Tuesday, November 30, 2010

A critical look at major bus improvements in Latin America and Asia: Case studies of hitches, hic-ups and areas for improvement; Synthesis of lessons learned

Dario Hidalgo
Paulo Custodio
Pierre Graftieaux
April 2007


Lots of papers are available about the famous successes of Transmilenio (Bogotá) and Curitiba but not much is being said about the shortcomings of similar systems, be they recurrent, permanent, temporary during the first months of operation, or appearing gradually as the system grows. Understandably, few cities experts are willing to describe these issues at seminars or in papers. This creates an information gap in the detriment of those who could learn from these lessons. TRISP, a partnership between the UK Department for International Development and the World Bank, has agreed to fund case studies and a transversal analysis to fill this gap and make available this valuable information to our clients and beyond. The methodology used for this assignment included field visits and detailed interviews of key stakeholders, especially the implementation teams, the operators and the decision-makers. The purpose of this BBL will be to present the main findings of the case studies (Quito, Bogotá, León, México, Guayaquil, Pereira, Santiago) complemented with data from Beijing, Jakarta, São Paulo and Curitiba, and the lessons learned.

Source: Worldbank

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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A Track Record of Success: High-Speed Rail Around the World and Its Promise for America

U.S. PIRG Education Fund
November 2010



As America moves toward construction of new high-speed rail networks in regions throughout the country, we have much to learn from experiences abroad. High-speed rail lines have operated for more than 45 years in Japan and for three decades in Europe, providing a wealth of information about what the United States can expect from high-speed rail and how we can receive the greatest possible benefits from our investment.

Indeed, the experience of high-speed rail lines abroad, as well as America’s limited experience with high-speed rail on the East Coast, suggests that the United States can expect great benefits from investing in a high-speed passenger rail system, particularly if it makes steady commitments and designs the system wisely.

Contents:
Executive Summary 1
Introduction 6
High-Speed Rail:
Experiences from Around the World 8
High-Speed Rail Replaces Short-Haul Air Travel 8
High-Speed Rail Replaces Car Travel 17
High-Speed Rail Saves Energy and Protects the Environment 19
High-Speed Rail Is Safe and Reliable 23
High-Speed Rail Boosts the Economy 26
High-Speed Rail Is Often Economically Self Sufficient 33
High-Speed Rail, Transit and Land Use 34
Conclusion and Recommendations 39
Notes 43

Press Release

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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

The hidden health costs of transportation

American Public Health Association
May 2010

      Photo extracted from the report 

Our past and current paradigm of transportation investment has created a transportation system that is focused on road building and the private auto. This systemhas given our country an unprecedented level of individual mobility and facilitated economic growth fromcoast to coast. As important as these benefits are, they have come at a high price—costs to our environment and the health of our communities.U.S. residents—especially our children—aremore obese and overweight than ever before due in part to sedentary lifestyles and the lack of opportunity for everyday physical activity. Traffic crashes cause close to 40,000 deaths a year, and exposure to air pollution from traffic results in high rates of asthma and respiratory illness.

These negative outcomes have the largest effect on those who aremost vulnerable—the elderly, children, and traditionally underserved and disadvantaged (low income and non-white/ethnic minority) communities—themost, through greater adverse health impacts and through a relative lack of access to economic, recreational, and social opportunities. The full costs to public health of transportation are only beginning to be understood. Although health impacts—such as not being able to walk safely to school or breathe clean air—may not seem tangible, they can in fact be valued. These costs are as real and in certain instances as measurable as the costs of steel and concrete. It has often been said that “what gets measured gets done.” To date, the costs of public health impacts have been “externalized”—that is, they are not accounted for in the current framework of planning, funding and building highways, bridges and public transit. No doubt, different decisions about transportation investments would be made if health-related costs were incorporated into the decision-making process.

A look at our cities and towns confirms that sidewalks, bikeways do not compete well against cars for lane space—and transit funding is a fraction of what is spent on roads. For many years, public transit, bicycle lanes, and trails and sidewalks have suffered from a lack of investment. A more balanced transportation system is needed, or these costs will continue to grow and undermine the country’s economic health and quality of life. Fortunately, there are plenty of models illustrating how to engineer physical activity and safety back into everyday lives, and plenty of opportunities to create the political support, funding systems and evaluativemethods to do so. This document outlines some of those pathways and opportunities, and the role the public health community can play.


