Analytical Decision-Making Methods for Evaluating Sustainable Transport in European Corridors

This chapter analyses the main changes occurred to passenger mobility needs and patterns in the last decades and investigates which are the main demographic, economic, social and technological factors that have influenced and are influencing such changes (mobility drivers). Recent trends of the identified drivers have been analysed to draw possible development scenarios of passenger demand, forecast some likely effects on car mobility during the next 10 years and understand which are the main knowledge gaps and open issues that still need to be investigated.

This chapter summarises some of the main issues in the analysis of freight transport. It starts by underlining why it is important to study freight transport, and which perspectives can be taken. Then the different types of agents involved are discussed, together with the choices that they have. These often lead to multi-leg transport chains, in particular when consolidation is involved. The chains can be analysed at microscopic or macroscopic level. Then the evolution of freight transport is discussed: what are the drivers of freight transport and what are the (expected) developments in those? The different modes of freight transport are compared, in particular road and rail transport, but also the other modes including water-based transport, air freight, pipelines and container based transport. Finally the policy levers available to influence freight transport are discussed.

The significance of maritime container transport is well known today, as is the importance it has had in the birth of the global village and how the drive for internationalisation has produced the immense traffic flows that feed it. The container is one of the many standardisation processes that make the industrialisation of maritime transport of general cargo possible. This form of transportation is used worldwide and therefore requires standardisation in all terminals in the world and for all means of transport. A great effort is being made to unify international standards, which are controlled by special organisations. But the need for standardisation inevitably clashes with the need for change dictated by technological evolution. The conflict between evolution and standardisation, somewhat common to all industries, is particularly accentuated in the field of global container transport and is conditioning its nonetheless explosive development.

The present understanding of bottlenecks in the European transport network fails to grasp the cumulating and culminating effects of bottlenecks, for the scope of the research is in most cases limited to a one-sided (logistics) perspective. A theoretical framework has been created, which argues that bottlenecks should be interpreted as integrative, complex problems, operating on the cutting edge between transportation, spatial planning, environmental issues, economic development and transnational governance. This chapter will provide empirical evidence to support this framework, in a context of European transport corridor development. The theoretical framework has been tested in an empirical setting by zooming in on the European transport Corridor 24. In a first step, both general (macro-level) and specific (micro-level) bottlenecks have been identified by interviewing logistics experts. In a next step, these first results will be further used to perform an in-depth, qualitative analysis of bottlenecks in case-study areas along Corridor 24. One of the key findings is that bottlenecks emerge from different, sectoral perspectives. Moreover, these perspectives appear to be highly interrelated. In other words, more attention should be paid to the cumulating and culminating effects of bottlenecks, operating as comprehensive problem areas. The most important implication is that, when using a limited, sectoral perspective on bottlenecks, one loses track of the possible added value of sector-transcendent analyses. This will ultimately lead to inefficient use of transport networks. This chapter provides a new conceptualisation for the possibilities of inter-sectoral coordination in dealing with bottlenecks in the European transport network.

In the Lisbon Agenda, Europe formulated the goal to become the most competitive economic region worldwide. The present economic crisis makes it clear though, this will be a stony path. For one, Europe doesn’t have spatially related strategies and priorities to identify reliable spaces for future investments. And second, building up an efficient trans-European transport network must be a key element of this strategy. The primary element of a sustainable spatial and settlement development is a high-capacity railway network to serve as a kind of backbone. To take full advantage of the synergy, future settlement development should be concentrated in the catchment areas of the train stations of this high-capacity public transport. These two elements are critical to achieving this desired competitive advantage. There is a need for adequate methods and strategies to achieve this. The case of the Corridor Development 24 (CODE24) Rotterdam–Genoa illustrates the challenges, methods and strategies needed to achieve an integrated spatial and infrastructure development.

In many European Countries any decision to draft a plan, to define a path of transport infrastructure or to choose the location of an “undesirable service” requires an imposing volume of discussions and negotiations. The most worrying aspect is that, even if the processes of governance are sufficiently open and transparent, they can run the serious risk of failure, as shown by recent experiences. In an attempt to reduce this risk, the decision process has to be seen as the result of a set of interactive actions occurring at different times in order to distinguish what is a priority and what may be negligible. The view of planning as a strategic choice process is a dynamic one, which implies to choose in a strategic manner rather than at strategic level. The chapter, after framing the main evaluation tools adopted in the field of territorial transformations connected to mayor transport infrastructure (as the Eurocorridor), provides some insights about the choice of the most suitable MCDA methodology. It introduces also the idea of MCDA in combination with visualisation tools to tackle these types of decision problems. Many and varied experiences of using multicriteria as tools to support decision aiding processes in a European project are illustrated in the last paragraph. It is shown how they have stimulated general reflections with the possibility of increasing the affordances, i.e. the possibilities for action the methods offer to those involved, varying the degree that was crucial to enable or constrain (model-supported) meaning negotiations and new knowledge creation.

