On the Record with Virginia Tech: Alternative transportation governance models

[00:00:28] >> Greetings Hi Everyone thank you for being here today we are live from the Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington Virginia and my name is Shannon Andrea I am the media relations director for Virginia Tech based in the national capital region. We're here for our media event today on the record with Virginia attack at home and abroad alternative transportation governance models for the D.C. metro region for those of you in the room please note this is being recorded and live streamed Our began with a brief overview from our experts to learn about effective models from abroad that could offer innovation innovative solutions to improve regional coronation and public transportation challenges in the D.C. metro area we will then follow with a panel discussion and Q. and A with our speakers. [00:01:17] So without further ado I would like to go ahead and introduce our speakers today. From Virginia Tech we have Buehler associate professor of Urban Affairs and planning and the school of international public affairs based here in the national capital region as research areas focus on understanding individual travel behavior and the strain ability of transport system in urban areas. [00:01:43] We have from the Greater Washington partnership Joe is the Director of Transportation Policy where he develops direct. Relating to the partnerships efforts to achieve a regional 21st century transportation ecosystem. And we also have. To recognize a leader in transportation policy with a specialty in public transportation and transit oriented development S.K. solutions specializes in Advancing Innovative transportation policy and practice. [00:02:17] So this time America had and turn it over to Dr Ralph to learn from Virginia Tech well. Good afternoon thank you very much for coming in Enjoy your lunch this presentation will introduce regional public transport associations cutter castable and from there we advance the slides from Germany. Germany Austria and Switzerland these regional public transport associations coordinate public transport across jurisdictions across operators and across modes of transport was the goal to make public transport more attractive they've been very successful in increasing writer ship over the last 40 years typically they integrated getting services fears they coordinate public transport planning marketing and customer information region wide and in some instances even state wide in the sea examples of those the presentation was put together with an eye towards lessons for us regions. [00:03:20] I think these countries are in a good position to provide some lessons because they have federal offices of government they are wealthy Western democracies in the case of Germany they're very important a car industry and sort of an affection for automobiles this picture tries to capture regional coordination and what you can see are local buses and regional buses arriving at the main train station because the local light rail right there in proximity you have a regional intercity rail right there you see the park bikes right behind underneath which you don't see is this car parking. [00:03:54] These T.V.'s Africa's problems started in the 1960 S. in the Hamburg region in Germany and this shows you the number of Vivi's in Germany Austria and Switzerland over the years from 167 to 2017 and as you can see they've increased the number quite a bit we have 63 in Germany now 7 in Austria and one in in Switzerland and. [00:04:17] Part of the expansion was of course the early success you see the same data here in the geographic where you have Austria on the lower right hand corner. Where you see that the entire country has reviews everywhere that's because the federal government required them in the 1990 S. to the north you have Germany with many different easier to see some white areas in there that's where there are no regional associations these are mainly rural areas of very small towns that don't have larger centers and then at the bottom to the left you have Switzerland where only Zurich so isn't largest city has has a V.V. there's a lot of public transport coordination in Switzerland but they use a slightly different model most of the content of the presentation will be based on case studies because each V.V. is different there's not one unique model they all are sometimes somewhat similar but they're all different so we chose the large regions to maybe provide lessons for Washington the Washington D.C. region Hamburg where it all started in 1067 with 3400000 inhabitants and you can see the land area there which was Munich 2900000 inhabitants home to 2 B.M.W. very wealthy. [00:05:28] City in the world which is a Polish centric area with 19 large cities 3 is not one large dominant city there are 4900000 habitants the in Austria the are not the capital and the surrounding 2 states that are part of a of a V.V.. Zurich which is within its largest city and the only view there and then finally Berlin which concludes includes the city of Berlin and all of the state of Brandenburg surrounding. [00:05:58] The city of Berlin. All of these cities have seen strong increases in car ownership and use starting in 196970 S. This shows you the cars and light trucks crossed 1000 population over over time starting 970 S. 980 S. 1990 S. and part of the motivation for the V. V. S. was the strong increase in motor ization and car you isn't air pollution congestion Safety Traffic issues that lead to the idea of a promoting public transport we can also see in the trend of modernization that's 200-2010 is that the modernization has been leveling off and most of the reason hasn't even been growing over the last decade we have available data here the same time they have been very successful in increasing public transport ridership this graph shows you the number of public transport trips taken per person per year living in these in these regions starting in 109-200-2010 then 2015 and as you can see a considerable increase ranging from 14 percent in Munich to about 40 percent in China who are in the Zurich area so big increases we try to calculate some number here on the part you're bottom right for Washington D.C. which is that a much lower level and the trend is sort of flat in terms of passengers per per capita. [00:07:26] In the regions what you would assume transit ridership is the highest in the center of the city that's your red bar is slightly lower in the area that's that in the city but not in the center and then it's lowest in the suburbs but even in the suburbs between 8 and 12 percent of all trips it's not just a commute of all trips made by public transport in those in those areas so what do these D.V.D.'s look like this shows you the collaborators in the previous for all of the areas we looked at and so there are state governments the suburban district governments the large city governments and their transit operators especially among the transit operators there are many but they are typically dominant ones these are the large ones in the main city so and there are many many smaller ones that make up these numbers but you see there is quite a number of different jurisdictions working together to coordinate public transportation service typically And remember there is no typical model of either are a little bit different but the German Public Transport Association came out with these 3 models and I go through this very quickly but the in all included is involvement of government jurisdictions they also all include involvement of public transport operators and then