Transport Papers

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    Review of Performance Based Contracting in the Road Sector : Phase 2. Review of Training Materials and Resources
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-03) Gericke, Ben ; Henning, Theuns ; Greewood, Ian
    Performance Based Contracts (PBC's) are not new to the transport sector, with many variants in use in different countries for close to two decades. International lending institutions, such as the World Bank, have played a significant role in pushing PBCs into developing nations as part of loan assistance packages. However, there has been a tendency for a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to the implementation, with the result being a variation in the success of any implemented PBCs, as well as a significant proportion of the proposed PBCs not making it to the contract award stage. To address these issues, the World Bank has commissioned a review of performance based contracting in the road sector (contract number 7158253) led by Opus International Consultants Limited. Outputs from the project to date include: phase one report covering the review of previous PBCs (Opus 2011); a guide for the application of PBCs (Opus, 2012a); points to guide Bank implementation of PBCs (Opus, 2012b); and this review of existing training materials and resources.
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    Review of Performance Based Contracting in the Road Sector : Phase 1
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-03) Gericke, Ben ; Henning, Theuns ; Greewood, Ian
    There has been a tendency for a one-size-fits-all approach to the implementation, with the result being a variation in the success of any implemented performance based contracts (PBCs), as well as a significant proportion of the PBCs not making it to the contract award stage. To address these issues, the World Bank (WB) has commissioned a review of PBC in the road sector. PBC involves a significant shift away from more traditional approaches to the delivery and maintenance of road infrastructure and associated services by departing from the client's having responsibility for the design and supervision of construction and maintenance activities, to focus upon the key outcomes that the client wishes to achieve. There are two objectives for this study including: (1) to produce a strategy that will guide the WB's future engagements in PBC projects; and (2) to improve the WB's service to clients by offering a variety of PBC options, to suit different operating conditions and client needs. The report details phase one, review and synthesis of existing practices and its following six tasks: task 1, taking stock of various types of PBC projects; task 2, defining various types of PBC methodologies; task 3, outlining PBC's strengths and weaknesses; task 4, clarifying both various types of PBCs and federation internationale des ingenieurs-conseil (FIDIC)-type (input and bill of quantities) contracts; task 5, discriminating between successful and less successful factors of PBC projects; and task 6, developing a work program on how to move the second phase forward.
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    Road Freight in Central America: Five Explanations to High Costs of Service Provision
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-06) World Bank
    An efficient system to transport goods domestically and internationally is a key element of the logistics chain. Road freight transport has a direct impact on poverty as it employs millions of people and generates a significant portion of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, especially in low and middle-income countries. Trucking is the primary form of transportation for domestic, trans-border, and international cargo, in Central America. Road freight transport is now vital to production, distribution, and mobilization, driving economic, social, and environmental progress. In short, trucking is the backbone of economies around the world. In the past 20 years, the industry has advanced as technology has improved communication, management, productivity, including vehicle efficiency. Their objective in doing so is to expand markets, generate wealth on the basis of efficient specialization, introduce competition, and lower costs for production, distribution, services, and research and development. When road freight transport services are efficient, they support these objectives; when they are not they act as nontariff barriers to trade, creating delays, raising costs, worsening congestion and pollution. Such barriers prolong and destabilize delivery schedules, hinder 'just in time' inventory management and industrial processes, and impede the efficient combination of factors of production.
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    Transport Emissions and Savings in Health Costs
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012) Molemaker, Roelof-Jan ; Widerberg, Oscar ; Kok, Robert
    The paper aims to provide the basis for an estimation equation and will focus on the relation between transport emissions and air quality in an urban environment. This is directly related to the fact that most health impacts are related to local air quality levels. The aim of the paper is to create an understanding of the factors that play a role in the causal relation between transport emissions and health effects and provides approximations from existing studies that can be used to assess these health impacts and related costs. The paper focuses on the translation of air pollution levels into health impacts and health costs. The overall structure of the paper follows the two key steps and elaborates on the inherent challenges: (1) identify and measure the health effects of air pollution, and (2) to estimate the costs of the health effects. The paper is divided into four chapters: chapter one is introduction- outlining the goals and background to the project; chapter two gives impacts of air pollution from transport on health; chapter three presents valuation of health impacts- reviews the literature on how to value the impacts on health associated with air pollution; and chapter four gives guidelines for calculating the health effects of air pollution from traffic.
