Category: models of excellence

Victoria’s Draft 30-year Infrastructure strategy

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 03/03/2021
No Comments on Victoria’s Draft 30-year Infrastructure strategy

Submission by Transport for Melbourne 21 February 2021

General comments

Transport for Melbourne (TfM) welcomes the invitation by IV for community feedback and submissions for its draft 30-year Plan. We appreciate the opportunity to review it and discuss fundamental assumptions that underpin it as well as the principle objectives and guiding principles that have been used to develop the plan. There are a number of key principles we support and think it appropriate these be restated in our submission.

TfM acknowledges the need for an infrastructure plan to be developed based on a framework that best meets community aspirations and values for this State, supported by guiding principles and processes which enable projects to be evaluated and ranked to ensure the program meets the needs of Victorians and provides the best possible return on investment for the community based on a triple bottom line evaluation process.

This plan must acknowledge (and we believe IV does) that physical infrastructure cannot solve all problems. Further, that the prime function of physical infrastructure is to support social, community and business services and activity and that it is critical this be provided, managed and maintained in the most cost effective and efficient manner to meet these needs. It is a waste of money if it fails to do so recognising benefits are maximised if the service values/outputs are maximised and the cost of providing, managing and maintaining the infrastructure are minimised.

It follows that physical infrastructure has no intrinsic value on its own and pursued in isolation simply becomes an exercise in temple building which can be used/abused for political purposes with little accountability. We believe that in the absence of good governance and proper process this can have a very damaging impact with profound implications at all levels – socials, economic, political.

An extension of the above is our concern for the need for good governance and adherence to proper process. This has been a growing concern and was the subject of Transport for Melbourne’s annual forum in 2017. This issue will become increasingly critical in the future and it is pleasing that this is reflected in IV’s plan.

We agree it is important that a plan be developed with goals/objectives and guiding principles to achieve them. IV has listed ten of these. These must be linked with scenarios for the future – the future we must plan for. Without this planning is merely wishful thinking and a waste of time. IV rightly considers the need for short, medium and long term planning horizons, recognising that the future is becoming very uncertain and difficult to plan for, and there is a compelling need to provide flexibility and adaptability/agility as conditions change or underlying assumptions become invalid.

Covid has demonstrated how quickly and profoundly situations can change. It has exposed our vulnerability to sudden shocks and the need for planning to reflect this. This is of particular relevance for the design and provision of physical infrastructure, much of which tends to be set in concrete with a high risk of becoming a stranded asset as conditions change.

IV has rightly drawn attention to climate and environmental change and the need to respond.

Climate Emergency

The dimensions, scale, complexity and urgency of this issue have not been reflected in IV’s 30-year plan and targets and assumptions used in it are outdated. This has profound implications for many of the of key assumptions in the plan and the integrity of the plan itself.

Environmental change and its implications for the future was the subject of the Sustainable Cities Sustainable Transport forum held in 2009, and updated on 4^th December 2020. The program for both forums and forum summary are attached. [1] Prof Will Steffen who presented at both forums has, as a member of The Climate Targets Panel in January 2021 titled Australia’s Paris Agreement Pathways: Updating Climate Change Authority’s 2014 Emission Reduction Targets presented the following key findings

“As the Secretary General of the United Nations has repeatedly warned, we are in a climate emergency. The window for action is closing, with recent research suggesting climate tipping points may be breached very soon. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology recently gave evidence to the Australian Parliament that the country is on track for 4.4°C of warming this century. This would be catastrophic for our society, health, economy and environment”.

The Climate Targets Panel has concluded:

To be consistent with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction target must be 74% below 2005 levels, with net-zero emissions reached by 2035.

As noted above, Transport for Melbourne’s annual forum round table on the 4^th December 2020, reviewed the dimensions and scale of these issues with even more compelling findings. Whilst reduction of Greenhouse emissions are critical, actions to reduce them, will not on their own be sufficient to address our climate emergency. The need to address the degradation of the biosphere is becoming increasingly critical and will soon become the factor that ultimately drives climate change/global warming and determines our fate. Despite this, governments have not responded with targets on this issue. It is also clear that emission reduction targets will continue to be reviewed and revised as modelling becomes more sophisticated and the climate situation evolves. It is feasible that targets outlined in the report above may already be outdated. Prof David Karoly indicated at our forum that we need an even greater reduction of 125% by 2030 and that there are some potential shocks in the science that have still to be published. It was also proposed that 4.4 degrees may well be lower limit and could be as high as 6 degrees. But this is a global figure and for Australia the figure will be significantly higher.

Some of the critical actions required to respond to our climate emergency include the need to

Reduce our consumption and the demands we make on the planet’s natural resources
A giant Landcare/Earthcare project to restore much of the environment we have trashed – not just in Australia but throughout the world
Huge waste reduction, reuse and effective recycling programs to reduce the poisoning impact on our planet and the demand we make on it harvesting the resources we need
These activities will create many new jobs but we need to value these jobs properly and financially
Change the way we produce and harvest food – it is this activity which is the cause of many of our environmental problems today
The need for a fundamental shift in mindset about the limits to growth (both population and economic) recognising that we have already passed them in a biophysical sense and that sooner or later we will be forced to depopulate remembering that if we don’t the planet will do it for us. This is also a reminder that contrary to current thinking and expectations, technology will not solve our problems. The evidence overwhelmingly points to the risk that on its own technology will most likely make matters worse and must be used as a support for behavioural change.

Implications of global biophysical change are profound and will impact all societies at every level: the way people live and work, particularly in our cities, what jobs have value, the population that can be supported, how communities can be fed, serviced, maintained and managed, land use and how the economy is structured.

