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First steps towards cross-national transfer in integrating mobility management and land use planning in the EU and Switzerland Tom Rye a,n , Janina Welsch b , Aljaz ˇ Plevnik c , Roberto de Tommasi d a Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland b ILS Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development gGmbH, Germany c Urban Planning Institute of Slovenia, Slovenia d Synergo, Switzerland article info Available online 24 December 2010 Keywords: Mobility management Land use planning Integration Policy transfer abstract This paper is based on research carried out in an EU Framework project, concerning the better integration of mobility management (MM) with land use planning. The objective of the paper is to analyse how, and how far, policies in this field of action can transfer from one member state to another, and to compare this to the theory of policy transfer put forward by Dolowitz and Marsh (2000), using their theory as an analytical framework, but also informing that theory. After providing a definition of this form of integration, the paper explains how far MM and land use planning are currently integrated in the EU member and other states covered in the research (Sweden, Germany, Spain, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland, the UK, as well as Ireland and the Netherlands). It then presents the results of planning simulation workshops in five of these countries, where a group of planning professionals from each state considered real development sites and how MM could be integrated with the development. It shows that there is scope for transfer but concludes that barriers such as language, differing planning traditions, and the problem of transferring a new policy idea within a country will limit the scope of policy transfer significantly. Nonetheless, it sees a role for EU projects of this nature in encouraging initial consideration of new policy ideas. & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Mobility management (MM) is a concept to promote sustainable transport and manage the demand for car use by changing travellers’ attitudes and behaviour. At its core are ‘‘soft’’ measures like informa- tion and communication, organising services and coordinating activ- ities of different partners. ‘‘Soft’’ measures most often enhance the effectiveness of ’’hard’’ measures within urban transport (e.g. new tram lines, new roads and new bike lanes). MM measures (in comparison to ’’hard’’ measures) do not necessarily require large financial investments and may have a high benefit–cost ratio. The specific topic dealt with in this paper is the integration of MM with the land use planning process, and its transferability between countries. It appears from some EU member states’ experience (see for example DfT, 2004), and many years’ experi- ence in the USA (CUTR, 2005), that the planning process can provide points where MM can be leveraged into new and renewed developments in order to reduce reliance on the private car for travel to and from those developments. The ultimate objective of this integration should be to ensure that, when new developments are opened, the planning system has been used to ensure that they are accessible by a range of modes of transport, and that MM measures and services are available to site users from day one, to reduce car use for trips to and from the development. For example, developers can be encouraged or given incentives to build good public transport (PT) access into their developments, or to fund new PT, cycling or walking links to the development, to ensure good access by all modes. Sometimes, also, parking at the develop- ment may be limited in order to restrain car travel. In this way, the site users can take advantage of the measures from the first day that the site comes into use, and car use for trips to and from the development will be lower than it would otherwise have been. For many EU member states, however, this approach remains highly innovative, as the examination of current practice, presented later in the paper, will show; hence a key focus of this paper is on the transfer of policy and practice in this area from states in Europe where is it relatively accepted to others where it is virtually unknown. 2. Objectives and structure of this paper The objective of this paper is to assess the scope for transferring the policy of integrating MM with land use planning from countries Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tranpol Transport Policy 0967-070X/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2010.10.008 n Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (T. Rye). Transport Policy 18 (2011) 533–543

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Page 1: First steps towards cross-national transfer in integrating mobility management and land use planning in the EU and Switzerland

Transport Policy 18 (2011) 533–543

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Transport Policy

0967-07

doi:10.1

n Corr

E-m

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tranpol

First steps towards cross-national transfer in integrating mobilitymanagement and land use planning in the EU and Switzerland

Tom Rye a,n, Janina Welsch b, Aljaz Plevnik c, Roberto de Tommasi d

a Edinburgh Napier University, Scotlandb ILS Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development gGmbH, Germanyc Urban Planning Institute of Slovenia, Sloveniad Synergo, Switzerland

a r t i c l e i n f o

Available online 24 December 2010

Keywords:

Mobility management

Land use planning

Integration

Policy transfer

0X/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. A

016/j.tranpol.2010.10.008

esponding author.

ail address: [email protected] (T. Rye).

a b s t r a c t

This paper is based on research carried out in an EU Framework project, concerning the better integration

of mobility management (MM) with land use planning. The objective of the paper is to analyse how, and

how far, policies in this field of action can transfer from one member state to another, and to compare this

to the theory of policy transfer put forward by Dolowitz and Marsh (2000), using their theory as an

analytical framework, but also informing that theory. After providing a definition of this form of

integration, the paper explains how far MM and land use planning are currently integrated in the EU

member and other states covered in the research (Sweden, Germany, Spain, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia,

Switzerland, the UK, as well as Ireland and the Netherlands). It then presents the results of planning

simulation workshops in five of these countries, where a group of planning professionals from each state

considered real development sites and how MM could be integrated with the development. It shows that

there is scope for transfer but concludes that barriers such as language, differing planning traditions, and

the problem of transferring a new policy idea within a country will limit the scope of policy transfer

significantly. Nonetheless, it sees a role for EU projects of this nature in encouraging initial consideration

of new policy ideas.

