Others

This working paper summarizes the key findings of the African Transport Policy
Performance Review, carried out by SSATP in selected Anglophone and Francophone
countries in 2013. It highlights the performance of transport policies focusing
on the main transportation modes, excluding maritime and aviation, and is
augmented by outcomes of related work carried out mainly by SSATP and the
World Bank. The key objective is to convey the salient messages, and to point out
the need for more transformational and pragmatic transport policy objectives and
strategies, in an effort to enhance the efficiency and competitiveness of the sector.
The paper addresses some fundamental policy issues, that affect transport performance
in Sub-Saharan African countries and is intended for transport sector policy
level decision-makers.

This working paper summarizes the key findings of the African Transport Policy
Performance Review1, carried out by SSATP in selected Anglophone and Francophone
countries in 2013. It highlights the performance of transport policies focusing
on the main transportation modes, excluding maritime and aviation, and is
augmented by outcomes of related work carried out mainly by SSATP and the
World Bank. The key objective is to convey the salient messages, and to point out
the need for more transformational and pragmatic transport policy objectives and
strategies, in an effort to enhance the efficiency and competitiveness of the sector.
The paper addresses some fundamental policy issues, that affect transport performance
in Sub-Saharan African countries and is intended for transport sector policy
level decision-makers.

The World Bank has released a report that identifies ways that the Papua New Guinean trucking industry can manage risks associated with poor infrastructure and crime in order to ensure the safe transportation of goods.

This paper uses Zambia as a case study to assess empirically whether political interference in a lowgovernanceenvironment has diminished in the past years as expected after a semi-autonomous agency model was set up ten years ago. The road sector in Zambia has experienced some significant developments since then.

The paper uses data on contract from 2008 to 2011 and analyses a number of key trends related to Road Development Agency governance and staffing dynamics as well as procurement and project selection within the institution. The main findings indicate that, after someyears of implementation of these reforms, there is reason to question whether the model of semi-autonomous agency enables road management to be shielded from political interference. Zambia may be an isolated case but, so far, this model does not seem to have been able to decrease political interference in the selection or supervision of projects and there seems to have been an increased lack of accountability of civil servants working in this sector.

The objective of this evaluation is to assess the effectiveness of World Bank Group support to countries in sustaining the provision of transport infrastructure and services and to distill lessons on the factors contributing to sustained transport. In the context of this evaluation, sustained provision of infrastructure and services is defined as the extent to which the policies, institutional and regulatory framework, sector management capacity, and financial arrangements are in place to ensure that transport infrastructure is operated and maintained, enabling a reliable flow of services over the long term. The term transport is used throughout this report to mean transport infrastructure and services, unless otherwise specified.

The evaluation covers World Bank, IFC, and MIGA transport operations approved over fiscal 2002-11. It includes investments in all six transport subsectors — intercity highways, rural roads, urban transport, railways, air transport, and ports and waterborne transport — in all client countries of the Bank Group. The evaluation recognizes the potentially complementary approaches of the three agencies in sustaining transport. The World Bank helps governments improve the enabling environment for sustained transport and finance physical investments. IFC and MIGA complement these efforts by supporting profitable private sector transport-related investments.

Presentation discussing issues pertaining to catering for non-motorized traffic in China.

A very useful guide to the types of technology available to undertake road maintenance. Includes detailed specifications.

This report documents the results of a pilot study conducted as part of a project on improving FHWA’s ability to assess highway infrastructure health. As part of the pilot study, a section of Interstate 90 through South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin was evaluated in order to 1) test approaches for categorizing bridge and pavement condition as good/fair/poor that potentially could be used across the country, and 2) provide a proof of concept for a methodology to assess and communicate the overall health of a corridor with respect to bridges and pavements. As a result of the pilot study, it was found that a bridge good/fair/poor methodology can be implemented nationwide today. For pavements, the International Roughness Index can be used today to classify pavement ride quality nationwide. However, additional investigation of other pavement condition metrics is necessary prior to implementation of a holistic pavement indicator that includes distress and structural condition. Also, a conceptual condition and health reporting tool was developed and is presented in the report.

Some 20 Road Authorities have been established in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA),  most since 2000. These agencies were created broadly in line with the principles espoused in the Road Management Initiative (RMI), a component of the Sub- Saharan Africa Transport Policy Program (SSATP). The agencies were established with the main objective of being more consumer-oriented and market-responsive than the largely politically driven, traditional government Road Agencies. However, since the establishment of Road Authorities, no systematic review has been conducted of their performances in order to accurately quantify the improvements in road management. The need for such a review has prompted the launch of an analytical work to assess progress on commercializing road management.

