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The authors describe local government decisionmaking in transport in three areas of the United Kingdom—London, West Yorkshire, and Edinburgh—in which major changes in local government decisionmaking structures have taken place over the last decade, and between which arrangements are now very different. They discuss whether institutional change has had a beneficial or adverse effect, and whether any of the current structures provides a more effective framework for policy development and implementation. The results suggest that, although the sites share a broadly common set of objectives, there are differences in devolved responsibilities and in the extent to which various policy options are within the control of the bodies charged with transport policy delivery. The existence of several tiers of government, coupled with the many interactions required between these public sector bodies and the predominantly private sector public transport operators, appears to create extra transactional barriers and impedes the implementation of the most effective measures for cutting congestion. There is, however, a compelling argument for the presence of an overarching tier of government to organise travel over a spatial scale compatible with that of major commuter patterns. The extent to which such arrangements currently appear to work is a function of the range of powers and the funding levels afforded to the coordinating organisation.

This paper reports on a study of current practice in policy transfer, and ways in which its effectiveness can be increased. A literature review identifies important factors in examining the transfer of policies. Results of interviews in eleven cities in Northern Europe and North America investigate these factors further. The principal motivations for policy transfer were strategic need and curiosity. Local officials and politicians dominated the process of initiating policy transfer, and local officials were also the leading players in transferring experience. A range of information sources are used in the search process but human interaction was the most important source of learning for two main reasons. First, there is too much information available through the Internet and the search techniques are not seen to be wholly effective in identifying the necessary information. Secondly, the information available on websites, portals and even good practice guides is not seen to be of mixed quality with risks of focussing only on successful implementation and therefore subject to some bias. Officials therefore rely on their trusted networks of peers for lessons as here they can access the 'real implementation' story and the unwritten lessons. Organisations which have a culture that is supportive of learning from elsewhere had strong and broad networks of external contacts and resourced their development whilst others are more insular or inward looking and reluctant to invest in policy lessons from elsewhere. Solutions to the problems identified in the evidence base are proposed. City to city policy transfer is a very active process in the field of transport. Not enough is yet understood about its benefits or the conditions under which it is most effective. Such understandings should help to promote and accelerate the uptake of effective and well matched policies.

The volume is based on papers presented at a workshop on the green transport agenda and its implications for Chinese cities, organised by the World Conference on Transport Research Society in September 2010. The five sections of this volume review the challenges facing urban transport internationally and in China. It considers approaches to policy formulation, the challenge of urban mobility and the development of green sustainable transportation, by reviewing best practice in objective setting, strategy analysis and policy selection, and comparing these with current practice in China. The authors examine passenger transport, and consider a number of current policy interventions in China and compare these with western experience with demand management and new vehicle technologies. Topics include 5D land-use transport model for a high density, rapidly growing city and Contextual requirements for electric vehicles in developed and developing countries. Finally freight and logistics is addressed, including the role of freight villages and milk run strategies, and challenges and policy recommendations for road freight in Shanghai.

The internationalization of policy regimes and the reorganization of the state have provided new opportunities for cities to bypass nation-state structures and work with other cities internationally. This provides greater opportunity for cities to learn from each other and could be an important stimulus to the transfer of policies across the globe. Few studies exist however which focus on the processes that shape the search for policy lessons and how they are affected by the institutional context within which they are conducted. This paper describes research conducted in the field of urban transport and planning policy across eleven cities in Northern Europe and North America which seeks to explore the motivations for and mechanisms supporting learning about new policies. Thirty policies were examined across the eleven sites using document review and interviews with key actors. The paper explores the search for lessons and the learning process and considers the influences of institutional context, organizational behaviour, and individual cognitive constraints. The process of seeking out and learning policy lessons is defined by individuals operating within a particular policy space and exhibits a number of characteristics of strongly bounded rational choice. The search parameters are significantly influenced by preconceptions of the nature of the preferred solutions and the likelihood of cities in other contexts offering meaningful learning opportunities. Trusted peer networks emerge as critical in overcoming information overload, resource constraints, and uncertainty in the potential for policy transfer. The mobility of policies seems also to be linked to the mobility of the key transfer agents. Cities adopt quite different approaches to engaging with the communities of policy mobilizers which seems likely to impact on the pace and pattern of the movement of policies.

This paper reports on a study of current practice in policy transfer, and ways in which its effectiveness can be increased. A literature review identifies important factors in examining the transfer of policies. Results of interviews in eleven cities in Northern Europe and North America investigate these factors further. The principal motivations for policy transfer were strategic need and curiosity. Local officials and politicians dominated the process of initiating policy transfer, and local officials were also the leading players in transferring experience. A range of information sources are used in the search process but human interaction was the most important source of learning for two main reasons. First, there is too much information available through the Internet and the search techniques are not seen to be wholly effective in identifying the necessary information. Secondly, the information available on websites, portals and even good practice guides is not seen to be of mixed quality with risks of focussing only on successful implementation and therefore subject to some bias. Officials therefore rely on their trusted networks of peers for lessons as here they can access the 'real implementation' story and the unwritten lessons. Organisations which have a culture that is supportive of learning from elsewhere had strong and broad networks of external contacts and resourced their development whilst others are more insular or inward looking and reluctant to invest in policy lessons from elsewhere. Solutions to the problems identified in the evidence base are proposed. City to city policy transfer is a very active process in the field of transport. Not enough is yet understood about its benefits or the conditions under which it is most effective. Such understandings should help to promote and accelerate the uptake of effective and well matched policies.

A literature review of policy transfer in transport and cognate fields was conducted. It shows that there is little evidence on how cities learn from each other and even less on how this process occurs in the transport sector. The review identified a series of key aspects of policy transfer which the literature suggests might be important in understanding the process of, advantages and barriers to transferring innovative transport policies. Interviews were then conducted in 11 cities to further investigate the process of policy transfer and the role of academics within this. Seven cities were studied in Northern Europe (Leeds, Edinburgh, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bremen and Lyon, Nancy) and four in North America (Vancouver, Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle). This report presents the results of the synthesis of the city interviews. The key findings are: 1. Cities are actively looking to learn from another but this process is unsystematic and sometimes inefficient 2. The search for new policies is constrained by a lack of resources, particularly personnel 3. Informal networks and information sharing based on professional contacts is the predominant method of initial knowledge transfer 4. Local context is critical in determining whether policies will transfer well across cities and lack of fit is one reason for limited transfer 5. Institutional barriers also exist to policy transfer which seem most likely to influence what gets implemented rather than what gets considered 6. Key facilitators to overcome barriers to implementation are: a. A supportive political environment; b. Sufficient staff resources to commit to the projects; c. A culture of engaging with other cities and a structure that allows for staff at all levels to seek out information by contacting staff internally or at other organizations that are of a different staff/management level; d. An internal organisational culture to try new things; and e. co-funding of implementation from other government tiers or the private sector 7. Academic research is one potential source of information on innovation and implementation but one which is underutilised in many cities. This was particularly true of the European cities compared with those in North America 8. The academic and practitioner networks are not well connected and there are both practical and cultural barriers to better integration. In the light of these findings and a more detailed consideration of the cultural and practical barriers to better integration between academics and practitioners nine potential areas for future action are identified.

The volume is based on papers presented at a workshop on the green transport agenda and its implications for Chinese cities, organised by the World Conference on Transport Research Society in September 2010.