Regional accessibility is an important location factor, which enhance the region and, therefore, promote economic growth. It is the virtual aim of transport policy, on European as well as on national level, to strengthen regional accessibility. But available resources to do so are limited. Therefore, new investment and enlargement in transport infrastructure should be based on efficiency considerations. This article focuses on the economic impact of regional accessibility and in different economic sectors in order to prepare a methodology of planning for efficient transport infrastructure investment along the corridor Rotterdam-Genoa. The approach takes into consideration that the output of economic sectors depends differently on logistic services. If we consider different regional concentrations of specific sectorial activity, we can assume different economic impacts of transport infrastructure investment on different regions or, in other words, higher ‘costs of non-doing’ if bottlenecks in transport infrastructure persist. Therefore, the link between transport costs and regional accessibility in transport infrastructure is analyzed. The results of an empirical study which surveys the correlation between regional accessibility and regional sector output will be described.

This chapter gives an overview of discrete choice analysis techniques. First we present a reflection about the meaning of the words ‘discrete’ and ‘choice’. Then we provide an overview of the sorts of choices in passenger and freight transport that have been treated as discrete choice problems. The next section presents the basic random utility theory, upon which most discrete choice models have been based. Different types of discrete choice models are then discussed: the workhorse of discrete choice modelling—the multinomial logit model (MNL), the nested logit and other Generalised Extreme Value (GEV) models, the probit model, the mixed logit and latent class models, ordered response models and aggregate logit models. Then we briefly discuss the estimation of discrete choice models and their application for demand forecasting and for policy simulation. The last section contains a summary and conclusions and a discussion on the future research directions.

Large-scale spatial strategies clearly belong to the category of complex planning problems [15‐20, 14, 18]. They represent a challenge in terms of technical competences and administrative effectiveness, but offer also a very interesting chance for experimenting with collaborative planning instruments. Collaborative environments [2] are necessary to support the creative emergence of proposals and ideas best corresponding to the construction of a consensual and integrated vision of the future among different stakeholders, in which the settlement development, infrastructure and management policies become the structuring elements. The central question then becomes how to organize these processes of discussion and joint planning and which tools can be put in place to facilitate the establishment of patterns of collaborative interaction in these large-scale spatial contexts. The chapter focuses on the search for a working method to tackle these issues and reports on the experiments conducted within the framework of the CODE24 Interreg projects. The approach developed sees in the practices of joint assessment the central moment of spatial strategies’ design. In particular, the Collaborative Assessment process is presented as key instrument focusing on a dialogical mapping of the issues at stake and on accompanying the key spatial actors into the definition of a desired development horizon through a process of empowerment of their design skills.

The chapter proposes the use of the Interactive Visualisation Tool (InViTo) as a method for sharing information by using spatial data visualisation, also known as geo-visualisation, applied to support spatial decision making and planning. InViTo is based on the idea that interacting with data can improve the users knowledge process, while visualisation should contribute to increase intuitive perception. Therefore, through the interactive and visual exploration of geo-referenced data, participants to spatial processes are supported to evaluate strategies and objectives for several alternative development options. The visual system works both on two-dimensional and three-dimensional views, so as to better meet users’ skills in interpreting images. InViTo has been used in different applications, with diverse purposes and spatial scopes, showing its effectiveness in creating a common language among the involved actors and enabling discussions on spatial development.

Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is a widely-used tool to support decision processes when a choice between different options is needed. This approach is particularly useful in situation characterized by an inter-connected range of environmental, social and economic issues. Moreover the presence of many actors with different backgrounds and knowledge constitutes a further level of complexity due to the difficulty in interpreting and reading outputs. The present application is one response to tackle these difficulties. It is an innovative approach integrating Analytic Network Process (ANP) and Interactive Visualization Tool (InViTo) which creates a common language among the actors involved and a shared basis for generating discussion. The methodological framework is applied to a Swiss section of the transport corridor Genoa—Rotterdam, within the Interreg IVB NWE Project “Code24” in order to demonstrate the potential of the joint use of the two tools mentioned for the selection of a suitable strategy for transport improvement within territorial transformation.

The development of strategic transport infrastructure needs to be accompanied through dedicated processes, enabling both the discussion and sharing of the expected positive and negative impacts and externalities. According to the different scales of intervention, spatial strategies can assume different shapes and require the involvement of a different range of experts and stakeholders. The topic of involvement and long-lasting collaboration, in these cases, touches several dimensions: the actual physical and geographical distance between some of the actors; different cultural backgrounds and languages; the difficulty of reading outputs. The study presents a Collaborative Assessment Workshop designed in order to allow different forms of interaction between the participating actors and enabling them to contributing referring to both their knowledge as local stakeholders and experts’ skills. The first step of the assessment is structured through an approach integrating Analytic Network Process (ANP) and Interactive Visualization Tool (InViTo) in order to create a shared basis for generating discussion. The second step is constituted by a Collaborative Assessment assuming the perspective of strategy design processes as peer learning practice. The Collaborative Assessment Workshop aims at identifying a shared spatial and infrastructural development strategy for the regions connected through the railway Corridor24 Genoa–Rotterdam.

This chapter reports the results of a conjoint analysis experiment performed in North West Italy to investigate shippers’ sensitivity and preferences for four relevant freight transport attributes: transport cost, time, punctuality and risk of damage and loss. The empirical study and the subsequent model estimation provided interesting results: shippers evaluate quality attributes, such as punctuality and avoidance of risk of damage and loss more important than travel time savings and indicate a high willingness to pay to increase freight transport service reliability and safety.