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Also: At the Intersection of Public Health and Transportation Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy

Manual de Puertos de Centroamérica - Central American Ports Handbook - 2010-2011

COCATRAM
2010


COCATRAM tiene el honor de presentarle a la región centroamericana y al resto del mundo la primera edición del Manual de Puertos de Centroamérica en la que se describen las características, tráfico de carga y planes de sus 25 puertos.

En su gran mayoría los puertos son operados por empresas estatales con excepción de Panamá que son manejados por operadores portuarios globales. Esperamos que la presente publicación sea de utilidad a los usuarios del sistema portuario centroamericano, investigadores y estudiantes de manera que logren obtener una clara perspectiva del presente y futuro de este sector de la economía regional.

Contenido:
  • La ampliación del canal de Panamá y su impacto en Centroamérica/Panama Canal expansion and its impact in Central America
  • Proyecto de expansión y modernización de Puerto Cortés/Expansion and modernization project for Puerto Cortés
  • El reto del transporte marítimo de corta distancia/The short sea shipping challenge
  • Evolución y comportamiento de los puertos del istmo centroamericano/Evolution and activity pattern of Central American ports
  • Limón – Moín avanza hacia la modernización de sus instalaciones portuarias/Limon – Moin advances towards modernization of port facilities
  • Puerto de la unión, motor de desarrollo de El Salvador/Port of La Union: powering development in El Salvador
  • El desarrollo de una estrategia marítima portuaria para Centroamérica/Development of a Central American maritime port strategy
  • Puerto Santo Tomás de Castilla proyecta una nueva terminal de contenedores/Port of Santo Tomas de Castilla plans new container terminal
  • Mapa / map
  • Perfiles de compañías / company profiles
  • Directorio / Directory

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Monday, November 1, 2010

Walking and Cycling to Health: A Comparative Analysis of City, State, and International Data

John Pucher, PhD, Ralph Buehler, PhD, David R. Bassett, PhD, and Andrew L. Dannenberg, MD, MPH
American Journal of Public Health
Oct2010
Vol. 100 Issue 10
p1986-1992 7p
4 Graphs

Objectives. We sought to determine the magnitude, direction, and statistical significance of the relationship between active travel and rates of physical activity, obesity, and diabetes.

Methods. We examined aggregate cross-sectional health and travel data for 14 countries, all 50 US states, and 47 of the 50 largest US cities through graphical, correlation, and bivariate regression analysis on the country, state, and city levels.

Results. At all 3 geographic levels, we found statistically significant negative relationships between active travel and self-reported obesity. At the state and city levels, we found statistically significant positive relationships between active travel and physical activity and statistically significant negative relationships between active travel and diabetes.

Conclusions. Together with many other studies, our analysis provides evidence of the population-level health benefits of active travel. Policies on transport, land-use, and urban development should be designed to encourage walking and cycling for daily travel.
(Am J Public Health. 2010;100:1986–1992.doi:10.2105/AJPH.2009.189324)

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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Cost Damping in Travel Demand Models: Report of a study for the Department for Transport

Andrew Daly
RAND Technical Report



Cost Damping is a feature in some travel demand models by which the marginal disutility of cost (and, possibly, of time) declines as journey lengths increase. It is present in many models in practical use in the UK and the Department for Transport sought recommendations for the advice it issues to local planners in the ‘WebTAG’ system: www.dft.gov.uk/webtag. The report makes a review of UK and limited international practice, a significant part of it due to RAND Europe, and discusses the advantages, disadvantages and theoretical backgrounds of the methods that are used, which can be reduced to eight principal model formulations, each in turn belonging to one of four essentially different types. Evidence of the importance of Cost Damping in practice is assessed. Tests of the model formulations are proposed, including a novel ‘kilometrage’ test, and a number of the model forms used in practice are found to be unsatisfactory with respect to one or other of these tests. The use of distance as a variable in the models is found to be unsatisfactory. The report goes on to show that microeconomic theory gives little insight into the appropriate forms of Cost Damping. Finally, a small number of Cost Damping mechanisms are recommended as being acceptable for use in practical modelling.

