Övrigt

Tiden är knapp att nå uppsatta klimatmål. För att nå dit krävs kraftfulla åtgärder och styrning. Det står även klart att vi inte når ett hållbart transportsystem med bara några få åtgärder – det krävs att en mängd olika åtgärder och styrmedel kombineras och införs. Utöver ökad energieffektivisering, byte av drivmedel och ökade transportkostnader krävs även åtgärder och styrmedel för ett mer transporteffektivt samhälle. En viktig sådan åtgärd är att nyttja digital tillgänglighet för att minska människors resbehov.

Planning local and regional public transport in so-called ’transit corridors’ – i.e., to concentrate infrastructure and resources to few, but more attractive corridors in a city or a region – is commonplace in contemporary public transport planning. This has not always been the case, however.

In this thesis I analyze how transit corridors have come to dominate the policies and planning practices of public transport governance through a case study of Malmöhus County and Region Skåne between 1970 and 2020, and show how the organization of decision-making, planning practices and the spatial configuration of public transport have been central sites of an ongoing struggle between different actors and levels over influence over ideas and resources. Understanding the fundamental values and processes that shape public transport system and the conflicts that arise when values and actors collide can contribute to increased possibilities to shape a just and inclusive public transport system that enables sustainable mobility for people.

The research is based on qualitative analyses of archival records and interviews with individuals who were involved in the planning and politics of public transport in Malmöhus County and Region Skåne. Through an analysis of how change and permanence in the public transport system have been motivated and turned into institutional practice, the thesis shows how the transit corridor paradigm evolved in through an interplay between the regional political dynamics and the wider societal context. A recurring tension exists in public transport policy and planning between values of equity and efficiency on the one hand, and how these values are translated into the organization of public transport governance through policies of coordination and competition on the other. These values and policies have been decisive for the motivations to the organizational and spatial re/configurations of public transport since the introduction of regional public transport authorities in Sweden since the end of the 1970’s.

Initially, spatial and economic equity were leading principles that motivated a rapid expansion and distribution of the regional public transport system. At the turn of the 1990’s, a set of interlinked policy processes assisted the formulation of transit corridors as a strategic development policy for public transport in Malmöhus County. These ideas were institutionalized through a reorganization of public transport governance with a stronger regional mandate and a more peripheral role for the municipalities and was materialized through infrastructure investments in train and express bus systems at the expensive of areas with weaker demand. When Region Skåne was formed in 1999, the transit corridor paradigm was fully developed and contributed to shaping spatial relations in the new region and has continued to be a core in public transport policy in Skåne. However, despite (or perhaps because of) the dominance of transit corridors, conflicts persist between the parts of the region that have gained the most from transit corridor planning, and those that remain concerned over declining public transport supply from the planning orientation.

Transportsektorns påverkan på miljö, klimat och social rättvisa har varit högt upp på agendan under hela 2000-talet. Det finns övergripande politiska mål som uttrycker en vilja att ställa om transportsystemet så att en hållbar utveckling ska kunna nås. I praktiken går dock omställningen trögt. Även om utsläppen från transportsektorn har minskat under den senaste tioårsperioden har minskningen hittills gått alldeles för långsamt. Ett exempel är det så kallade 2030-målet, som innebär att utsläppen av växthusgaser från transportsektorn ska minska med 70 procent till 2030 jämfört med 2010. Enligt aktuella bedömningar förutsätter detta en minskning av växthusgasutsläppen med omkring 10 procent per år. Hittills är det dock bara ett enda år, nämligen 2020, som minskningen har legat i linje med detta, och då inte primärt som en följd av medvetna politiska beslut på klimatområdet utan på grund av en kraftig nedgång av resandet i coronapandemins spår. Denna minskning kan också komma att visa sig vara endast ett tillfälligt hack i utvecklingskurvan. Aktuell forskning visar också att sociala perspektiv, rättvise- och fördelningsfrågor är påtagligt frånvarande i planering och policy för transportsystemets omställning. 

The concept of individual choice is a fundamental aspect when explaining and anticipating behavioural interactions with, and responses to, static and dynamic travel conditions in public transport (PT) systems. However, the empirical grounding of existing models used for forecasting travel demand, which itself is a result of a multitude of individual choices, is often insufficient in terms of detail and accuracy. This thesis explores three aspects, or themes, of PT trips – waiting times, general door-to-door path preferences, with a special emphasis on access and egress trip legs, and service reliability – in order to increase knowledge about how PT passengers interact with PT systems. Using detailed spatiotemporal empirical data from a dedicated survey app and PT fare card transactions, possible cross-sectional relationships between travel conditions and waiting times are analysed, where degrees of mental effort are gauged by an information acquisition proxy. Preferences for complete door-todoor paths are examined by estimation of full path choice models. Finally, longitudinal effects of changing service reliability are analysed using a biennial panel data approach. The constituent studies conclude that there are other explanatory factors than headway that explain waiting times on first boarding stops of PT trips and that possession of knowledge of exact departure times reduces mean waiting times. However, this information factor is not evident in full path choice, where time and effort-related preferences dominate with a consistent individual preference factor. Finally, a statistically significant on-average adaption to changing service reliability is individual-specific and non-symmetrical depending on the direction of reliability change, where a relatively large portion of the affected individuals do not appear to respond to small-scale perturbations of reliability while others do, all other things being equal. 