It has been clear for many decades there are no magic single fix solutions to this challenge. It is a problem that has been generated by the social, economic and political “system” that underpins modern human societies. This “system” has operated for thousands of years but the impact has accelerated significantly since the Industrial revolution and again since WW2 largely as a result of huge advances in science and technology that have enable humanity to plunder the natural resources and degrade/destroy the biosphere to such an extent that humanity is now living beyond the capacity of planet earth to support us and in a way that is contributing to climate change and global warming. Further, that business as usual will put us on a hothouse trajectory that will be irreversible and ultimately lead to our extinction – most likely well before the end of this century.

It is this system with its beliefs, expectations, values and behaviours that must change.

Prof Johan Rockstrom (Potsdam, Germany ) described our situation in late 2019 as so serious it will require an effort equivalent to the Apollo program to achieve success. Apollo was a large-scale concerted effort involving science, politics, the public sector and industry employing resilience and creativity. There was a common goal. With climate, he argues there is little time left. We have less than ten years to transition the whole world to a new logic. Success or failure lies in our hands.

Implications for IV’s 30-year Plan

Broader issues

The implications for IV’s 30-year plan are profound. Every single issue addressed in the plan has been on the basis of incremental change and business as usual parameters and projections to varying degrees. All of these will become outdated and invalidated very quickly as the impact of rapid environmental change manifests itself and will do so in a way that challenges traditional values and behaviours, expectations and aspirations within our existing social, economic, political “system”. It is a system that will be have to change, whether we like it or not and in the process put under enormous stress. We believe this must be reflected in IV’s plan.

Limits to Growth

Many of the recommendations developed in IV’s 30-plan have been based on the expectation of continuing population and economic growth. It is critical that limits to growth are reflected in this plan with an understanding that these have already been exceeded and whilst there is some momentum for further population growth this will be limited and quickly reversed before long.

Limits to Growth was the subject of the Club of Rome’s report in the early 1970’s which has been updated regularly since, including 2008 by Dr Graham Turner (CSIRO) with findings presented at the 2009 forum. These projections excluded the impact of climate change. With its inclusion and the compounding impact it provides, societies are rapidly approaching tipping points which will have profound implications for the provision of the necessities of life – particularly food and fresh water at a time when traditional practices are coming under increasing scrutiny and pressure to change. Under this scenario all objectives in IV’s plan need to be challenged and replaced by a one’s that provide a response to the impending climate emergency and “system change” in which the word sustainable is replaced by “survival” and notions of growth become irrelevant.

System Change, Goals, Priorities and Time Frames

The climate emergency has been predicted for many decades and many voices have been warning of the need to act. It is a scenario that few political leaders have been prepared to acknowledge let alone embrace and scientific evidence indicates that the worse case scenario might be an underestimate of the future we must plan for. It is recommended therefore that the maximum time frame for IV can be no more than 10 years ie the time required to achieve system change and targets outlined above. Anything beyond must be considered highly problematic at best, or irrelevant and most likely an acknowledgement of failure. Recommendations should be designed to contribute to the following goals ie outlined above with measurable targets

Reduction of greenhouse emissions based on latest targets by the Climate Targets Panel but anticipate these may be tightened further ie to 125% by 2030 or even more
Reduce consumption of everything, particularly of natural resources
Stop degradation of the biosphere – every aspect of it and commence restoration as a top priority immediately
Mechanisms to commence system change at all levels.

Items 2 and 3 have already been noted earlier. Governance and proper process will become critical factors in progressing item 4.

Priority should be given to

proposals that provide a direct response to the climate emergency consistent with the necessary “system” transformation
programs and projects that provide outcomes/outputs that can be measured against environmental targets on a system wide basis rather than inputs or wishful thinking based on business as usual
measures that deliver benefits quickly – the shorter the better because time is critical. We cannot wait for large scale projects to be completed. It is unlikely any of the mega- infrastructure projects in the State Government’s big build would comply anyway. At the very least they should be independently reviewed and a system developed for prioritising them that is consistent with environment goals and targets
ignore concerns about the need to support industries and services that will have no future – the challenge for the airline industry for example to meet zero green house emissions by 2030 is immense. Almost certainly it will become a sunset industry with stranded assets – public and private
support industries that have a future and contribute to goals and targets outlined above and the system transformation necessary to make it happen
projects that deliver behavioural change. This will include those that use technology as an aid to achieve it rather than a means on its own, but many of the levers required to achieve behavioural change may not be technology based.

Whilst it is tempting to recommend individual projects, greatest impacts will occur from initiatives that promote behavioural change within the system as a whole. This can be achieved by applying levers where small interventions in one area create larger changes system wide, with impacts that can be measured and compared against system goals and targets. It must be recognised that there are no single fix solutions. Many of the initiatives will require the creation of new jobs and new industries and opportunities for government to invest. This can become a mechanism for addressing many of social/poverty issues.

Transport Implications

Transport is a derived demand based on the social, economic, technological, political and environmental system that prevails at the time and will be subject to profound change. Current modelling, largely based on business as usual must be replaced with one that reflects the need to respond to the climate emergency.

Transport goals must be to travel less, less often and more efficiently. Government must provide the incentives to do so this with appropriate design and management of its stock of infrastructure. Government must make more efficient use of existing infrastructure and resist the temptation to build more. There will be increasing pressure to do this as communities come under increasing social and economic stress as environmental pressure mounts. Achieving zero emissions must be based on emissions from every part of the lifecycle including imbedded energy, maintenance, renewal etc and calculated on a whole of life basis. This has huge implications for all modes of transport including public transport. The only mode that meets this target for personal travel at this time is active transport – walking and cycling.