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    Sustainability of Transport Projects: Toolkit
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012) World Bank
    This report is the output of the finalize toolkit phase (phase three) for the project sustainability toolkit for transport projects. The overall objective, as defined in the terms of reference, is 'to make development projects more sustainable by reducing the risk of failure of projects attaining their long-term development goals and enhance the prospects for their sustained impact on development ensuring that there is local commitment to longer-term buy-in'. The main deliverable of the project is a project sustainability toolkit, of which this report outlines the final version. This toolkit helps to gauge the potential for the project to be sustainable into the long-term and provide advice to help overcome common barriers to the successful development and implementation of projects. The guidance covers the expected opportunities and constraints related to sustainability. The toolkit is intended to reduce the risk of project failure in terms of sustainable development and enable recipient country clients to incorporate core sustainability principles into transport projects at every stage of project planning, design and delivery. This will improve the prospects for longer-term sustainability and will enhance the long-term impacts of development projects. Task Team Leaders (TTL's) will benefit from additional evidence that supports investments intended to consolidate long-term development, and borrowers will benefit from projects with improved and demonstrable longer-term beneficial impact. The toolkit provides general advice for transport sector investments and is not modally specific. Information on the sub-components of the key sustainability principles has not been included since it was considered that this did not add value or further understanding of the issues.
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    Making It to the School: Education and Transport Policies for Children in South East Europe
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-10) World Bank
    Providing at least basic education to all children especially those coming from poor or disadvantaged families is an important factor for increasing chances to improve their lives in the future. Many countries recognize the need to better educate their populations and do so by trying to improve the equity and quality while taking care of efficiency. The provision of equal educational opportunities is a challenge for every society, where specific solutions typically depend on a number of factors. The intention of this document is to raise awareness and provide support to decision makers in planning the measures that will secure access to quality education for all children above all to those who are under higher risk of dropping out of the education system through a set of transportation and education policy measures. The document aims to equip municipal authorities, as well as transport and education stakeholders, with a systemized approach for assessing the access and accessibility of education services, and tools for the selection of the most appropriate options for improvements. The document is organized as follows: chapter one provides a short introductory review of the demographic changes in South East Europe (SEE) countries; chapter two is a valuable source of information on the experiences of countries in the SEE region and worldwide; chapter three gives decision-making framework for local authorities; chapter four provides a summary and a set of recommendations for local- and national-level authorities on the most effective ways of fulfilling legal obligations and ensuring a basic children's right- access to education; chapter five and six sets paths for making chosen policy options sustainable and for future developments based on innovative transport and education approaches and proven practices; and chapter seven gives literature and data sources.
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    Road Asset Governance Filter : Case Study of Kazakhstan and Armenia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-02) Queiroz, Cesar ; Lopez Martinez, Alejandro ; Ishihara, Satoshi ; Hommann, Kirsten
    Building upon the transport governance filter developed by the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) transport team, which identified several thematic principles and actionable indicators on the governance of the transport sector at large, this paper seeks to assess the overall governance performance of the road sector as well as the concrete issues that road administrations should address in order to improve sector governance. A pilot survey was conducted in Armenia and Kazakhstan, in which road sector stakeholders were asked to evaluate more than seventy questions structured along four governance dimensions: (i) transparency, disclosure and accountability of the road agency; (ii) transparent and accessible procurement processes; (iii) financial management system; and (iv) administrative procedures and anticorruption effort. This report starts with an overview of the existing approaches to governance and corruption with a particular focus on the road sector. It then outlines the methodological framework developed under the study to assess the governance challenges facing the road sector, and report the governance challenges in Armenia and Kazakhstan using the methodology developed. The report will conclude with an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the methodological approach used and concrete suggestions to strengthen governance in the road sector of Armenia and Kazakhstan.
