sector, and has refocused its lending activities as it has learned from experience. To learn more about Bank experience with transport investments, click here (MS-Word document). However, there are some inherited problems which remain unresolved as well as new challenges associated with the changing characteristics of global production and trade, and people's growing aspirations for a better quality of life. To learn more about the policy challenges, click here (MS-Word document). Responding to these challenges will require developing and transitional countries to adopt transport policies that are more sustainable economically and financially, as well as environmentally and socially. To learn about the relationship of sustainability and transport policy, click here (MS-Word document).


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  2. Economic and Financial Sustainability

    The central thesis of the review is that excessive government intervention has undermined sustainability and that to be economically and financially sustainable, transport must be cost-effective and continuously responsive to changing demands through the creation of a more competitive transport sector. To learn more about the actions which undermine economic and financial sustainability, click here (MS-Word document). Competition, facilitated by regulatory reform to enable freer entry to and exit from the market by private firms, forces transport suppliers to respond to users' needs. To learn more about ways to create a market-based transport sector, click here (MS-Word document). Even where activities remain in the public sector, management can be made more market sensitive. The commercialization of remaining public sector firms is also necessary for economic and financial sustainability. To learn more about commercialization of public sector management, click here (MS-Word document). Charges for the use of infrastructure that reflect the full cost of that use to society are necessary for market signals to be meaningful. To learn more about the importance of market signals, click here (MS-Word document).


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  3. Environmental Sustainability

    Transport has significant effects on the environment that should be explicitly addressed in project and program design. To learn more about the impacts of transport on the environment, click here (MS-Word document). A strategy for confronting these impacts must combine transport cost reduction with environmental awareness through the adoption of systematic criteria. To learn more about criteria for strategy development, click here (MS-Word document). Components of a program for addressing high priority issues will include congestion and pollution charges, public transport fare and service policies and demand management. To learn more about environmental application of transport management instruments, click here (MS-Word document). But there are also non-transport instruments, particularly in the integration of land use and transport planning, for addressing the same issues. To learn more about integration of land use and transport planning in developing countries, click here (MS-Word document). An environmentally sensitive transport strategy will change modal balance in various ways, which need subtle analysis. To learn more about the analysis of instruments to affect modal choice, click here (MS-Word document). Reducing life and health-threatening effects should be the highest priority. Road safety is the most obvious of these. To learn more about ways to address road safety issues, click here (MS-Word document). Automotive air pollution is the next most obvious target for which better use of readily available and cost-effective technology is necessary, but not in itself sufficient. To learn more about the need to couple technology and policy, click here (MS-Word document).


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  4. Social Sustainability

    Transport strategies and programs can be designed to provide the poor with better physical access to employment, education, and health services. These strategies include providing adequate public transport to places of employment, eliminating impediments to non-motorized transport, mobilizing the potential of the informal sector, and eliminating gender biases in transport provision. To learn more about designing general transport policies which help the poor, click here (MS-Word document). For the rural poor there are some special aspects which require attention, including the emphasis of accessibility in rural transport design and implementation, enhancement of local participation in local transport planning and supply, and the development, where appropriate, of labor based local transport programs. To learn more about ways in which transport can be designed to help the rural poor, click here (MS-Word document). Effective arrangements are also necessary to address occupational and spatial dislocation and any distributionally unacceptable consequences of the further commercialization of transport. To learn more about minimizing the impact of transport on occupational and spatial dislocation, click here (MS-Word document).


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  5. Redefining the Role of Governments in the Transport Sector

    The changing focus in transport policy implies a substantial change in the role of government, reducing its functions as supplier, but increasing its functions as regulator—the enabler of competition and the custodian of environmental and social interests. To learn more of the changed role of government, click here (MS-Word document). This means that governments need to create the proper institutional framework for competition. To learn more about creating a strong institutional framework, click here (MS-Word document). They also need to set economically efficient charges for the use of publicly provided infrastructure. To learn more about setting charges, click here (MS-Word document). Planning must be directed to complementing the market in a number of ways. First, structural planning is a necessary basis for private sector willingness to invest. To learn more about the requirements of structure planning, click here (MS-Word document). Second, scarce public resources must be allocated carefully (both by government as investor and as “purchaser” of social services). This should involve careful economic justification of public expenditures, fiscal planning to ensure that public infrastructure is properly maintained and industrial development policies which do not undermine the sustainability of transport policy. To learn more about how governments can better undertake the necessary policy appraisals, click here (MS-Word document). Third, community participation in decision-making must be increased, particularly in those areas where markets do not work well. This will usually involve both decentralizing responsibilities and direct community participation to supplement formal political institutions. To learn more about the role of community participation in the transport sector, click here (MS-Word document).


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  6. The Role of the Bank Group

    Making transport more sustainable requires major institutional and policy reforms. The World Bank Group can help governments to make these reforms by providing technical assistance to support institutional and human resource development. To see an overview of recommendations concerning the role of the Bank Group, click here (MS-Word document). Lending will also continue to be necessary, both because private finance is unlikely to meet many of the pressing infrastructure needs of the sector and because lending is an important complement to institutional and policy reform. Guarantees and extended on-lending arrangements need particular attention. To learn more about recommendations as to the role of the Bank in future transport infrastructure lending, click here (MS-Word document). The increased sophistication and variety of issues will require the Bank to foster more partnerships at the local, national and international levels and to learn lessons from the diversity of its operational experience. To learn more about the need for partnerships and the role of evaluation in performance of Bank tranpsort sector operations, click here (MS-Word document).


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Selected Bibliography

    Publications available from the Web site of the World Bank InfoShop or by E-mail from books@worldbank.org, telephone: (202) 473 2941.

    Armstrong-Wright, A. and S. Thiriez. 1987. “Bus Services: Reducing Costs, Raising Standards.” World Bank Technical Paper 68. World Bank, Washington, D.C.

    Midgley, P. 1994. “Urban Transport in Asia: An Operational Agenda for the 1990s.” World Bank Technical Paper No. 224, Asia Technical Department Series. World Bank, Washington, D.C.

    World Bank. 1988. Road Deterioration in Developing Countries: Causes and Remedies. A World Bank Policy Study. World Bank, Washington, D.C.

    World Bank. 1997. Roads and the Environment: A Handbook. Technical Paper No. 376. World Bank, Washington, D.C.

    World Bank. 1986. Urban Transport--A World Bank Policy Study. World Bank, Washington, D.C.

    Publications available through regular library services

    Quinet, E. 1992. Transports et Theorie Economique. Paris: Presses de l'Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées.

    Publications available for purchase from the OECD On-Line Book Shop

    European Conference of Ministers of Transport. 1993. Transport Growth in Question. Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Theory and Practice in Transport Economics. Paris: ECMT.

    Publications available on-line at this Web site

    Gwilliam, K. "Transport in the City of Tomorrow: The Transport Dialogue at Habitat II" (PDF document). World Bank Discussion Paper, TWU-23, Washington, D.C.

    Gwilliam, K., and Z. Shalizi. 1997. "Road Funds, User Charges, and Taxes" (PDF document). World Bank Discussion Paper, TWU-26, Washington, D.C.

    Shaw, N., K. Gwilliam, and L. Thompson. 1996. "Concessions in Transport" (PDF document). World Bank Discussion Paper, TWU-27, Washington, D.C.


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