This in turn has implications for transport infrastructure and the need to reduce its cost and promote most efficient modes of travel. This is of particular significance for freeways and tollways which promote more travel rather than less, encourage people to travel longer distances rather than shorter and more often using least efficient modes (cars and trucks). The inevitable increase in social and economic stress caused by environmental change will also challenge government’s ability to finance high cost infrastructure, particularly mega infrastructure projects in the State government’s Big Build program.

Concluding Comments

The integrity of any plan depends on the assumptions and guiding principles that underpin it. Any flaws will cast doubt on the integrity of the entire plan. The fatal flaw in IV’s latest 30-year draft plan is its failure to accept that climate and environmental change is manifesting itself not just as a challenge for the future but in a way that threatens all life on the planet and as a consequence must be classified as a climate emergency and addressed as the top priority.

This requires a fundamental change in mindset and reinforces the need to abandon a number of assumptions that have contributed to the current situation. This includes the need for continuing growth (population and economic), reliance on technology to solve our environmental problems and a belief that this can be done in a way that avoids radical system change – a change that reflects our values, aspirations/expectations and choices we make in the way we live. In other words it overturns the popular view by politicians, policy makers and the business community that our climate emergency can be resolved largely by bolting a greenhouse reduction program driven by technology onto “business as usual”.

In this respect the response to the Covid “emergency” is instructive. During the last year it has resulted in a significant reduction in greenhouse emissions, particularly in transport, but this has not been the result of technology or market forces. It has been driven by behavioural change forced by the pandemic itself and government intervention which has been supported in turn by existing technology – not new. The climate emergency will force far greater and more profound change and like covid demand major behavioural change and this will have to be driven by government intervention – not market forces, with technology playing a supporting role. Covid has also demonstrated that in the event of an emergency the need to act is now – one cannot wait for new technology and rely on it to solve the problem. The same rationale applies to infrastructure and mega-infrastructure projects with long lead times.

Politicians, policy makers and planners have failed to grasp these imperatives but mindsets are changing as evidence of the rapidly changing world and its impact on humanity becomes increasingly apparent. IV has an opportunity to reflect this in its plan and cite the overwhelming scientific evidence to support it. TfM believes the criteria which underpin program recommendations must as a consequence be revisited and changed in light of the above.

It is also recommended that infrastructure needs be assessed on the basis of comprehensive plans designed specifically to meet environment goals outlined above instead of on the basis an adhoc list of projects.

Comment On Specific Recommendations

There are some proposals outlined in the 30-year plan that have merit in the short term. Some are no brainers that have been recommended for many years and should be actioned immediately. We also have concerns about others. These are reviewed briefly in general terms below.

Preparation of environmental scenarios based on latest scientific evidence is critical. This must include social, political and economic impacts to confirm the future we must plan for. This is something TfM has been arguing for many years
Improved governance and accountability is essential and must be reflected in every aspect of government activity. The need to prepare (and publish) a transport plan for Victoria is only one example, but such a plan must be consistent with environmental goals and targets outlined in this submission and open to public scrutiny
Improved energy efficiency is important for all activities, not just for households. Phasing out of coal power generation and gas and replaced with renewable energy is critical but this needs to be supported by a proper plan that encourages people and business to use less power in the first place
We support a number of IV’s public transport recommendations, such as network improvements for buses and trams and other service improvements, including the introduction of electric buses but all of these must be developed as part of a comprehensive public transport service plan that includes all PT modes, with clear objectives, and targets that contribute to global targets for the transport system as a whole
Reallocation of road space to priority modes is critical and must also be an integral part of the PT service plan but must also be seen as part of a holistic transport strategy for the system as a whole
Active transport is the only form of transport that is remotely sustainable and an environment must be created that makes this a mode of first choice for many more trips. We don’t need more data on this – we know what to do and must get on with the job of making it happen
Concerns regarding congestion and travel behaviour need to be reviewed – but need to be thought of in terms of system inefficiency and a systems based strategy that includes service and regulatory levers rather than the band-aid approach proposed on this plan. There are many ways to change travel behaviour – pricing is only one and a very inefficient one at that. Reliance on this alone is simplistic and will deliver poor outcomes
TfM does not support the recommendation to charge different PT modes separately. PT works as a system and pricing must reflect this.
Similar comment applies to numerous recommendations on road pricing in this plan. There are other ways of looking at this which have been discussed in a paper prepared by TfM
The need for integrated transport and land use planning has been acknowledged for decades – but requires one that integrates land use with all modes of travel, not just the motor car
Waste reduction is critical but it is important this be carried out comprehensively. There will be no simple single fix solutions
Increased tree canopy for our cities is important but is a first step towards a major habitat restoration program noted earlier in our submission
The need for more public housing has been acknowledged for a long time, but there are many ways of doing this. Building more public housing is only one way of achieving this
TfM has serious concerns about the State government’s Big Build projects. They are too costly, take too long, most will have a perverse environmental impact and even the best of them will make a minimal contribution to environmental goals and targets. All run the risk of becoming stranded assets very quickly and leave Victoria with a huge debt burden
The climate emergency will require mega programs to progress “system” change. These may require some physical infrastructure but it is not yet clear what this might be.

R D Taylor

Roger Taylor
Chair Transport for Melbourne

Tags 30-year, infrastructure strategy, Victoria

best practice governance government policy models of excellence public transport sustainability

Our transport future – Time to take stock

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 13/02/2021
No Comments on Our transport future – Time to take stock

Introduction

Very little planning has been carried out in anticipation of the profound changes we should expect in the future. What little has been done has been carried out piecemeal, without any appreciation of the changes that should be expected in the social, political and economic system as a whole. It is time to take stock of the current situation, develop some scenarios for the future we need to plan for, develop goals and a framework and priorities for plans and programs to achieve them. But any programs must be system based and outcome focused with measurable goals consistent with international targets and timelines based on reputable scientific evidence.

