05. Technical Papers
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This collection includes high-quality, informal series of polished reports. The papers in these series are the result of economic and socioeconomic research conducted under the direction of the World Bank. All of these papers benefit from a rigorous external review process. The book-sized titles in the formally-published World Bank Technical Papers series can be found under Books.
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Publication Unleashing Rail Station Potential through Station Redevelopment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-01-04) World BankRailways play an important role in the transportation systems of many developing countries. Railways stations are a key but often neglected part of this railway service. Many countries are considering railway station redevelopment to improve their rail service. They include many developing countries In this report, the term redevelopment refers to changes to existing stations (as opposed to new development). It encompasses refurbishment, renovation, or improvement to station buildings, platforms, and operational rail infrastructure and to the land in its surrounding areas. Much of this report will focus on the redevelopment of the railway station building itself, as this is often the first level of station redevelopment considered. While station redevelopment projects provide many benefits, they are complex to deliver and require a unique set of knowledge, skills, and know-how. This is particularly true when the railway intends to deliver a project through a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme. PPPs require appropriate institutional arrangement with financial and legal expertise to structure, procure, and implement PPP transactions successfully. The objective of this report is to provide railway authorities and policy makers with guidance and knowledge to help in design and implementation of railway station redevelopment projects, leading to more viable and successful projects.Publication The Path Less Travelled: Scaling Up Active Mobility to Capture Economic and Climate Benefits(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-30) World BankWith increased urbanization and economic growth, cities across the world must find ways to meet urban mobility demands while ensuring transportation is affordable and emissions that contribute to climate change are limited. As cities rapidly urbanize and people’s incomes rise, vehicle ownership is growing and more road space is being allocated to motorized transport, and thus more funding is required to maintain roads and vehicle infrastructure. Scaling up active mobility infrastructure provides cities in n low-and-middle income countries (LMICs) a key opportunity to maintain low levels of motorization, and maximize investments in public transportation. It also allows them to unlock the ‘low-hanging fruit’ market segments for walking, cycling, and public transport. While all three are equally important, this paper will focus on the impact of enhanced cycle and pedestrian infrastructure in such cities. By enabling more walking, cycling and public transport use, large-scale interventions to scale up active mobility can deliver significant, quantifiable benefits that dwarf the upfront costs. The purpose of this paper is to make the case for scaling up financing for active mobility, leveraging lessons learned, and identifying and replicating successful investment mechanisms from case studies from LMICs.Publication Enhancing Air Transport Resilience in The Caribbean(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-28) World BankThe lack of land connectivity among the Caribbean Island nations and the growing significance of the tourism sector as a key economic pillar have underscored the importance of improved air connectivity for economic growth and shared prosperity in the region. On average, tourism’s contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) for the region rose from 12 percent in 2011 to 15.2 percent in 2017, accounting for 4.3 percent of the jobs (CIA, The World FactBook). Almost half these contributions can be traced to capital investments in the travel and tourism industry, while one-third is linked to tourism-related service industries. Overall, Caribbean origin and destination air passenger traffic grew by 50 percent between 2007 and 2017, from approximately 40 million to nearly 60 million passengers annually. However, intra-regional passenger traffic remained flat and declined in some countries, including in Grenada, Dominica, and Saint Lucia. While post-2017 regionwide data is limited, evidence indicates that these trends persist.Publication The Decarbonization of Logistics in Lower Income Countries(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-24) Mckinnon, AlanThis report aims to explore the extent to which the logistics decarbonization approaches in countries in Europe and North America—and to a lesser extent, China—need to be adapted to the needs, opportunities, and constraints of LMICs and supplemented by local initiatives. It takes a macro-logistics look at the subject viewing it mainly from the standpoint of countries or national governments. The report focuses on non-urban domestic logistics operations within LMICs, as globally, non-urban domestic freight accounts for approximately 38 percent of total transport CO2 emissions (ITF 2019), most of it from trucking operations The report deals with freight transport within a broader logistical context, taking into account the relationships between the movement of goods, their storage and handling in warehouses andterminals, and the IT systems controlling these processes. Due to the close interconnections between domestic and international transport, particularly in the hinterlands of ports and airports, some reference will be made to international freight links, but not to the decarbonization of international trade flow.Publication Unlocking Green Logistics for Development(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-24) Bullock, Richard; Moody, JoannaThis report examines the opportunities to decouple growth in logistics activity from growth in GHG emissions, synthesizing existing evidence on potential GHG mitigation measures. It focuses on nonurban logistics. Urban logistics is covered in a companion report on decarbonizing urban transport. Chapters 2 to 5 cover the main types of interventions available to reduce GHG emission. Chapter 2 examines how spatial planning and land use can affect logistics GHG emission and economy-widepricing measures provide economic incentives for decarbonization. Chapter 3 discusses the potential for a modal shift to lower emissions transport modes. Chapter 4 addresses opportunities for improving energy intensity through technical efficiency and capacity utilization. Chapter 5 explores the potential of alternative fuels for freight transport and energy sources for warehousing. Chapter 6 brings together the various policy interventions and suggests how LMICs can analyze and prioritize interventions as part of their overall national logistics planning. An efficient logistics system is greener than an inefficient one, so many of the “quick win” interventions to reduce GHG emissions will also improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of a country’s logistics. The best mix of measures will be different for each country and can be integrated into each country’s development of a Green Logistics Plan.Publication Decarbonizing Urban Transport for Development(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-20) Bianchi Alves, Bianca; Bou Mjahed, Lama; Moody, JoannaThe path to low-carbon urban transport looks fundamentally different in developed and developing countries. Most cities in developing countries have not yet developed their land use and transportation infrastructure around cars, leaving a window of opportunity to chart a new path to low-carbon, efficient and inclusive urban transport. While developed countries may focus on retrofitting existing fleets (e.g., through electrification), developing