Connections

57 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22293

Connections is a weekly series of knowledge notes from the World Bank Group’s Transport & Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Global Practice. It covers projects, experiences, and front-line developments.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 48

Better Crash Data Can Improve Road Safety

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-09) Krambeck, Holly ; Job, Soames ; Sultan, Sara

Low- and middle- income countries typically lack adequate systems for collecting road crash data. This limits their capacity to monitor, effectively advocate for, manage, and efficiently improve road safety. While many cities, states, and countries have adopted or developed proprietary systems for recording crash data, they are often developed in isolation, limiting the ability to share data among users. These systems may also be expensive - and unable to support road safety delivery and advocacy. They usually lack a seamless, global, real time, and georeferenced crash repository: a basis for monitoring the scale of the challenge. Data for road incident visualization evaluation and reporting (DRIVER) -a data collection system developed and now operating in the Philippines, answers this challenge, and offers an effective road safety support solution. DRIVER offers important opportunities for improved road safety data in many national and subnational jurisdictions, and its code is available free on the World Bank GitHub open source code repository. DRIVER is likely to become more widespread as the World Bank and the global road safety facility (GRSF) support its use in other countries and cities.
How China's Transport Sector Can Contribute to Carbon Reduction

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-06) Zhou, Weimin

The Chinese government, based on its commitment to carbon reduction in the Paris Climate Agreement,laid out its intention to achieve peak CO₂ emissions by 2030, and to make its best effort to peak as early as possible. It committed to lowering CO₂ emissions per unit of GDP by 60–65 percent of their 2005 levels, and to increasing the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to about 20 percent. Although these targets were set up for the country as a whole, it is essential for decision makers and practitioners to understand the contribution the transport sector can make if its development path is aimed at sustainability.
The Cost of Inaction: Can We Afford Not to Invest in Road Safety?

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-05) Bose, Dipan ; Marquez, Patricio V. ; Job, Soames

Road crashes are among the most significant public health issues of the century; they account for 97 percent of deaths across all modes of transport. The latest WHO estimate of 1.34 million road crash deaths and up to 50 million injuries per year reflects a slight increase in deaths over previous years, with 90 percent of these deaths occurring in low and middle-income countries. Further road injury disproportionately affects young adults 15–29 years old: it is the lead cause of death during their most productive years. Along with the unquantifiable loss of life, and pain,grief and suffering, there is a direct burden to society from disabilities, deaths, and the economic hardships they bring. The devastating impact is not only felt by the victim’s family, where the disability or death of a breadwinner can drive a household into poverty; it also affects the overall economy. Overall productivity and quality of life is affected when otherwise healthy individuals are disabled or die. Crashes also place a burden on emergency response, medical treatment, and rehabilitation services in addition to loss of labor productivity, affecting the quality of life of the overall population.
Safety: Why Safety Matters for Sustainable Mobility

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-12) Job, Soames ; Gomez, Hilda

Safety is one of four global goals identified in the Global Mobility Report (GMR)—along with universal access, efficiency, and green mobility. The safety goal is aimed at curbing the human pain, suffering, loss, grief, and economic costs of transport-crash-related injuries and deaths. The scale of the safety problem is profound across all transport modes, including air, rail, road, and water. Safety efforts need to be focused on Low- and Middle- Income Countries (LMICs), where 90 percent of the 1.4 million transport crash deaths occur each year. The inclusion of road safety in the Sustainable Development Goal targets has created opportunities for an increased global commitment. Nevertheless, to date there has been no overarching effort to set an overall target for safety of mobility and to collect reliable global data on transport safety across all modes. To increase the momentum, the GMR sets targets for global transport safety aimed at setting a unified transportation safety goal.
Efficiency: Why Efficiency Matters for Sustainable Mobility

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-12) Wyrowski, Lukasz ; El-Hifnawi, Baher

Efficiency is one of the four global goals framing sustainable mobility in the Global Mobility Report (GMR). The GMR posits that efficiency is crucial to ensure that transport demand is met effectively at the least possible cost. Because efficiency cuts across multiple aspects of mobility, the GMR arbitrarily defines the scope of the efficiency goal from a macro-economic perspective. Putting in place a transport system that is efficient would mean achieving, among other things: (i) seamless integration across transport modes; (ii) optimal traffic volumes that reduce congestion and delays at borders; and (iii) minimal use of energy for moving people and goods. This would be done at the macroeconomic level—including sub-country, country, region, and world—with all actors optimizing resources such as space and energy, adopting adequate technologies, and making use of regulations and institutional capacity. Given that demand for the transport of goods worldwide is projected to triple between 2015 and 2050, the GMR claims that transport infrastructure and services will have an ever-greater role to play in meeting additional demand. Therefore, addressing inefficiencies must be a priority across the entire system of interconnected roads, railroads, ports, and airports, in any given area.
Green Mobility: Why Green Transport Interventions Matter for Sustainable Mobility