the V.V. has a board and the board consists of both of the transit operators and the governments and the different types here differentiate between who has the biggest role on the boards of the operator led by transit agencies dominate on the board to your left there is a mix but they have sort of equal equal power on the board and on the right that's the most common form in large cities is where the local jurisdictions dominate and the transit agencies sort of. [00:09:17] Provide provide input when the V.V. started in the sixty's they were all operator led because it was public transport operators in the Hamburg area that started it it needed at the time 7 different tickets to traverse the area and they wanted to come together to make it easier to write transit and to combat falling ridership and increasing car use that was sort of the rationale why they came about over time governments have gotten. [00:09:44] More important role on these boards mainly because they provide a lot of the funding and they say well if we provide the funding we also want a say on the on those boards how did these regional associations come about looking at their genesis we typically see that one stakeholder took the lead after at their own monetary expense to convince others to join for example in Hamburg the city of Hamburg agreed to pay for operating subsidies for regional rail and even help them with capital projects to get the regional rail provider to buy into this into this model it was very expensive was never done again but it was to sort of get it going they had to open their pocket and say you join us and we give you we give you these this money and part of it was later taken back when they all realized that it's actually a success in Austria the federal government really wanted to have a T.V. in Vienna and they guaranteed operating revenues for small transit agencies the joint. [00:10:46] They're so small agencies were afraid they would lose revenue when they joined because they had to reorient some of the bus services to feed into the rail services and the federal government said OK if you lose money we make you whole and that helps getting them in and in the end work out and Hamburg and Zurich the cities city of Syrian city of Hamburg did the same thing and said we'll pay potential revenue losses to small bus operators in the more suburban areas to join this. [00:11:17] After these things were founded in combination with large infrastructure investments so in the air not in Munich similar to Washington D.C. They build a new subway system in the seventy's and eighty's so that was when the video was founded in Berlin it was around German reunification when all of the transit networks had to be reconnected after the Berlin Wall fell and in it was when they built a regional rail tunnel and connector under underground in the in the city we found top down and bottom up roads. [00:11:48] In Hamburg it came from the bottom was the city and the P.T. agency that wanted to do it in Vienna as I said it was the federal government's idea in Zurich the Swiss way it was on the referendum so people voted on we want to have a view the other voted on having the underground in of the regional rail and in Berlin it was with German unification a mix between federal and state governments getting getting that getting them started what do they typically do they typically integrate ticketing including a separate slides on that monthly and annual tickets for special groups and also for the for the population as a whole the integrate marketing branding and consistent messaging and this is not always all done by the V.V. This can also be done by individual transit agencies for example in the Hamburg area certain agencies that are part of the B.B. do the marketing and branding for everyone so it's not done in the. [00:12:41] Structure but they are contracting back to one of the operators that just does it for everyone they plan and coordinate public transport services they coordinate the customer information and the service they coordinate in this tribute to fair revenue. And if any of the trends of transit is going to be contracted out they are also drawing up an overseeing public transport contracts and are responsible for the quality control in each review this is done slightly differently we sort of came up with this schematic looking at. [00:13:12] What different stakeholders do governments typically determine the overall level of public transport service they want to have and the figures they set the level of government funding and the infrastructure investment and they decide which services they want to tender because they have the power of the purse the Executive Board and the V.V. typically does the planning and coordination of the service levels the routes and the timetables the issue calls for tender The integrate the fare structure and the ticketing they distribute the fare revenue and the government subsidies among the firms they do marketing and public relations and they monitor quality standards and do long term planning the operators on their own they run the services to collect the fare revenue to maintain the vehicles and implement the infrastructure projects I remember in the V.V. in the executive board both of these jurisdictions and the operators come together. [00:14:04] In terms of policies the 1st one you see up there is the slogan of the Munich B.V. it's one network one time table one ticket that's their goal and how they want to provide public transport in the region the goal is to have more and better transit service integrate across all public transport modes and more recently also with bike sharing car sharing etc regionally the goal is to have attractive fares and convenient ticketing and when you talk to them what you often hear is that they want to compete with the car and items they figure out why the car to them is so attractive it's cheap because once you when you use a car you have already paid for insurance you have paid for the car you just get in and there may be gas in it and you just go. [00:14:47] They have to have easy fare system because the car really doesn't have any the car is always available it's sitting right out there is waiting for you so transit will be available and the car is perceived to be faster transit has to be fast of course there are many policies that are favorable for them that we don't have here in the US it's outside of what the US like higher taxes and restrictions on car use a land use policies that promote compact and mixed use development but here are some of the things what our case studies did over the years they are all almost all increased public transport service per capita superb resident the amount of transit service supplied increased in most of them not in line ruined and pulling rates of a steady or even declining a little bit but the expanded services was more service and they upgraded many of their vehicles to be nicer but also to offer better real time information low floor boarding. [00:15:42] And nicer environments and more reliability for for their passengers as more service and upgraded quality of the service this graph may look complicated but it will make sense in a 2nd. I told you that they have these monthly and annual tickets where you pay once a month or once a year or they deduct from your account every month for public transport taken you can use all public transport in a in a given area and what we did was we looked at the price of this monthly or annual ticket for the central area which is the main city and compared it to the single ticket so if you were to buy 2 single tickets provoke day for a whole ye