Current Thinking

Transport planning and thinking, despite the overwhelming evidence of global change, dominated by climate and environmental change more generally, continues to be based in large measure on the assumption that life will continue in most respects as business as usual. In other words, current thinking assumes global environmental change is just another background issue that can be considered separately with grudging acceptance that our future will need to focus on greener energy such as electric cars and other technological advances, and there is plenty of time to transition which can be achieved by incremental change.

This mindset is clearly articulated by the State government and its big build program but it seems to be a prevailing view amongst many transport planners. It is also driven by an expectation of continuing population and economic growth. This mindset must change. The reality is none of the above are valid and reflects a lack of understanding of the gravity of the environmental situation and the profound implications for every aspect of human activity, including transport.

Transport – a Derived Demand

Transport is a function of the social, political and economic environment which is constantly changing. Covid has demonstrated how easily it can be disrupted. Many businesses will fail to adapt and disappear under pressure of climate and global change. This must be anticipated in our transport planning. For example there has to be a question mark over the future of the airline industry and its ability to operate with zero carbon emissions. This will have a cascading impact on the local economy, local transport demand and supporting infrastructure in the future. There will be other industries that find a place in a new and hopefully more sustainable world but it is not clear what these might be or transport services that would be required to support them.

Transport projections based on continuing population and economic growth must also be challenged despite convictions held by most politicians, planners and economists to the contrary. Prediction of longer term transport needs is very difficult if not impossible in a world of increasingly rapid change but there are limits to growth and it is most likely these have already been exceeded. Whilst some growth will occur in the short term it will almost certainly be short lived and inevitably reversed before long as the planet’s biosphere becomes increasingly degraded and supports fewer people. This scenario can be expected to apply increasingly to all societies throughout the world. This will have profound implications for all societies throughout the world – social, political and economic and must be reflected in transport plans for the future.

A Transport Philosophy For The Future

Transport must be designed as a “system” that is flexible and can adapt rapidly to the changing environment it supports in a way that meets environmental goals. This will require a mission statement with measurable targets that can be monitored and used to apply pressure for change and hold governments and their agencies to account. But it cannot be developed in isolation. It must be developed as a “service industry” that is an integral part of the broader social, political system of which it is part.

The immediate implications for transport planners should be for people to travel less, less often and more efficiently, to use and manage our existing stock of infrastructure as effectively and efficiently as possible before building more. Government must develop policies and a framework to make this happen. Whilst technology may provide some assistance in achieving these outcomes its prime function must be to promote behavioural change. Reliance on technology alone will not solve our transport problems, or environmental problems either. Many of the technologies envisaged will take time – time we do not have, and need to be tested to ensure they work. More likely, as has happened so often in the past they simply make the situation worse contrary to expectations by politicians, economists and planners today. This has been confirmed many times in the past and has been one of the dominant factors that has led to the collapse of many civilisations, and has been the main reason for our global environmental crisis today. But in the current environment the rate of technological change may not be fast enough either – a critical consideration at a time when the need for change has become urgent.

Prof Johan Rockstrom has described our situation as so serious it will require an effort equivalent to the Apollo program to achieve success. Scientists have given us this decade to get our act together, to transition the whole world to a new logic. This is a challenge humanity cannot afford to fail – to do so would put us on a hothouse trajectory that would result in a mass extinction event that would lead to our ultimate demise as a species.

best practice governance models of excellence public transport sustainability

Curitiba – Once a model of sustainability in the broadest sense

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 07/12/2020
No Comments on Curitiba – Once a model of sustainability in the broadest sense

The city of Curitiba, in southern Brazil, is famous among urban planners for its innovation and rational development, with a reputation for being highly livable and very sustainable. It was one of the first cities to market itself as “green” in a 1980s advertising campaign. In 2010 it won the Globe Sustainable City Award and its transportation system could in many ways justify a claim as a model of excellence. Subsequent events over recent years highlight how easily this can be lost.

Integrated Transport System

The development of Curitiba’s world-renowned transportation system began in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Unlike other Latin American cities, Curitiba’s planners decided to address the process of transportation as an integrative approach that can assist in the development of the city. In Curitiba’s case, its planners recognized that transportation systems can serve as the backbone for the development and growth of the city in the future.

Its system uses only buses and was initiated by a visionary mayor in response to lobbying from a group of young architects who were not impressed by the urban fashion of borrowing money for big highways, massive buildings, shopping malls and other showy projects.

Jaime Lerner was one of these architects. In 1971 he was appointed mayor by the military government of Brazil. At the time Lerner was confronted with severe financial constraints so his approach had to be small scale, very cheap and participatory.

Concentric circles of local bus lines connect to five lines that radiate from the centre of the city in a spider web pattern. On the radial lines, triple-compartment buses in their own traffic lanes carry three hundred passengers each. They could go as fast as subway (metro) cars, but at one eighth of the construction cost.

The buses stop at Plexiglas tube stations are designed by Lerner. Passengers pay their fares, enter through the tube and exit from the other end. This system eliminates paying on board and allows faster loading and unloading, less idling and air pollution and a shelter place for waiting, though the system was so efficient that there was not much waiting.

After implementation average bus speeds increased from 5/6 kph to 18/20 – more than three times as fast. Additionally, to avoid congestion in central areas, various streets in the city centre were pedestrianised. This measure initially received negative feedback from local shop-owners, but is now internationally admired. Bike lanes also run throughout the entire city.

Curitiba’s early success provide valuable lessons, but so do its recent failings.

