Reinventing Transport

Metro Manila depends on informal, lightly-regulated public transport which now faces a catastrophe as a result of this pandemic. The Mobility Coalition, an alliance of eight Metro Manila transport advocacy groups, has ideas on what to do. I spoke with Robie Siy who is active in the Mobility Coalition and who writes the weekly Mobility Matters column for the Manila Times.   [Scroll to the end for more details on Robie, Mobility Matters and the Mobility Alliance.] Scroll down for highlights of our conversation or listen with the player below. Click here to learn how to subscribe to this podcast.

Many cities strive for better public transport. But too few do enough to improve their BUS systems. For Reinventing Transport this time around I discussed bus improvements with  public transport planning veteran,  Colin Brader of ITP.   Colin has worked on numerous public transport projects around the world and is one of the authors of the 2019 EBRD report, " Driving change: reforming urban bus services ". A key point in our discussion: Cities need bus reform champions. We will see that one even has a bus improvement "heavyweight". Scroll down for highlights of our conversation or listen with the player below. Click here to learn how to subscribe to this podcast. Yangon bus stuck in traffic. Yangon has made drastic bus reforms recently. Colin Brader  is the founder of the  UK-based international transport consulting firm, ITP , and is currently ITP’s Chairman. For more than 2 decades he has worked through ITP on projects that have tran...

If you care about promoting public transport, you need to understand the key choices about organising and regulating it. These choices shape the industry and they really matter. This is NOT just about privatisation versus government operation. It is more interesting than that. This edition of Reinventing Transport shares the key alternatives and gives a sense of what's at stake. The focus is buses but most of the ideas also apply more widely. Click here to learn how to subscribe to the podcast. You can either read the article below or listen to the podcast episode  (use a podcast app or the player at the beginning of this article or click HERE ) . This is just the basics, not a deep dive. If you want more gory details, then follow the links right at the end of the article. It may seem dull but bus regulation is important! [1:29] The regulatory framework sets how decisions get made and who makes those choices. It makes a huge difference for things you care about ...

Singapore's National Day is this week (9 August). So I decided to share Singapore's urban transport story - or my slightly  unusual take on it .  It is   a unique city in various ways but its urban transport policies are well worth your attention even if you don't live in Singapore. This is a warts-and-all version of the story, and it is my own view, not any kind of official one. It's also a little wonkish in parts. [Hi all you policy wonks!] But I hope to keep your interest with some surprising twists, such as: Why was the bus-only public transport system in an awful state by the early 1970s? If the buses were awful in early 1974, how was Singapore able to impose drastic increases to the cost of motoring in 1975? You will have guessed that the buses must have been drastically improved in 1974/75. But how was that achieved? Singapore urban transport enjoyed success through the 1980s and 1990s but its core social bargain (cars for the rich; decent but bas...

This post is to share a presentation on Singapore's Public Transport policies which I gave in Seoul in September. This is my own take on the story, not any kind of official narrative. I took a rather long-term perspective, going back to the 1930s and emphasizing important changes in the 1970s. It is also a 'big picture' view. But some of the current debates are also there. If you have any interest in Singapore's public transport story, then take a peek and let me know what you think. Public Transport Policy in Singapore (a long view) from Paul Barter If you can't see the embedded slideshow above, then try clicking  Public Transport Policy in Singapore (a long view) .    By the way, Singapore has had a busy year of transport and urban planning announcements. Early in the year, there was the controversial Population White Paper . That was followed closely by the Land Use Plan  (basically the latest Concept Plan, Singapore's strategic plan that c...

Update:   I appeared on a panel discussion of this topic on the Talking Point program on Channel News Asia TV. The full video can be viewed HERE (for a few months I think). It is the 21 - 03 - 2012 episode . Singapore's Budget 2012 announced a large funding injection into the bus system. This has caused   much   debate . I felt the need to write something to explain that I see a wider importance in the announcement. The initial Government explanations have focused on the need to improve bus services while we wait for the MRT system to grow further.  But I think the funds should be used strategically to enable two important reforms. In fact, I suspect that this may be the intention, although it has not yet been clearly explained. So, with some trepidation (it has become a hot political issue since I started writing it), I submitted an Op Ed to the Straits Times. It appeared in the ST Review section on Thursday 1 March.  Subscribers to the Straits Ti...

I am impressed by the rise of public transport advocacy in Malaysia, especially a group in the Kuala Lumpur metropolitan area called TRANSIT . I am sure recent Malaysian legislation to set up a Public Land Transport Commission must owe something to TRANSIT's efforts. Malaysian public transport policy has often been woeful but these reforms look promising. TRANSIT's detailed and critical analysis is a good starting point for understanding the changes. Their website is rich with information on Malaysian urban transport. For several years now, this energetic group has been persistently pushing for better public transport priority, planning and budgets. Their attention to less sexy issues like regulation and institutional reform is also impressive. I can see an enormous improvement in the level of public discussion on public transport policy in Malaysia since I lived there in the late 1990s. Much of the credit must go to the advocacy groups like TRANSIT (full name: ‘The A...

Buses may not be sexy (least of all Delhi's buses like the one above). But most cities desperately need to improve their basic bus systems. And I am not talking about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) this time. No matter how much BRT you put in, neglecting the basic bus system will undermine your efforts. Jakarta is finding this. The same goes for urban rail systems. These work best when complemented and fed by a good bus system. Seoul realised this in 2004. Unable to expand its subway, it turned to bus improvements for a dramatic boost to its system. Maybe the only thing less sexy than a bus is bus regulation! But if you care about public transport it is time to get interested in regulatory questions like these : Who should plan the system? Who should own what? What roles are best for the public sector? What roles are best for businesses? How should they be rewarded? What kind of competition works for city buses? Getting the regulatory framework right is at least as important as th...

Vienna's public transport is an example of excellent integration and planning I have long been interested in public transport systems in which a public agency takes responsibility for the excellence of a highly integrated system. This interest was provoked by Felix Laube's explanations of Zurich's public transport system and by Paul Mees' excellent book, 'A Very Public Solution'. I am also interested in the growing trend for such agencies to often delegate operation of most services to business enterprises under service contracts , often with competitive tendering. Examples that I have blogged about include Seoul and Bogotá but many others are moving in the same direction, such as various Scandinavian cities, Adelaide in Australia and London famously. Even Indore in India has created a much-praised bus system with a similar regulatory approach. This year, Singapore announced a shift in this direction too, something which I called for in an OpEd in Ethos Magazi...