Strategic Planning

Why Austria's 2030 Mobility Masterplan Is Falling Short

Last week, Vienna announced that it was scrapping its €1 per day public transport fare and increasing prices by 26% due to a funding crisis. This sparked me to take a deeper look at Austria's strategic transport planning. In 2021, Austria published its 2030 Mobility Masterplan.

Key Takeaways

• The entire masterplan is framed around the need to tackle climate change with the aim of becoming climate-neutral by 2040.
• The plan takes a backcasting approach: planning by starting with their target and working their way back.
• The plan assumes that there will not be enough renewable energy available, and so as well as decarbonising, it assumes there is a need to reduce transport energy use by two-thirds.
• The plan aims to reduce both car and road freight transport, decoupling road freight growth from economic growth by promoting 'thinking local' and increasing freight rail as a share.
• Modal split targets per km travelled:

• All future projects and investments must be reviewed to ensure they are in line with the Paris Agreement.
• This is how the reduction in emissions breaks down:

• Research, innovation and digitalisation are put forward as the solution to deliver the change that is needed.

• The plan proposed the introduction of a "Climate Ticket" to provide an attractive and affordable option for making public transport easily accessible throughout Austria (Note: The Climate Ticket was implemented, but it has not got people out of their cars; see here).
• The plan focuses on enhanced public and active transport to help deliver the mode shift.
• The plan discussed putting a price on carbon, but says it is an EU responsibility.

Comment

Fundamentally, the plan is full of carrots in an attempt to incentivise people to get out of their cars and freight vehicles. However, evidence shows that this is necessary but not sufficient to get people to switch modes. Indeed, Austria is on track to miss its 2030 climate target by a substantial margin.

To be achievable, the plan would need to include "stick" policies, such as parking reform (which is left to lower levels of government) and road user charging, which it is silent on.

What Next?

Does your strategic transport policy rely too much on carrots to achieve its objectives?

Rail

Should Britain Start Another High-Speed Rail Project?

Britain is debating (and perhaps about to announce) another high-speed rail project known as Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) to connect Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds. This report from the UK Think Tank, Policy Exchange, believes it is a terrible idea.

Key Takeaways

• NPR does not have its station strategy right, with too many stations close together to reach high speeds.
• The route goes in the wrong direction for the first part of the trip from Manchester to Liverpool.
• Trains will take longer to get from Manchester to Liverpool than the existing (May 2025) service.
• In design, NPR is even less mature than HS2 was when it was approved. The Government’s own official infrastructure watchdog gave NPR a rating of “red,” meaning that it “appears to be unachievable.”
• Last year, the government spent 75 per cent more on HS2 than it spent on local public transport across the entire country, even though 90% of journeys are local.
• Instead of a High Speed Rail project, the report recommends:
  • A high-capacity east-west route across central Manchester to tackle the North’s worst rail bottleneck, equivalent to the Elizabeth Line in London.
  • Upgrade existing lines with electrification, higher speeds and capacity.
  • Longer trains on existing routes (most are no more than 3 carriages).
  • Integrated timetables, ticketing and information, similar to the Swiss approach.
  • Deliver hundreds of small and medium-sized schemes like bus lanes and tram systems.

Comment

I am strongly in favour of investing in public transport in England's northern cities. They have suffered decades of underinvestment in public transport thanks to poorly considered treasury-led business case rules (now being amended).

I wrote a blog on making smart decisions on high-speed rail projects. NPR fails a number of the tests. In particular, it is not clear that the project would be better than alternative investments in transport, it is not following the "think slow, act fast" principle, and there is not the political stability and policy continuity to see the project through.

What next?

Do you have a potential high-speed rail project? Does it pass all the tests for making smart decisions on high-speed rail?

Freight

Creating a Level Playing Field for Freight: Moving Beyond Truck Subsidies

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in the United States has published a report on what is wrong with Federal freight policy. Many of the problems and recommendations apply across many jurisdictions.

Note: The report did an excellent job in creating its own takeaways, and I have repeated many of them below.

Key Takeaways

• Federal freight policy effectively incentivizes the most damaging and least efficient mode of freight transport—trucking—by underpricing access to public infrastructure.
• The federal government effectively provides a large subsidy to the trucking industry, which has significant negative externalities by increasing congestion, emissions, and incidences of highway accidents.
• The United States has 150,000 miles of freight railroads, and rail companies invest $23 billion annually to maintain them. Federal support is limited, covering mainly signals and gates at highway-rail crossings.
• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maintains 12,000 miles of navigable waterways—and in 2025, Congress appropriated $8.7 billion to the Corps, which it uses both to manage navigation and mitigate flood risks.
• The federal government spent $52 billion on roads last year, and about $20 billion of that came not from taxes on diesel fuel or gasoline (which approximate user fees for trucks and passenger cars) but from the general fund.
• To allocate federal investments in transportation infrastructure more efficiently, Congress should replace the diesel fuel tax with a vehicle miles traveled fee for trucks.
• Policymakers should reassess regulations that increase costs on the rail industry without measurable safety benefits.
• Policymakers also should prioritize investment in multimodal freight strategies, especially those that expand intermodal rail and reduce truck congestion in urban corridors.
• A restructured, mode-neutral cost system would encourage more efficient, safer, and environmentally sustainable freight transportation, better serving taxpayers, drivers, and the economy.

Comment

Many countries have had growing rail's share of freight as a strategic objective for years. However, most are struggling to achieve the objective.

What is true for the United States is true for many countries - current policies subsidise trucks at the expense of rail. Until a more level playing field is created, we will not grow rail's share of the freight market.

Autonomous Trucks (ATs) create an interesting policy problem. ATs will likely reduce road freight costs, making freight rail even less competitive. However, ATs could potentially travel at night, when congestion is not an issue.

If they are electrified as well, some of the disadvantages of trucks will be significantly reduced. The best way to handle this is to implement an appropriate pricing system.

What next?

Do you have an integrated freight policy that addresses the relative costs of freight trucks versus freight rail?

Quick Adventures in Transport Wonderland

Here is what else I came across this week:

• ​New York donwsizes proposals for a protected bike lane.
• ​What would encourage children to walk and cycle to school?​
• ​A systems led approach to understanding how to tackle car dependency and policies towards sustainable mobility​

Blog

The Golden Opportunity: How Road User Charging Can Transform Public Transport in New Zealand

This week, my blog was based on my keynote speech to the Public Transport Assoication of Australia and New Zealand (PTAANZ) conference in Auckland. It described how New Zealand's road user charging policy can help transform public transport use across the country.

Innovation

Germany to Introduce Legal Framework for Teledriving

​Germany is introducing legislation covering the operation of remotely controlled vehicles on public roads, the first in Europe.