Many Brazilians were attracted to Curitiba’s reputation as a functional, humane city. Its population has grown from 350,000 in the 1960s, when aggressive planning began, to 1.7 million today, with more than 3 million in the greater metropolitan area. Shades of killing the goose that laid golden eggs. The New York Times reported last year that Curitiba recycling rates were down and, as the city sprawls, its famous bus system has had trouble keeping pace. If you ask someone how to go by bus, the answer is very often: “Take a taxicab.”

Worse, the development of Curitiba has led to dramatic deforestation: ninety-nine percent in the state of Parana, of which Curitiba is the largest city. This and other challenges demand continual vigilance by a city known for its innovation — and also a shift from past authoritarian planning styles to a more democratic approach that involves civil society and mobilizes private property interests. So, despite the success of aggressive urban planning measures undertaken forty years ago, Curitiba must continue to update its initiatives and adapt to the times.

Tags Brazil, Curitiba

best practice models of excellence public transport service value for money

Zurich – a model of transport excellence

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 23/11/2020
No Comments on Zurich – a model of transport excellence

A model that provides valuable lessons that could be adapted and applied in Melbourne – if we had the mindset to do so.

Zurich is Switzerland’s largest city. The municipality has approximately 409,000 inhabitants, the urban agglomeration 1.315 million and the Zürich metropolitan area 1.83 million. Zurich is consistently ranked as one of the most liveable and sustainable cities in the world. Ranking criteria include life expectancy, safety, education, hygiene, health care, culture, energy consumption, greenhouse emissions, green space, recreation, political-economic stability, public transport and access to goods and services. The city is also recognised for a number of sustainable achievements in investment efficient and renewable energies, a sustainable public transport system and a willingness to increase public awareness of environmental issues.

Its public transport has been accepted as a model of excellence for many years. The population use public transport more than twice as much as the populations of most other cities – only Hong Kong has higher usage rates. The Zurich Transport Authority provides a public transport system that services the entire Canton not just within the city of Zurich itself but to outlying townships/villages within the Canton covering an area of 1840 sq km.

Zurich’ public transport system is serviced by train, trams, buses and ferries. It is structured around a set of radial rail and tram lines intersected by many bus routes which are generally circumferential providing a web for multidirectional transfers.

The network is clearly defined and designed for a wide range of travel needs – not just to and from work or school, it enables people to travel anywhere almost any time within the Canton including outlying villages. But whilst the design of the network is important it is the way it is operated that makes Zurich so outstanding.

A number of principles have been adopted that ensures its success.

It has a simple and stable interconnected network with a structure and timetable that is easy to learn and understand, that is quick and convenient to use, based on repeatable easily remembered service frequencies of 7.5’,15’ and 30’. This largely eliminates the need for timetables on most lines – although these are provided nonetheless.
High frequency services are provided throughout the day and evening which are quick and reliable.
These are important factors but the key principle is acceptance that many, indeed probably the majority of travelers will need to transfer between services to access their selected destination, so easy transfers and coordination of timetables are essential.

Two methods are used for coordinating transfers
high frequency connections
pulse or timed clock face times for lower frequency services – a Swiss innovation that probably provided a break-through in public transport thinking.

High and reliable travel speeds for all modes of travel are essential to compete with the car but they are critical to guarantee connections and provide a timetable for the network as a whole.

This is achieved by

simplifying routes, making them as straight and direct as possible
making transfers as easy as possible at the connection points and
providing priority on roads to trams and buses, and it is this factor that really underpins its success.

Ernst Joos, former Deputy Director Zurich Transport Authority provides three messages concerning Zurich’s transport policy.

First message

If you ask the inhabitants of a town which transport policy should be followed, the citizens will not choose the car. They are much more intelligent than politicians and other opinion leaders would believe and have higher values than merely standing still in a traffic jam.

Second message

The future of urban transport policy lies not in expansion but in the intelligent use of the existing traffic areas. The objective of ensuring mobility for people when travelling in work and shopping and during leisure time requires imaginative urban traffic management based on modern information technology.

Third message

With regard to urban transport policy, economy and ecology are by no means contradictory. Zurich is living proof of the fact that a transport policy which promotes public transport at the expense of private motor transport results in considerable economic development of the city.

On the Zurich Model Joos writes

“Readers will no doubt expect a representative from well-to-do Switzerland to present a solid and correspondingly expensive answer to city traffic problems. However I am going to disappoint you. Zurich’s transport policy is worthy of attention because:

It is not spectacular but efficient
It costs little and protects the environment
It imposes self-restraint on politicians but the population accepts and participates in it.”

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best practice models of excellence public transport service value for money

Transport models of excellence

Post author By Roger Taylor
Post date 16/11/2020
No Comments on Transport models of excellence

Transport models of excellence

What are they and why don’t we learn from them?

This is a question I asked frequently when I worked for the Public Transport Corporation many years ago. There are number of cities we could learn from. Many of these have been confronted with similar problems to Melbourne and achieved far better transport outcomes in the process. Some are now accepted as models of best practice.

These cities vary in population, size/area, and structure, support people with different cultures and can be seen in most continents of the world. Principles and practices used by these cities are well understood. Many attempts have been made to introduce transport experts from them to policy makers in Melbourne but have consistently failed – mainly for political reasons. Whilst these cities now have to cope with disruption and longer- term impacts of covid and will also have to adapt in restructured carbon neutral economy they are better placed than most to do so and will continue to provide valuable lessons that can be applied in Melbourne. I will discuss some of these cities over the coming weeks.

best practice governance models of excellence service

A question of governance

The quality of Governance ultimately defines who we are and it is failing us

This was the subject Transport for Melbourne addressed in our annual forum in 2017, the proceedings of which can be viewed on our website under forums. It was also the subject of an earlier blog of mine. Our president Nick Low has discussed this in more detail in his short paper below. Nick writes “My purpose in this paper is to shift the debate from the superficial to the underlying nature of governance today. Dispute how we will, but for God’s sake let’s have the debate. ” This is an important paper and deserves to be read by a wide audience.