Its main objective is to identify key issues and constraints affecting the commercialized management of a selection of Road Agencies in SSA and to put forward some basic guidelines for increasing their managerial effectiveness and efficiency. The aim is to deepen the understanding of good practice by identifying the underlying principles governing successful organizational reform as a basis for a quasitheoretical model that can provide guidance to SSATP partner countries setting up new Road Authorities or restructuring existing Road Agencies. The study focuses on the organizational, technical, and management issues associated with the restructuring, and commercialization of Road Agencies in seven countries: Botswana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Namibia, Tanzania, and South Africa. The choice of these mostly Anglophone countries was influenced by theirwidely dispersed geographical locations in SSA, their diverse institutional arrangements, and their varied progress toward commercialization of their road management operations.

Study looking at how to harmonize vehicle overloading control in East Africa

Report from the World Bank looking at corruption in the road sector and steps that can be taken to combat it.

The International Development Association (IDA) is a vital arm of the World Bank Group. Briefly, IDA finances projects through interest-free grants and subsidized loans to the poorest countries in lieu of traditional lending.

This report summarizes IDA's investments over the last 50 years.

The shape and scope of the IDA portfolio has evolved with global economic trends, as well as evolving philosophies on what constitutes good transport investments. And the results were surprising in terms of their scale. In road transport, for instance, IDA funds have supported the construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance of close to 1 million kilometers of roads in developing countries. This is equivalent to circling the globe 25 times or one and a half trips to the Moon. Ethiopia was the largest recipient. A noticeable outcome in Ethiopia was the growth of the IDA backed road fund to six times its original size within ten years with IDA providing TA to create a strong and sustainable capacity to manage a road network.

IDA has provided about US$28.3 billion to fund a total 1,115 transport projects over the last fifty years, on this total investment in transport, India has received most. The rural transport successes included the percentage of connected habitations increased from 40% to 70% in Himachal Pradesh, from 35% to 67% in Jharkhand, from 40% to 78% in Rajasthan, and from 40% to 80% in Uttar Pradesh.

Things were very different in the Bank’s early days. Projects took place mainly in Japan and Europe, with railway and waterborne transport forming over two thirds of the transport portfolio. But with the formation of IDA in 1960, things really got swinging, with a new prioritization for infrastructure provision in developing countries, especially the newly independent African states.

By the 1970s and 80s, roads had become the majority of the Bank’s portfolio, with IDA broadening the programs to include institutional reform, as well as maintenance and asset management components. By the early 1990s, the IDA transport strategy was influenced by Agenda 21, from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, which described the integration of environment and development in order to fulfil basic needs, improve living standards, and ensure sustainability.

IDA further developed a focus on rural poverty with the renewed emphasis of infrastructure in the 1994 World Development Report and the publication of the 1996 World Bank Transport Strategy, and at that time, a significant portion of IDA transport activities focused on rural connectivity.

The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000 further influenced the shape of the IDA portfolio, with new emphasis on transport investments’ ability to help countries meet their MDGs. This emphasis was further solidified through the World Bank Infrastructure Action Plan (IAP) in 2003, which emphasized IDA priorities for poverty alleviation through a wide array of passenger and goods movement initiatives and capacity building activities. This focus remains today, with both IDA and traditional World Bank lending activities emphasizing safe, affordable, and clean transport systems and networks.

 

Social order relies on a complex network of infrastructure lifeline systems. When a disaster strikes, restoring lifeline systems is at the heart of restoring social organization.

At the center of lifelines is a multimodal transport system. Highways are among the oldest of lifelines. There are generally significant impacts to transport lifeline systems following an earthquake. These systems can often be interrupted and destroyed as a result of landslides, failed bridges, geographic proximity to a fault line, and liquefaction.

Bridges are usually the most vulnerable link. Following a seismic event, the reestablishment of critical throughways and corridors is essential to recovery efforts. Although each event is site specific, by looking at case studies of past disasters, several lessons can be learned.

This note presents three case studies from the USA on how transport links were re-established.