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    Monitoring Road Works Contracts and Unit Costs for Enhanced Governance in Europe and Central Asia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-01) Alexeeva, Victoria ; Queiroz, Cesar ; Ishihara, Satoshi
    The present study generates a specialized dataset of road sector contracts for Bank-financed projects in 14 countries of Europe and Central Asia. The data sample covers 200 completed or ongoing road works contracts signed between 2000 and 2010. Trends for each country are captured through the following indicators: (i) difference between contract values and their engineers' estimates; (ii) cost overruns; (iii) time overruns; (iv) bidding indicators for contracts with and without prequalification: number of firms that applied for prequalification, number of prequalified firms, number of firms that bought bidding documents, number of bidders, number of disqualified bidders; (v) time elapsed between bid opening and contract signing dates; (vi) cost per kilometer of similar works; (vii) road works unit costs; and (viii) ratios between supervision contract values and the related road works contract values. An inventory of risks is developed for each road works contract using a checklist of possible entry points of corrupt activities or red flags. The frequency of observations is measured for the selected types of red flags from a sample of 200 road works contracts surveyed. The contracts with complaints received by the Bank's Integrity Vice Presidency (INT) are examined separately to check if they exhibit a pattern of indicators consistent with the presence of allegations of corruption or fraud. The study looks further into the determinants of road rehabilitation and reconstruction costs. It concludes with selected recommendations to sustain the platform fostering governance and integrity in the procurement and implementation of road sector contracts under Bank-funded operations.
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    Public Transport Capacity Analysis Procedures for Developing Cities
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011) Reilly, Jack ; Levinson, Herbert
    The introduction of urban rail transit and high performance/quality/capacity bus transit systems throughout the world has dramatically improved the mobility of residents of cities in which they operate. The objectives of this work are: to provide a technical resource for transit planners and designers in developing cities in their public transport capacity and performance analysis work irrespective of mode. This report recommends methods of achieving practical transit capacity during normally encountered operating conditions. Where capacity is influenced by a measure of dispersion of some characteristic such as stop dwell time or vehicle headway, this is also noted. The purpose of measuring capacity is not just to provide a measure of system capability to transport passengers but also to provide some insight into the effect of service and physical design on customer service quality. When the demand for a service exceeds its schedule design capacity, service quality deteriorates either due to overcrowding on vehicles or at station platforms or diminished ability of customers to board the next arriving transport vehicle since it is already fully loaded, increased dwell times and hence decrease revenue speeds. The importance of service quality in transit capacity analysis cannot be overstated. Transit operators should be mindful that the urban transportation marketplace is more competitive. While it might be technically possible to design a service using a loading standard of 7 or 8 passengers per square meter, a number of customers will find that level intolerable and will seek alternate means of travel including walking (in the case of short distance trips), riding with someone else, riding taxis or purchasing a motorcycle or car. Accordingly, such loading standards should be thought of as interim measures until higher capacity at lower crowding can be achieved.
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    Logistics Costs and Competitiveness: Measurement and Trade Policy Applications
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011) Shepherd, Ben
    This paper examines the issue of measuring logistics costs from an applied trade policy research perspective, as well as identifying logistics-intensive sectors. It focuses on currently available data at the macro-and firm-levels. This paper has two main aims. First, it provides a first overview of currently available data relevant to logistics, and suggests some preliminary applications. The second objective of this paper is to frame the issue of logistics cost measurement and data collection in terms of the types of inputs needed for applied trade policy research. The paper is organized as follows. The next section presents an overview of possible directions in applied trade policy research using logistics data. Section three examines existing data sources that can be used to measure domestic logistics costs, focusing on the national accounts, input-output tables, price comparisons, and firm-level data. Section four presents a new methodology for measuring international trade costs, and identifies the proportion of those costs due to logistics. Section five uses input-output data to identify logistics-intensive sectors in a range of countries. Section six concludes. This paper has explored a number of different data sources and methodologies in an effort to move forward on the analysis of logistics costs from a trade policy research perspective. In the future, it will be important to distinguish between data collection efforts that are industry-driven-such as estimates of total logistics costs in Gross Domestic Product (GDP)-and those that are research-driven. Moving further in this direction will help fuel research that identifies sectors in particular countries that are most sensitive to improvements in logistics performance, and which therefore will tend to expand relative to other sectors in the face of logistics sector reforms. From a policy and political economy point of view, it will be important to identify such sectors and make them aware of the potential role logistics can play in facilitating their growth.