A question of governance

To bring about change in a democracy such as Australia’s we like to believe that progress is achievable through political processes. We believe that the acts of joining community groups, joining political parties – or forming them – protesting in the media, in the streets, and of course voting are sufficient to bring about beneficial social change.

We may also believe that, even though the public service is depleted, as I argued in my speech at the launch for TfM, it has the power to bring about beneficial change, if only it would remember how to plan.

The daily political turmoil that the press and social media report at high volume and great length is, I argue, a distraction from the underlying problem of democratic governance which is powerful because invisible, like the corona virus. It also inhabits bodies and minds.

From my most recent research reported in my book Being a Planner in Society, the on-line Appendix to the book, and my blogs on Edward Elgar’s website I now believe that the problem with the model of governance in Australia, and probably in many other ‘liberal’ countries, goes much deeper. In fact it appears that governance under the malign influence of neoliberalism has destroyed all possibility of planning and, with, it all possibility of democratic change by the normal means.

I am not advocating violent revolution. But unless the governance model changes, benign social change is out of reach. The governance model can still evolve. But first it must be recognised and fully understood.

In what follows I’m going to be ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’. Yes, in every ideology there are some worthwhile ideas along with the bad ones. But in a short address there is no room for babies. Someone will no doubt quite properly point them out. My concern here is the filthy poo-sodden bathwater. If you want a more nuanced critique please read my book

The governance model

The model is rooted in the ideology of utilitarianism, modified by neoliberalism and further transformed by the resilience of parliamentary democracy into what I call ‘crony capitalism’ – or to give it its more polite name ‘clientelism’.

Utilitarianism

This is the philosophy made famous by Jeremy Bentham who said that the idea of natural human rights was ‘nonsense on stilts’. All that counted was the existence of pain and pleasure (or happiness). Public policy should aim to produce the ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number’, the utilitarian principle. Law based on the utilitarian principle was the only rational basis of rights. Law was to enshrine the rational principle of market exchange.

How do you measure ‘pleasure’? Well, you don’t bother. You just assume that there is a simple linear relationship between the amount of pleasure a person has and the amount of goods and services that person consumes. So if there is still pain suffered by some in society, it is offset by the greater pleasure experienced by others. It doesn’t matter that the many suffer ‘pain’, because the few experience immense amounts of ‘pleasure’. Conversely if a few suffer death it is offset by the economic pleasure of the many. This pernicious idea is false. If utilitarianism assumptions were correct James Packer on his giga-yacht would be among the happiest people alive.

You may have noticed a philosophical debate going on in the opinion pages of The Age. This is between utilitarians like Peter Singer and Duncan Maskell and human rights supporters contributing to the letters page. The ostensible debate is about whether old people should be sacrificed for the greater good represented by young lives and ‘business’.

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism, or economic rationalism as it is sometimes called (it is no more and no less rational than any other ideology) began with two aristocratic Austrian philosophers, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek. Hayek founded the Mont Pelerin Society to discuss and disseminate his gospel. Basically the gospel says that only free market exchange would deliver societies from the slavery of socialism. Free markets had to be protected by a regime of elite ‘elders’.

Law, Hayek said, should precede and override legislation. ‘Law’, governing the behaviour of the market economy, would be determined by a legislative assembly consisting of wise elders (over 45 years old) serving electoral terms of fifteen years. Their election would not be subject to universal suffrage, and anyone receiving any benefits from the state (pensions, unemployment benefits, government salaries) would be automatically excluded from voting. Hayek’s plan was to set up a governing authority beyond political control to prevent elected politicians interfering with the market. Hayek’s position was reinforced by other disciples such as Milton and Rose Friedman (‘the Chicago School’) and the ‘public choice theorists’[1].

Hayek, presciently, advocated a network of what he called ‘second-hand dealers in ideas’ to promote his gospel. We would call them neoliberal think tanks with a mission to return societies from post-war egalitarianism to the proper order of things, namely economic domination by the wealthy, or as they themselves call it, ‘meritocracy’. I prefer the term plutonomy[2]. Helped by corporate donations, these ‘second-hand dealers’ have been so overwhelmingly successful in transforming the governance model that few today really notice that governance has been transformed.

Occasionally, when governments look like asserting themselves, the libertarian think tanks finance campaigns to sow doubt in the public mind. Thus, we have seen international campaigns against government action on tobacco smoking, on climate change, and most recently on Covid19 (e.g. ‘The Great Barrington Declaration’). Because scientific knowledge is, and should always be, debatable, the campaigns enrol a few scientists who dispute the current consensus and add on a mass of libertarian supporters to forge a sceptical mass. Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway described this process in their book, Merchants of Doubt.

Further readings providing empirical support for the above are the vast volumes by Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century and Capital and Ideology.

Crony capitalism

Also unnoticed, in the hands of the second hand dealers the pure neoliberalism of Hayek became transformed into something close to its opposite; crony capitalism. The problem for the neoliberals is that electoral politics refused to go away, for the simple reason that people value universal suffrage that holds governments to account.

The political class therefore continued to hold power even while they paid lip service to neoliberalism. So, the governance system we have today is a hybrid between corporate economic power supported by antidemocratic neoliberal ideology and political power supported by universal suffrage: that is crony capitalism. This result was what Hayek regarded as ‘the worst of both worlds’: deals between political leaders and private corporations. At its worst, as the philosopher John Rawlston Saul pointed out twenty years ago[3], crony capitalism leads to fascism (he cites Mussolini) – via populism (Trump and Johnson) as we see in the USA and Britain today.