 

Endemic overloading of commercial vehicles has led to the deterioration of roads in most Sub-Saharan African countries. Unless the problem is taken seriously, there is no doubt that it will negate the benefits expected from the vast resources invested in road infrastructure improvements. All the sub-regions in Africa are keen to identify effective solutions. As a contribution to this effort, the SSATP has worked with some of the regional economic communities, individual countries and the private sector to compile a set of guidelines. These guidelines are based on lessons learnt from experiences in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe where good practices are emerging.

Over the past two decades, China has embarked on an ambitious program of expressway network expansion. By facilitating market integration, this program aims both to promote efficiency at the national level and to contribute to the catch-up of lagging inland regions with prosperous Eastern ones. This paper evaluates the aggregate and spatial economic impacts of China's newly constructed National Expressway Network, focussing, in particular, on its short-run impacts. To achieve this aim, the authors adopt a counterfactual approach based on the estimation and simulation of a structural "new economic geography" model. Overall, they find that aggregate Chinese real income was approximately 6 percent higher than it would have been in 2007 had the expressway network not been built. Although there is considerable heterogeneity in the results, the authors do not find evidence of a significant reduction in disparities across prefectural level regions or of a reduction in urban-rural disparities. If anything, the expressway network appears to have reinforced existing patterns of spatial inequality, although, over time, these will likely be reduced by enhanced migration.

A fascinating report showing the effect of Chile's earthquake on road an other infrastructure. Very large file - 58 MB - but worth the download.

World Bank report TP-25 summarizing the lessons learned from the Bank’s efforts to streamline HIV/AIDS education on World Bank financed transport projects.

This report aims to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) aspects of HIV/AIDS components in road projects. Result-based M&E helps decision makers assess whether and how goals are being achieved over time, while at the same time identify problems that need to be tackled. The report assesses the extent of M&E in current HIV AIDS components in the portfolio of road projects financed by the World Bank. It provides an overview of work to date to identify core indicators for measuring results of HIV and AIDS prevention, specifically focusing on the monitoring of results of transport related activities, proposing a menu of HIV and AIDS indicators and a sample results framework.

Report discussing HIV/AIDS transmission in the Georgia transport sector with emphasis on truck drivers and sailors.

Experience in private participation in transport in Europe and Central Asia has been mixed. Investment since the early 90s has been mainly driven by a few economies of Central and Eastern Europe and Southeastern Europe such as Hungary, Poland, Croatia and Bulgaria. Investment never took off during the 90s but rose from 2004 until the fall of 2008, with growth in private investment in 2001-07 being more than twice the level in 1994-2000. The first attempts to implement PPP projects in transport in the region often faced delays, protracted negotiations, renegotiations, and cancellations. Several factors contributed to these problems, including: lack of robust feasibility studies, optimist traffic forecasts, public resistance to tolls, changing financial support mechanisms, uncompetitive procurement, and subsequent revision of legal and regulatory framework. The review of 10-15 years of experience in PPP in the transport sector has identified specific elements for success related to project selection and design, procurement and contract monitoring, and legal and institutional framework. The report recommends countries with more experience in PPP to focus more on achieving value-for-money and improving public sector capacity. Countries with limited experience should start by formulating a strategy for the required reforms and policies for PPP, and consider using risk mitigation instrument. Although the current economic situation is limiting the short-term potential for private investment, governments can still achieve value-for-money through PPP.

Infrastructure investment is a central part of the stimulus plans of the LAC region as it confronts the growing financial crisis. This paper estimates the potential effects on direct, indirect, and induced employment for different types of infrastructure projects with LAC-specific variables. The analysis finds that the direct and indirect short-term employment generation potential of infrastructure capital investment projects may be considerable—averaging around 40,000 annual jobs per US$1billion in LAC, depending upon such variables as the mix of subsectors in the investment program; the technologies deployed; local wages for skilled and unskilled labor; and the degrees of leakages to imported inputs. While these numbers do not account for substitution effect, they are built around an assumed “basket” of investments that crosses infrastructure sectors most of which are not employment-maximizing. Albeit limited in scope, rural road maintenance projects may employ 200,000 to 500,000 annualized direct jobs for every US$1billion spent. The paper also describes the potential risks to effective infrastructure investment in an environment of crisis including sorting and planning contradictions, delayed implementation and impact, affordability, and corruption.

This Sourcebook is part of a broader program on governance and corruption in the transport sector. The Sourcebook is meant as a resource to sector practitioners to assess the extent and risks of corruption in the sector and to improve governance in ways that reduce corruption. As this is an emerging field, the sourcebook is not intended to be a manual, nor a set of directives but rather to organize and illustrate approaches and tools which sector practitioners may find useful.