Contents

Chapter One:
International expertise

Chapter Two:
The relationship of cost sensitivity and trip length

Chapter Three:
The impact of microeconomic theory

Appendix:
The Kilometrage Test

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Vision 2050: The new agenda for business

World Business Council for Sustainable Development
February 2010


The Vision 2050 report ( 2.6 MB) lays out a pathway leading to a global population of some 9 billion people living well, within the resource limits of the planet by 2050. This work results from an 18-month combined effort with CEOs and experts, and dialogues with over 200 companies and external stakeholders in some 20 countries.

The report spells out the “must haves” – the things that must happen over the coming decade to make a sustainable planetary society possible. These include incorporating the costs of externalities, starting with carbon, ecosystem services and water, into the structure of the marketplace; doubling agricultural output without increasing the amount of land or water used ; halting deforestation and increasing yields from planted forests: halving carbon emissions worldwide (based on 2005 levels) by 2050 through a shift to low-carbon energy systems and improved demand-side energy efficiency, and providing universal access to low-carbon mobility.

Vision 2050, with its best-case scenario for sustainability and pathways for reaching it, is a tool for thought leadership, a platform for beginning the dialogue that must take place to navigate the challenging years to come.

Document details
English document
Documento en español: Una nueva agenda para los negocios

Mobilidad: P. 39

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Experiencias de sistemas de transporte público en bicicleta para América Latina

Carlosfelipe Pardo, Patricia Calderón, Bernardo Baranda, Cécile Medina, Jonas Hagen, Xavier Treviño
Institute for Transportation and Development Policy
October 2010

Este documento presenta las características más relevantes de los sistemas de bicicletas públicas que hay en el mundo, además de algunos estudios de caso para su conocimiento en América Latina. El documento se concentra principalmente en describir los obstáculos más importantes en la implementación de un sistema de este tipo que podrían tenerse en cuenta al desarrollar uno similar en ciudades de América Latina. También se presentan algunas oportunidades o soluciones propuestas a estos obstáculos.

Press release

Enlace

PDF

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Movimiento portuario contenedorizado de América Latina y el Caribe - Primer Semestre 2010

CEPAL
Abril 2010



De acuerdo al último ranking, los 20 principales puertos de contenedores en América Latina y el Caribe, registraron un crecimiento de un 18.2% comparado con el primer semestre del 2009 y de un 9.6% en relación a la primera mitad del 2008, justo antes del inicio de la crisis económica. Sin embargo, la velocidad de recuperación no es la misma para todos y en el algunos casos esta revitalización no es suficiente para alcanzar el nivel del 2008, debido a problemas de congestión portuaria o de conexión terrestrem que están impactando su desempeño. Es por ello urgente llamar la atención de las autoridades portuarias y nacionales para resolver efectivamente los crecientes problemas de congestión portuaria y conectividad con el hinterland que están afectando a muchos puertos de la región, lo cual no solamente afecta el desarrollo portuario, sino que además amenaza seriamente la competitividad y desarrollo de toda la economía nacional.

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Best Practices in Transit Service Planning

Mark Mistretta, Jay A. Goodwill, Rob Gregg, and Christopher DeAnnuntis
National center for transit research
Center for urban transportation research
University of South Florida
March 2009


The provision of cost efficient and effective bus transit service is the basic premise upon which transit service is developed and the goal that all public transportation agencies strive to achieve. To attain this goal, public transit agencies must design their services around clear and defined principles, as well as a process to monitor the results achieved and to respond accordingly. This requires service design standards, an effective performance measurement system, and a systematic and continuous service evaluation methodology.

This research identifies existing best practices in transit service planning and develops a generic model approach that could be adapted and used by public transit agencies for fixed route bus transit service planning, specifically to include Service Design Standards, Service Performance Measurements, and a standard Service Evaluation Methodology. This research effort provides a summary of best practices and provides a "template" process tool that can be adapted and customized for use by all sizes of public transit agencies.