The neoliberal ‘hollowing out of the state’ has been supported by a theoretical spawn of neoliberalism called ‘New Public Management’. The ideology of NPM can be interpreted in different ways. It provided a salutary critique of sclerotic bureaucracies that had become distanced from the publics they served, hence ‘customer service’ became a byword for NPM but that admirable goal covered something more sinister. The scope and ambition of NPM is breathtaking;

New Public Management (NPM) is part of the managerial revolution that has gone around the world, affecting all countries, though to considerably different degrees. … The theoretical background of NPM is to be found in the strong criticism of a large public sector, to be found in the public choice school as well as Chicago School Economics, both attacking since the mid-1960s prevailing notions about public sector governance (Lane, 2000: 3)[4].

The essentials of NPM are these: the use of quasi-market structures for delivery of services, contracting out of government functions to private firms, setting performance targets, continual monitoring of performance, and installing management experts in senior executive positions. Professionals relevant to the government function of departments (e.g. transport planning, public health, environmental conservation, city planning, building regulation) were replaced in senior positions by generalists trained in ‘management’. These managers were often recruited from private sector firms or consultancies. What this management training in fact amounts to is in-depth indoctrination in neoliberal ideology.

The unintended consequences

It is easy enough to overlook the structural failure which gives rise to events because we look for culprits in politics and business management.

The corruption of urban and regional planning in which deals are done between developers and governments to enrich the latter at the stroke of a pen.
The absence of a transport and land use plan forming a context for investment in hugely costly infrastructure projects.
Failures of building regulation, outsourced to private firms, resulting in hundreds of tower blocks being covered in flammable cladding.
The scarcely regulated private recycling industry resulting in flammable material stored in huge warehouses, catching fire and belching toxic smoke over residential areas.
The absence of a viable national plan to reduce carbon emissions to safe levels while ensuring affordable and reliable electricity supply. Climate change is always tomorrow, never today!
Today, in front of our mask-clad noses is Covid19. The Victorian second wave has claimed 800 lives, and counting. Aged care failure nationally has claimed more than 600 lives. As I write (October 2020) there is a manhunt underway led by the eminent jurist Jennifer Coate to determine who is to blame. Even before finalising its report, the manhunt has claimed two scalps: the Minister of Health, Jenny Mikakos, and the Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Chris Eccles. But the most telling result of multiple interrogations has been that nobody knows who is to blame. That’s because no body is to blame.

Andrews is not to blame. Mikakos and Eccles are scapegoats. Brett Sutton may be next. The governance system is to blame, but you cannot punish a system. This is the real conclusion of many judicial inquiries into governance failures over recent years: e.g. into banks, the superannuation industry, aged care, disability.

The example of Victoria’s second wave

It has been established by genomic tracing that all of the Victorian second wave of infection originated from two quarantine hotels, spread by hotel security guards who were insufficiently protected from the virus.

There has been no lack of planning for pandemic infection. In recent years planning began with the report by Dr Rosemary Lester published in 2014[5]. Lester is a highly qualified public health and epidemiology expert. Her report was delivered to the emergency management authority (Emergency Management Victoria)[6]. The epidemiological expertise shines through the report. The report was shelved.

Under the name of the Minister for Health, a second planning report was published in March this year (2020) authored by managers of the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The authors plainly did not have a public health or epidemiological background. It is a managerial document focusing mainly on the (then) three stages of governmental response. It draws heavily on the similarly managerial report from the federal Department of Health.

In June an ‘operation’ was devised by DHHS named ‘Soteria’ (after the Greek goddess of rescue) designed to manage quarantine of returned overseas travellers. This operation is quite mysterious[7]. The DHHS has nothing on its website about the operation, who devised it or what its aims were. At the public inquiry headed by Justice Coate a sheet of instructions to ‘hotel security staff’ emerged: ‘OPERATION SOTERIA, PPE Advice to Hotel Security Staff and AO’s (sic) in Contact with Quarantined Individuals’. It advised that personal protective equipment was not required to be worn by security staff at any point of contact. The latter include the hotel lobby, the quarantine floor, and at doorways to clients’ hotel rooms. Only hand hygiene and surgical masks were ‘recommended’. Hotel quarantine clients (guests) were recommended to wear surgical masks ‘if tolerated’.

It is obvious that this operation did not benefit from epidemiological advice. In evidence to the Coate Inquiry, Professor Lindsay Grayson (Director of the Austin Hospital’s infectious disease department) said that, as well as training on the proper use of masks, security guards at any point of contact with hotel guests should have been dressed in full personal protective equipment (PPE) to the same standard as health workers.[8] It is also common sense. Epidemiological advice should not even have been needed. Everyone who reads a daily newspaper or receives a digital news feed would already have known how infectious this disease was.

The report by Rosemary Lester states:

‘The use of appropriate PPE is recommended in all healthcare settings, including primary care and health services. … Where the use of appropriate PPE is recommended the equipment must be suitable and maintained. Appropriate training must be provided to the individual using PPE at a time prior to the pandemic to ensure they become competent and proficient in its use’ (p.48).

The planners of Operation Soteria did not see that the situation of hotel quarantine was[9] a ‘health care setting’. Instead they talked about ‘security’. They followed the normal, easy solution of contracting out peripheral health work to private companies, without first ensuring that the workers were properly trained in the use of protective equipment and suitably supplied. The Health Department leader of the Covid 19 response allegedly decided to spread responsibility for the operation among government bureaucrats including police and emergency services. None of them were health professionals.