Energy and transport are two crucial sectors of the economy. This publication provides an overview of the most recent and most pertinent annual energy- and transport-related statistics in Europe. It covers the European Union and its 27 Member States and, as far as possible, the current EU candidate countries and the EFTA countries Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.

The content of this pocketbook is based on a range of sources including Eurostat, international organisations, national statistics and, where no data were available, own estimates. Own estimates have mainly been produced to get an idea of the EU total. At the level of individual countries, they are merely indicative and should by no means be (mis-)interpreted as 'official' data.

The publication consists of four parts:
(1) a general part with general economic and other relevant data,
(2) an energy part with data on energy production, consumption, taxation and prices,
(3) a transport part covering both passenger and freight transport as well as other transport-related data, and, finally,
(4) an environmental part with data on the impact which the energy and transport sectors have on the environment.

Most of the tables have data up to 2006; where available, more recent data have been provided.

The Rural Roads Program, overseen by Provias Descentralizado (subdivision of Peru’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications), began in 1995, and has received funds from the Peruvian Government, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. It is a national program for the rehabilitation and maintenance of roads that link rural  communities and villages with secondary and principal roads, and through these, with towns and cities of the interior, thus
expanding Peru’s road network to the rural village level, especially in regions with greater levels of poverty. In its twelve years of existence, the program has been evaluated several times in terms of its impact on the economy (income levels, market dynamics), on gender equity, on the culture of the high Andes, on access to basic roads, and on rural living conditions (access to education, health, etc.).

However, no effort had been made to systematically understand its impacts on democracy and the quality of citizenship exercised in rural areas. The study that is presented here, commissioned by the World Bank in February 2007, has sought to analyze PCR’s impacts, using two general hypotheses that make it possible to explore the relationships between public roads and democracy. The first suggests that road integration, particularly the rehabilitation and maintenance of roads that link rural villages with district or provincial capitals, decreases the costs of democratic participation. In a context of increasing participatory supply, due to the ongoing recurrence of national and municipal electoral processes, as
well as to the creation of new rights of participation, new roads allow rural residents to take part in democratic decision-making processes without having to incur significantly higher costs than those of residents of urban centers.

 

Infrastructure needs in the Philippines must be addressed to ensure long term economic growth. After several years of fiscal pressure, the Philippines is now in a position to address these needs. Despite the current international financial situation, the country is now in a position to commit resources to improve transport infrastructure. To this effect, it is necessary
to i) make resource allocation more effective and ii) improve governance in the coordinating departments and in implementation agencies. The suggested actions that follow address these two fundamental needs within four groups of recommendations.

First, focus should be on improving infrastructure quality and service delivery. While the quantity of transport infrastructure in the Philippines in network and facility density compares well with other countries in the region, its capacity and quality does not. Some critical transport costs are higher in the Philippines than in its neighbouring and competing countries. Substantial extra public and private expenditure is required to bring the quality of transport infrastructure up to an acceptable standard. This need applies to funding the maintenance of road and railway assets as well as to the capacity and quality of ports and airports.

Second, the processes for allocating public resources could be improved. With additional public resources available, project preparation, planning and budget processes need to ensure that expenditures are well focused on areas that offer the best value for money in improving service quality. The government has taken important initiatives to achieve this end.
But much remains to be done. The quality of multiyear planning and the quality of project preparation and selection in the annual budgetary process could be improved. Allocating
resources by default to the funding of deficits of Government owned and controlled corporations could be discontinued. Better preparation of transport infrastructure projects is required—whether projects are funded by the government, international financial institutions, donors or the private
sector. Contingent costs of public-private partnerships need careful analysis beforehand, which will require criteria for assessing public contributions.

Third, higher public spending on transport infrastructure will be effective only if accompanied by a program to confront institutional and policy distortions. In national budgeting and planning processes, this means improving the quality of planning documents and project appraisal and strengthening of prioritization in the national planning. It also means developing a multi-year multi modal transport infrastructure plan as a basis for project selection and national planning. For Government Owned and Controlled Corporations this means separating the regulatory functions from operational responsibilities so that free and fair competition can work to benefit consumers. Those steps require reforming several public operating agencies and government owned and controlled corporations. For local government units this implies increased access to financing through greater autonomy and effectiveness in raising local taxes and getting access to private sector financing.