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-12) Dalkmann, Holger ; Fischer, Alyssa ; Peet, Karl

As one of the four global goals framing sustainable mobility in the Global Mobility Report (GMR), green mobility aims to reduce both air and noise pollution from transport, and to address climate change in the transport sector through mitigation and adaptation. Transport currently contributes to 23 percent of global energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 18 percent of all man-made emissions in the global economy. In one projection, energy related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are expected to grow by 40 percent between 2013 and 2040.1 Air pollution—both ambient (outdoor) and household (indoor)—is the biggest single environmental risk to health; ambient air pollution alone kills about three million people each year. In addition, evidence from several countries suggests that traffic noise has the second biggest environmental impact on health.
Achieving Sustainable Mobility: Why Policy-Makers Should Pursue the Four Goals at the Same Time

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11) Morales Sarriera, Javier ; Fulton, Lewis

The Global Mobility Report frames the transport agenda around four global goals: universal access, efficiency, safety and green. Unless those four goals are pursued simultaneously, mobility will not be sustainable for current and future generations. For example, policy decisions must not prioritize universal access interventions without considering the implications they may have on efficiency, safety, and green. Deviating from any of the goals will compromise the achievement of sustainable mobility. At stake is the fact that none of these goals are independent, but they are all interconnected. In many cases, there are synergies among pairs of goals, or even across all four. Synergies occur when projects and policies help achieve more than one goal at a time. Butin other cases, advancing the agenda on one goal may hinder another. Therefore, synergies shouldbe captured and apparent trade-offs should be managed. By acknowledging these interconnections and managing them appropriately, mobility will be able to generate more benefits for society, strengthening its role as a driver of social inclusion and economic competitiveness, with the least impact on safety and the environment. This note provides examples of the synergies and trade-offs a policy-maker should consider and manage.
Tracking Sustainable Mobility: A New Way to Assess Transport Sector Performance to 2030 and Beyond

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11) Alam, Muneeza ; Powell, Julie

In 2015, the world embraced the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, and agreed on a framework of targets and indicators for tracking progress across multiple economic sectors. Because of the cross-cutting nature of the transport sector, several transport-related targets and indicators are reflected in the SDGs. But in contrast to the health, education, water, and energy sectors, there is no single SDG dedicated exclusively to transport. The sector is also scant in direct targets, indicators, and direct data collection. To address this, the Sustainable Mobility for All (SuM4All) initiative—a multi-stakeholder partnership acting collectively to help transform the transport sector—has developed a Global Tracking Framework (GTF) for transport, complementing the targets and indicators in the SDGs. This Global Tracking Framework is featured in the GlobalMobility Report which provides the first-ever assessment of all modes of transport across theglobe. The framework will provide crucial information and tools to inform transport policy and investment decisions, and provide a baseline for measuring progress toward sustainable mobility.
Framing Sustainable Mobility: How to Ensure that Today's Mobility Needs Are Not Met at the Expense of Future Generations

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-11) Vandycke, Nancy ; Kauppila, Jari

In its crucial role, transport fosters development as it connects people to goods, services, social, and economic opportunities. But today’s data shows social exclusion linked to accessibility gaps in transport services—in rural areas, women, and the elderly—, high costs tosociety from poorly integrated transport systems, road fatalities, traffic congestion, air pollution, and environmental degradation. The question for global and country transportdecision-makers is how to meet the mobility needs of people and goods now, while preserving futuregenerations? The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identify an important and rich array of characteristics that define a sustainable world. Those characteristics, along with those identified in the economic literature, can be used to frame“sustainable mobility” around four global goals, which should address more than access. Formobility to be sustainable, it should have four attributes—equitable, efficient, safe, and green. In this way, mobility can benefit both present and future generations.
Competitiveness of South Asia's Container Ports: A Comprehensive Assessment of Performance, Drivers and Costs

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-10) Herrera Dappe, Matias ; Suárez-Alemán, Ancor

South Asia’s seaports are crucial to the region’s economy. The region transports 75 percent of thevalue of its exports and imports by sea. Shipments are concentrated at the 14 largest container ports, which handle close to 100 percent of total container traffic. The performance of these ports has a crucial effect on the competitiveness of the region’s trade. Even though the South Asian port sector has experienced significant changes since the late 1990s — when the governments of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka reformed their port sectors to allow private participation—the performance of South Asia’s ports has received little attention. The World Bank undertook a comprehensive assessment of South Asia’s container ports to support South Asian governments and stakeholders in the sector. It sought to understand the links between performance and its drivers and costs and to identify whether and how performance might be improved. The study proposes an approach for improvement based on regional and global experience.