Lester’s report states, ‘The Chief Health Officer or delegate would assume the role of State Controller and liaise closely with the Emergency Management Commission’. He did not assume that role. It is easy to see that the linguistic slippage from ‘health care’ to ‘security’ masked what was most necessary in the looking after the needs of those quarantined in hotels.

The private companies sub-contracted the work to labour supply companies employing casual workers. Many of these workers in the so-called ‘gig economy’ had several different jobs on the go. Unprotected from the virus, they contracted disease from returned travellers (or allegedly from a night manager of one of the hotels), and, before they began showing symptoms, spread the virus to their families and to colleagues in other work settings, who in turn became infected and spread the virus further through the community.

The hotel quarantine planning debacle has had ramifying effects. Failure of quarantine has meant that the federal and State governments have imposed draconian controls on people returning to Australia from overseas, in breach of their human rights. And because governments believe they are unable to operate effective quarantine control for returning travellers, Australians are now banned from leaving the country.

Yes, the particular features of the Sars Cov 2 infection are ‘unprecedented’ as everyone now says. But thinking outside the box, thinking with imagination, does not depend on precedent. That, as Saul states, is an elementary human skill which seems to have been turned off by managerial ideology.

Professor Jan Carter, former head of policy and research at the Brotherhood of St Lawrence, writes in The Age (07/10/2020, p. 21)[10]:

In subsequent years, the assumptions of NPM took hold, claiming content-free management in general (and MBA holders in particular) were superior heads of divisions. Now, DHHS seems to the outsider to be an inward-looking oligarchy, devoted to replacing its own with its own and keeping potential executive managers such as Sutton at bay and under control.

She continues, ‘It is too early to say whether the tide has turned again, but in the final deliberations of the Coate inquiry, the reasons for the banishment of specialist managers in the DHHS and the twin assumptions that contracting out and content-free management are always the best, need close examination’.

The question of governance goes far beyond the Coate Inquiry and Covid 19. To ‘turn the tide’ we need an inquiry into the management of, and within, the public service, an inquiry of the scope of the Royal Commission Government Administration conducted by Coombs for the Whitlam Government.

Tentative conclusions

Utilitarianism can be a useful and progressive philosophy, but it does not supplant human rights or correct social injustice. Some forms of neoliberalism have merit (for example the German variant). Public sector management is a field of study as profound and extensive as that of any other profession[11]. I do not believe that NPM is completely flawed.

But managerial concepts can be employed, and have been employed, for purposes ranging from the humane and compassionate to community suppression and genocide. In Australia NPM is being employed for the purpose of class struggle, for the strong and wealthy against the weak and poor. We have to get used to calling out class struggle where it occurs even though the classes in question are quite different from those of Marx’s day (I address the class issue in my book). In the process good governance suffers, across the social services: transport, public health, education, social welfare.

Having said that the problem we have is ‘structural’, it is also true that governance models or ‘structures’ are only ever powerful when they become embodied in the minds and activities of persons. Thus, in looking for the effects of NPM, we need to expose the ideology which shapes the advice to politicians. The aim is not to apportion individual blame but to seek out the structural assumptions that individuals embody.

We have to find a way of integrating a variety of professionals in public health, city planning, land use and transport planning, social welfare and housing into the most senior management positions in the public service. That should not mean doing away with sensible public sector management reforms which have been undertaken in the last twenty years. We need a broad review into public sector management to build on reforms that were explored in the 1970s and 1980s under the proposition that public services are not the same as ‘commercial enterprises’ as the CEO of Australia Post recently claimed. Unfortunately Christine Holgate is right when she says that Australia Post is a commercial enterprise. Under NPM, that is what it, and so many of our public services, have become.

My purpose in this paper is to shift the debate from the superficial to the underlying nature of governance today. Dispute how we will, but for God’s sake let’s have the debate.

[1] Though not by all the members of the Mont Pelerin Society as I point out in my book.

[2] Plutonomy is a system in which economic oligarchies have accumulated sufficient wealth to free themselves from national constraints, a global economic system, delinked from national economies, serving the very particular demands for goods and services of the ultra-rich.

[3] Saul, J. R. (2002) On Equilibrium, Penguin Books Australia, p. 36.

[4] Lane, J-E. (2000) New Public Management, London and New York: Routledge.

[5] file:///C:/Users/npl/Downloads/VHMPPI%20Final%20version%20-%20PDF.pdf (downloaded 20/08/2020)

[6] An organisation mostly designed for bushfire management.

[7] Transcript of proceedings of the Inquiry into the Covid-19 Hotel Quarantine Program, Day 3 p. 23 (17/08/2020). ‘Various iterations of Operation Soteria had many different moving parts involving different agencies with separate roles. An issue will be whether it was too fragmented to work efficiently, especially given the need for quick coordinated action that is proposed in the emergency environment.’ https://www.quarantineinquiry.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-08/Transcript%20of%2017%20August%202020_0.pdf (accessed 21/08/2020)

[8] Transcript of proceedings of the Inquiry into the Covid-19 Hotel Quarantine Program (17/08/2020) pages 48 and 51.

[9] Cunnigham, C., Mills, T. and Dow, A. (2020) ‘Bureaucrats blocked plan for Sutton to lead crisis’, The Age, Melbourne, 11/09/2020, p. 1.

[10] Professor Carter has undertaken a number of reviews and projects for the DHSS, including for the Cain, Kennett and Bracks governments. She is a professor at Melbourne and Deakin Universities.

[11] As is evident from the scholarly survey of the field by Shafritz et al. (2017), now in its ninth edition. Shafritz, J.M., Russell, E.W., Borick, C.P. and Hyde, A.C. (2017 Introducing Public Administration, Routledge: London and New York.