countries can build their transport systems with a low-carbon approach at the core, allowing for more inclusive and climate-friendly growth in the future. With this approach, most of the changes that make urban transport greener also make cities more livable. Encouraging dense, compact, and mixed-use development (while limiting sprawl) and building effective public transport systems and safe pedestrian routes all reduce traffic and local pollution while increasing citizens’ ability to access jobs, health services and education. This report provides a framework that can help cities leverage these synergies and create transport systems that will support social and economic development outcomes while also reducing emissions.Publication The Economics of Electric Vehicles for Passenger Transportation (Draft)(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-10-31) Briceno-Garmendia, Cecilia; Qiao, Wenxin; Foster, VivienNOTE: The draft report is no longer available. The final report is available from this page and at https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/39513. Electric mobility has garnered growing interest and significant momentum across several major global markets, often motivated by transport sector decarbonization. Together, Europe, China, and the United States account for more than 90 percent of the world’s electric vehicle fleet. For many OECD countries, electric mobility is seen primarily as a lever for transport sector decarbonization, given that many of the other relevant policy options have already been exhausted. This report finds that electric mobility is also increasingly relevant for low- and middle-income countries. As of today, electric mobility for passengers is a comparative rarity across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In some of the LMIC leading markets, such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia, electric vehicles account for less than 0.5 percent of total sales. There are signs that this situation is changing. India, Chile, and Brazil are leading the way in electrifying their bus fleets in their largest cities by introducing innovative financing practices and improved procurement practices. Battery swapping schemes are taking off in Asian and East African countries to lower the upfront cost of two-and three-wheelers. Original modeling for this report suggests that established global policy targets, such as 30 percent of new passenger vehicles to be electric by 2030, will make economic sense for many LMICs under a wide range of possible scenarios.Publication COVID-19- A Struggling Recovery for the Private Sector in North Macedonia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-07-19) Jolevski, Filip; Madzarevic-Sujster, SanjaAs the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to take its toll on human life, businesses in North Macedonia have continued to struggle despite a return to some normalcy. This note examines the state of the private sector in North Macedonia by comparing the performance of businesses during the period of adjustment to the pandemic in April 2021 with the initial impact in September 2020 and the baseline before the crisis, drawing on a standard round of the Enterprise Survey in 2019 and two follow-up surveys in 2020 and 2021. While the second round of the follow-up survey revealed signs of some early-stage recovery, on average firm sales were still worse off than at the outbreak of the pandemic. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been facing difficulties obtaining financing and were more likely to be overdue on their financial obligations than in fall 2020. A quicker and stronger recovery could be promoted through sound policies that aim at increasing access to financing, enhancing digitalization, and improving firm management and human capital, as well as the effective implementation of insolvency procedures.Publication Competing with Logistics Clusters: Vignettes from the International Experience(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-05) Blancas, Luis C.; Briceño-Garmendia, Cecilia; Roh, Hong-Seung; Vrenken, HuubLogistics clusters boost logistics efficiency. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic brought about a common global threat of historic proportions and yielded critical lessons as to the importance of supply chain resilience-from essential medical supplies to consumer goods in responding to such a challenge. Today the world increasingly recognizes the value of adaptive infrastructure and service delivery platforms, often collaborative in nature, to face the “certainty of uncertain situations” at all levels of the value chain. Logistics clusters are at the core of positioning transportation and logistics as a driver of productivity gains, environmental sustainability, resilience, and economic growth. This report contributes to informing decision making, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, to deploy logistics clusters to underpin international and domestic commerce, employment growth, and investment. It provides a practical, action-oriented source of examples relying on the case study approach. Particularly important is the report’s role as a tool to inform decision making to position logistics not as a source of environmental externalities to avoid, but as an indispensable contributor to the decarbonization and resilience plans increasingly adopted in the context of the Paris Agreement or as a matter of basic economic development. The structure of the report is as follows: An opening chapter presents definitional and conceptual issues related to logistics clusters. The report will then present, in turn, the case studies of the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, and Korea. Lessons will be drawn from these cases in separate chapters. Lastly, the report will propose a list of policy questions, derived from the World Bank’s cross-country experience, and attempt to answer them based on the evidence presented in the preceding chapters.Publication Railways in Developing Countries: A Global Review(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-04-19) World BankAs a green mode of transportation, railways have an important role to play in decarbonizing transport through shifting transport from more polluting modes of transport such as road and air. Railways can enable economic growth, which in turn generates increasing transport demand, while keeping greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions low. However, in many parts of the world, railways have lost traffic and market share to air and road transport modes. As countries seek to reduce their GHG emissions, while still delivering on economic growth, many are rethinking the role of rail. Many developing countries have existing railway networks, which will provide the starting point for efforts to increase rail in the transport mix. This report provides a basic stocktaking of those railways, explaining the industry structure and the current situation. Basic data on network size; volume; passenger fares and freight tariffs; labor productivity; network density; and perceived service quality assets, traffic, pricing and staffing have been compiled into the Developing Country Rail Database, which could be useful for analysis and comparisons across regions. The data have been collected from various public sources—annual railway or regulator reports and/or national statistical annuals. Most data are for 2018. The report covers railways providing services to the general public in 77 countries. Not included are the railways in most higher income countries (North America, Europe, Australasia, and northeast Asia), private mining railways and China, whose railway network has been covered in numerous other reports. The information shared in this report is presented in seven regional summaries, which group together railways sharing a common geographic area and other characteristics: South America; Sub-Saharan Africa; South Asia; Southeast Asia; the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Mongolia; and the Middle East. These summaries include basic data on institutional arrangements.