The aim of this thesis is to compare and analyse the introduction of renewable fuel in the public transport sector, focusing on the challenges and opportunities encountered by involved stakeholders on the regional and local levels. The results contribute to answering three research questions: 1) How do organisational factors and local and regional contextual factors influence the introduction of renewable fuel? 2) What are the challenges and opportunities of using green public procurement as a policy tool to introduce renewable fuel in the public transport sector? 3) How do the challenges and opportunities regarding the introduction of renewable fuel differ depending on the type of renewable fuel? Four papers are included in the thesis. Paper I compares and analyses how factors identified in green public procurement research (strategies, requirements, cost, size and knowledge) influence the choices made when introducing renewable fuel in two Swedish regions. The findings show that the influence of the factors is highly case-specific and that differences in their strategic approach caused regions to express requirements for fuel differently in tender documents. Functional requirements were used by the public authorities to increase the share of renewable fuel in a cost efficient way and at the same time allow room for flexibility and leave more control to the operators. Specific requirements were strategically used to create local markets for biogas, which poses higher demands on political backing, knowledge by the public authorities, and an acceptance of increased costs. These findings were further elaborated in paper II, where introduction of renewable fuel in ten more Swedish regions was studied. The results confirmed to a large extent the challenges and opportunities from paper I. Further, regions that had introduced another renewable fuel than biodiesel had either used specific requirements or introduced the fuel in publicly operated bus services. The scope of paper III complements the findings by looking more in detail at how environmental requirements have been expressed, by performing a content analysis of Swedish tender documents. The results show that size of the procurement and type of traffic influence how environmental requirements are set. Further, both ambitious functional requirements and specific requirements for fuel are more common in large tenders in city traffic – this confirms and exemplifies the importance of context when renewable fuel is introduced through public procurement. In paper IV, the focus is solely on the introduction of electric buses by comparing experiences in Sweden and England. It was concluded that most challenges are case-specific on the city level, for example, passenger demand and bus route characteristics, but also financial and regulatory support from the national government can have an influence. Additionally, the relationship and division of roles between involved stakeholders are central to overcome challenges in all cities. Overall, this thesis concludes that green public procurement can be successful for introducing renwable fuel. By expressing requirements differently in the tender documents, public authorities have been able to influence the introduction to a varying degree which has led to different challenges and opportunities for the involved stakeholders as well as different outcomes for renewable fuel. Nevertheless, introduction of emerging technologies (eg. electric buses) was shown to be a challenge when public transport was procured. Alternative introduction strategies were seen for electric buses, such as test projects, introduction under current procurement contracts, increased collaboration between stakeholders and more responsibility to cover for uncertainties taken by the public authorities. In summary, the challenges and opportunities of introducing renewable fuel are highly case-specific and strongly associated with the specific fuel in question.

Det finns stora förhoppningar på den fjärde industriella revolutionen, vars huvudsakliga drivkrafter vanligtvis kokas ner till en kombination av digitalisering, automatisering och artificiell intelligens. Men hur bemöts och hanteras denna förväntade teknologiska förändring av arbetstagarna? Denna fråga undersöks i denna essä. Genom att rikta uppmärksamhet mot självkörande bussar undersöker denna essä hur bussförare och fackliga företrädare resonerar kring de förväntade följderna av automatisering. Essän redogör för deras förväntningar och diskuterar möjliga konsekvenser, såväl positiva som negativa, av denna högst ovissa framtid.

This PM is written within a K2-project on changed conditions for public transport during Covid-19, with particular focus on costs and revenues and measures made by public transport authorities to mitigate the challenges. The PM presents the main data collected about the Amsterdam case. First it explains how public transport is organised in the country and in Amsterdam, indicating who is responsible for funding, planning, and delivering these services. Afterwards, the report describes the repercussions of Covid-19 in the Dutch PT sector with a look into main challenges and concerns brought by the pandemic across three thematic dimensions: the operations of PT, PT funding, and the future of PT.

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is a digital concept that centres on integrating traditional public transport offerings with other types of mobility services such as carsharing and ridesourcing. In recent years, MaaS has become a much-discussed topic within the public transport industry since proponents of the concept argue that its rise will disrupt the current role of public transport authorities and increase the attractiveness of public transport. This chapter aims to give an overview of what MaaS is and what its prospective diffusion may imply for public transport authorities and public transport systems. To do so, a definition of MaaS is first provided, followed by a brief review of expectations on how MaaS will influence traditional public transport. A framework that describes different pathways to governing MaaS developments is introduced next and is subsequently used to analyse and discuss how public transport authorities in Finland, Sweden, and Norway have approached MaaS thus far. The chapter ends with some recommendations on how governments can support and shape MaaS developments based on the experience to date.

Bus priority measures are introduced in cities in order to improve travel time, frequency, and reliability, thereby benefiting the passengers and establishing a more attractive and competitive public transport system. Since first being implemented in Chicago in the late 1930s, bus priority measures are now widely applied across the globe, and a plethora of measures regarding priority in terms of time and space are currently in place. The main challenge for planning and implementing bus priority measures is the conflict over space with other societal purposes and road modes, in particular the car. In addition, the introduction of bus priority is often planned and implemented in a context of institutional complexity, which contributes to making such efforts a challenging task. In this article, political leadership, collaboration, alternative funding schemes, guidelines, and action plans are suggested as important instruments to handle these challenges.