Fourth, the private sector could be encouraged to continue its important role in transport infrastructure investment. Public resources alone will not meet the financing needs. In the mid-1990s the Philippines experienced a rich supply of proposals for private finance, mostly unsolicited. Often poorly coordinated with other facilities, these initiatives met with mixed success. Unsolicited proposals need more careful scrutiny than they receive. Recent experience suggests that the days of private sector eagerness to invest in public transport infrastructure are over. Improved processes and a stronger public sector institutional context are needed if private
sector financing is to play a role in the future.

This report summarises research undertaken in New Zealand during 2006–07 to investigate how intelligent transport system (ITS) measures can be used to improve the transport network efficiency during traffic incidents. It was intended to be a scoping study only, to identify the key issues and the need for further investigation.

definition of uniform European performance indicators for road pavements taking the needs of road users and road operators into account. A quantitative assessment of performance indicators provides guidance regarding present and future needs in road pavement design and maintenance at both the national and the European levels.

Corruption... How can policymakers and practitioners better comprehend the many forms and shapes that this social pandemic takes? From the delivery of essential drugs, the reduction in teacher absenteeism, the containment of illegal logging, the construction of roads, the provision of water and electricity, the international trade in oil and gas, the conduct of public budgeting and procurement, and the management of public revenues, corruption shows its many faces. The Many Faces of Corruption attempts to bring greater clarity to the often murky manifestations of this virulent and debilitating social disease.

It explores the use of prototype road maps to identify corruption vulnerabilities, suggests corresponding \"warning signals,\" and proposes operationally useful remedial measures in each of several selected sectors and for a selected sample of cross cutting public sector functions that are particularly prone to corruption and that are critical to sector performance. Numerous technical experts have come together in this effort to develop an operationally useful approach to diagnosing and tackling corruption. The Many Faces of Corruption is an invaluable reference for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers engaged in the business of development.

The chapter on transport was written by Bill Paterson.

Analysis by the World Bank on the capacity of India's construction sector and its ability to deliver the infrastructure investments required.

Paper on data collected in relation to bribes and illegal payment that truck drivers have to pay in Aceh.

World Bank report TP-10. Describes the development for the 'Rural Access Index" which is used as a measure of accessibility on World Bank financed projects. Asif Faiz notes in his excellent report 'The Promise of Rural Roads', there are some serious short comings with this index. I agree.

Paper on World Bank study “Overloading Study for the Proposed Anhui Highway Project II”. This project aims at recommending strategies for the improvement of overloading enforcement by evaluating the current state of overloading in Anhui. It also tries to identify ways in which vehicle inspection systems can be deployed to enhance the highway services for both the user and government.

Study on traffic flow, data collection and analysis of data from Finnish two-lane highways.

A new vehicle classification is given in this paper for expressway capacity analysis in China, because the existing vehicle classification causes some problems, such as the vehicle-types whose sizes are the same have different performance characteristics. The new vehicle classification is principally based on free-flow speed together with the characteristics of vehicle configuration and wheelbase frequency. According to this principle, dynamic cluster is used to combine the existing vehicle-types into three new vehicle-types, which are labeled passenger car, heavy vehicle, and unidentified, respectively.

Report on study undertaken on China's highway weaving sections. Field data includes measurements such as traffic volume, traffic speed, lane distribution of volume, acceleration and deceleration etc

Overseas Road Note 20. This document is aimed at providing that guidance so that road managers can manage their networks of low volume rural roads for the benefit of their local community.

The premise of this paper is that the road sector will undergo fundamental reform during the 21st century. A comprehensive new approach to the operation of the road sector will emerge comprising four cornerstones.

Report by Tasman Economics presenting a series of recommendations on preferred institutional, regulatory and legal arrangements for the toll road sector in Indonesia. The aim of the recommendations is to generate and sustain an increased level of private sector participation in the toll road sector in Indonesia, and equally, to increase efficiency in the sector.

Report on Nevada data on truck fuel and maintenance costs as a function of pavement smoothness.

This paper reports on a study that has been conducted as part of an Intelligent Transportation System field operational test of a storm warning system located on an isolated rural section of Interstate 84 in southeastern Idaho. The system is designed to give drivers advanced information on weather and roadway conditions. The data collected as part of this study provide new insights on how environmental conditions affect free-flow speed on freeway facilities.

Paper from 2nd Eurasphalt & Eurobitume Congress Barcelona 2000 describing how NZ manages their road network.