Abstract

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Friday, October 15, 2010

Modernizing Public Transportation: Lessons learned from major bus improvements in Latin America and Asia

October 2010



Research led by Senior Transport Engineer Dario Hidalgo provides key findings and lessons learned from a comprehensive review of major bus improvements in 13 Latin American (Curitiba, Quito, Bogotá, São Paulo, León, México City, Pereira, Guayaquil, Santiago and Guadalajara) and Asian cities.

"Modernizing Public Transport," a 40-page report released in October 2010, is based on research and interviews with planners and public officials in cities and transport agencies around the world.

The report reviews and synthesizes information regarding challenges experienced by transport system decision makers in three key areas: planning, implementation and operations. In order to assist urban transport planners and implementing agencies, the study also provides recommendations on avoiding or mitigating similar difficulties when introducing bus reforms in developing world cities.

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Friday, October 8, 2010

La Regulación de la Infraestructura de Transporte en el Perú: Lecciones y Agenda Pendiente

Juan Carlos Zevallos U.
Revista de regulación en infraestructura del transporte
Organismo supervisor de la inversión en infraestructura de transporte de uso público - OSITRAN
Año 1 volumen 1 Julio 2008
p.10-38


El objetivo del presente artículo consiste en realizar un balance del proceso regulatorio seguido en el sector de infraestructura de transporte bajo el ámbito del OSITRAN, para rescatar las principales lecciones e identificar los retos pendientes de la institución, y definir una agenda pendiente de mediano y largo plazo, en aras de velar mejor por los intereses de los inversionistas, usuarios, y hacerlo de forma transparente y justa.

Después de 10 años de experiencia en la regulación del sector, se pueden mencionar como lecciones: la importancia de contar con un margo legal y regulatorio claro y preciso; la necesidad de que el OSITRAN participe en el diseño de los Contratos de Concesión, en los procesos de licitación y tenga una mayor interacción con la agencia de competencia (INDECOPI); los beneficios que representan la incorporación de mecanismos de incentivos en dichos contratos y la existencia de los Consejos de Usuarios. Identificadas las lecciones, se propone la siguiente agenda: una mayor difusión de la cultura regulatoria, y fortalecimiento de la independencia, autonomía y capacidad del OSITRAN; apuntar a un marco regulatorio que mitigue las asimetrías de información entre empresas reguladas y el regulador, y que concentre esfuerzos hacia una regulación por incentivos; incrementar las sinergias con la agencia de competencia; y prestar atención a los retos que demanda la multimodalidad en materia regulatoria.

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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Boletín Interamericano de Puertos No. 28

Comisión Interamericana de Puertos
Febrero 2010

Contenido:

1. Terminal de contenedores de La Plata para 2011 en Argentina
2. Puertos que reciben cargas Argentinas
3. Bahamas reporta crecimiento de mas del 28 por ciento en el turismo de cruceros
4. El Caribe se mantuvo como destino mas vendido por operadores de cruceros
5. Centroamérica busca posicionarse en formación de marinos
6. Comenzó el proceso de licitación del Sitio No. 9 de EPSA, en San Antonio, Chile
7. El exitoso modelo logístico de Valparaíso, Chile
8. Un estudio de sistema integrado de transporte marítimo comenzara el primer trimestre
9. Curso para nuevo puerto se abre en enero en Costa Rica
10. Mas fondos para recuperación de puertos de Louisiana en EEUU
11. El BID alerta por los altos costos del transporte en America Latina
12. La industria marítima analiza diversas estrategias frente al cambio climático
13. La Ing. María Isabel Fernández deja la CPN en Guatemala
14. ICTS gana concesión en Manzanillo – Puerto Lázaro Cárdenas convoca a licitación (México)
15. Apuran nueva Ley de Puertos en Nicaragua
16. Señalan que países no deberían preocuparse por futuro de puertos de DP World
17. Panamá es reelecta en categoría “A” en la OMI
18. Gobierno peruano toma decisiones sobre concesiones portuarias
19. Aprueban crédito por US $ 60 millones para obras en Puerto de Callao
20. Santa Lucia: Turismo de cruceros en el Caribe crece en medio de la baja económica
21. St. Kitts podría ser uno de los puertos de recalada del Oasis of Seas
22. Licitación del segundo terminal de contenedores ya tiene fecha en Montevideo, Uruguay
23. Actividades portuarias

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