Multi-level governance in public transport: Governmental layering and its influence on public transport service solutions

Public transport is supported by governments to deliver social and environmental objectives through a range of public values (see Veeneman, Van de Velde, & Schipholt, 2006) established through the instrument of a subsidised transport services for its inhabitants and visitors. The literature here is broad and comprehensive. UN Habitat (2013) describes the purpose of transportation services is to provide access to destinations or more broadly access to life enhancing activities by bringing people and places closer together thus showing how transport and land use planning have synergies which ultimately impact on the shape and urban form that a city develops. Environmental concerns are a major plank of public transport policy since transport activities provide a very significant contribution to environmental ills (Banister & Button, 2015). Attracting a greater number of people to public transport has been the focus of many public transport policy efforts partly because of the external costs of congestion fuelled by car use and partly because of the recognition that travel behaviour change that encourages lower use of the private car is essential for future sustainability (Banister, 2008; Hull, 2008; Redman, Friman, Gärling, & Hartig, 2013). How lessons are learnt in transport policy (Ison, Marsden, & May, 2011) is another area demonstrating the complexities of transport policy, and public transport policy in particular, as governments seek to optimise a number of conflicting aspirations such as efficiency of operation, social inclusion goals, environmental concerns amongst others. Organisational issues relating to public transport also have a large literature, much of this highlighted by this Thredbo series of conference papers on competition and ownership in land passenger transport (http://www.thredbo-conference-series.org).

Less explored is the way in which transport policy has changed over time from its focus solely on problem solving having close links with an engineering to a recognition that transport has a role in defining ‘place’ and that, indeed, ‘place’ is a central part of urban transport planning when implementing ‘transport is a means to an end’. As Curtis (2016 p.323) shows, a focus on place is the essential starting point of all transport planning sequences. As an important context for this paper, this literature is briefly but critically assessed in the next section.

Returning to more mainstream public transport policy, a fundamental feature of the current literature on public transport policy and its governance is to assume that governments are typically seen as singular: the transport authority or the government (see for example Hensher & Stanley, 2010; Mackie & Preston, 1996; Merkert & Hensher, 2013; Nash, 2010; Van de Velde, 1999; Veeneman, 2016). This does not take account of the literature resulting from documenting the well-researched topic in administrative science, identifying how governments are not as singular and not as unitary as the transport literature has generally assumed. Governments typically operate at various scales of jurisdiction and their actions in a specific policy field are generally mutually dependent. These different levels of government do not necessarily coordinate their policies, as the scale differences drive different perspectives and objectives. This is conceptualised as multi-level governance with documented issues and practices that resonate in the provision of urban public transport which is the focus of this paper.

The literature on multi-level governance has developed from efforts to understand the multi-level governance issues of federal (USA) or supranational (European Union) governments, to the inclusion of the interactions of governmental layers and jurisdictions of a smaller scale in a specific policy field. In the field of transport this is of extreme relevance. Different modalities offer different values on different scales, and as such are valued differently by governments of different scales. In addition, to meet overarching social and environmental objectives these modalities together have to provide an integrated mobility solution to the traveller. Illustrative is the choice to invest more in local demand-dependent services, new metro systems or high speed rail, and how the priorities on that choice varies between municipal, metropolitan, and national governments. This literature is central this paper and is discussed in the next section of the literature context as a way of developing a framework to deliberate on the different trajectories of policies in the case-study cities.

Public transport systems are the result of complex interactions of levels of government, driven by their agency, ability to raise taxes and overall funding levels and an understanding of the relative roles of link and place in public transport delivery. Public transport systems are not simply about mobility; however, they provide access to activities creating value to individuals or society. Hence, more mobility is a poor indicator of value, as accessibility could also be created through mix use centres to facilitate urban sustainability.

This paper is structured as follows. The next section frames this paper's methodology and moves on to consider the literature context of policies relating to ‘link’ and ‘place’ in the planning sequence and the literature on multi-level governance. This is followed by a description and discussion of case-study vignettes drawing on cities and their experiences within a multi-level governance framework and a discussion of experience in the light of the paper's hypothesis that the distribution of agency (decision power and the level at which this occurs) and funding has a great deal of explanatory power for the public transport solutions that eventually are implemented.