& 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Mobility management (MM) is a concept to promote sustainabletransport and manage the demand for car use by changing travellers’attitudes and behaviour. At its core are ‘‘soft’’ measures like informa-tion and communication, organising services and coordinating activ-ities of different partners. ‘‘Soft’’ measures most often enhance theeffectiveness of ’’hard’’ measures within urban transport (e.g. newtram lines, new roads and new bike lanes). MM measures(in comparison to ’’hard’’ measures) do not necessarily require largefinancial investments and may have a high benefit–cost ratio.

The specific topic dealt with in this paper is the integration ofMM with the land use planning process, and its transferabilitybetween countries. It appears from some EU member states’experience (see for example DfT, 2004), and many years’ experi-ence in the USA (CUTR, 2005), that the planning process can providepoints where MM can be leveraged into new and reneweddevelopments in order to reduce reliance on the private car fortravel to and from those developments. The ultimate objective ofthis integration should be to ensure that, when new developments

ll rights reserved.

are opened, the planning system has been used to ensure that theyare accessible by a range of modes of transport, and that MMmeasures and services are available to site users from day one, toreduce car use for trips to and from the development.

For example, developers can be encouraged or given incentives tobuild good public transport (PT) access into their developments, or tofund new PT, cycling or walking links to the development, to ensuregood access by all modes. Sometimes, also, parking at the develop-ment may be limited in order to restrain car travel. In this way, the siteusers can take advantage of the measures from the first day that thesite comes into use, and car use for trips to and from the developmentwill be lower than it would otherwise have been. For many EUmember states, however, this approach remains highly innovative, asthe examination of current practice, presented later in the paper, willshow; hence a key focus of this paper is on the transfer of policy andpractice in this area from states in Europe where is it relativelyaccepted to others where it is virtually unknown.

2. Objectives and structure of this paper

The objective of this paper is to assess the scope for transferringthe policy of integrating MM with land use planning from countries

Page 2: First steps towards cross-national transfer in integrating mobility management and land use planning in the EU and Switzerland

T. Rye et al. / Transport Policy 18 (2011) 533–543534

where it is a relatively frequent policy choice at present(e.g. Switzerland) to those countries where it is little known andused, such as Slovenia, Spain, Poland and Lithuania. To achieve thisobjective the paper first defines in a little more detail the integra-tion of mobility management and planning, and considers evidencethat it can actually result in reduced car use for travel to and fromnew development(s). After an explanation of the methodologyused, it then considers research that summarises the current levelof integration of MM and planning in selected European states. Theresults of planning simulation workshops in five EU countries arethen presented; these were events at which a group of planningprofessionals considered five real development sites and how MMcould be integrated with development there. These workshops arethe principal mechanism of policy transfer examined in this paper.A discussion of the findings is then provided in relation to Dolowitzand Marsh’s (2000) framework of policy transfer. This includesconsideration of how such policy transfer may be promoted, therole of EU projects in so doing, and how this could feasibly lead to anincrease in the use of MM and planning, individually and together.Finally a number of conclusions are drawn.

It should be noted that the EU project research upon which thispaper is based was not set up as a study of policy transfer; however,in common with very many European projects, a key objective ofthe project was to transfer knowledge and thus hopefully practicefrom one member state to another. Having participated in theproject, the author took the opportunity to analyse it from the pointof view of policy transfer for two reasons: firstly, to assess whetherthis could assist in drawing any lessons relevant to similar projectsin future; and secondly to consider what the experience of thisproject could add to the study of policy transfer more generally.

3. What is the integration of mobility management andplanning?

This section defines the integration of MM and planning, andconsiders evidence showing that it works. As explained in Section 1,this integration seeks to reduce the transport impacts of newdevelopment and to provide a choice of modes of transport to accessthem. It is comprised of two main elements, as explained below.

The first element concerns the preconditions for the integra-tion of MM into planning as a whole. Framework conditions(legal, political, governance) strongly influence the possibilitiesof integration. Additionally the potential and actual effect of MM atan individual development site is often strongly dependent on thequality of the accessibility of a site/area by different means oftransport (infrastructure framework and transport service supply),which can themselves be influenced by wider aspects of theplanning system, such as the degree to which land use plans arerequired to take cognizance of, and to locate development in,locations well served by all modes of transport.

The second element relates to the actual planning process for anew or renewed building/area and asks where and how MM can orshould be included. Here the whole process is of interest, from theintention to build and the planning procedure up to the construc-tion phase and putting the site/building into use. The main actors inthe process are the landowner/developer of a new/renewedbuilding or a new developed/redeveloped area and the localauthority as the main regulator.

There is evidence that the integration of MM and land useplanning can work. Experience from the UK shows that largeorganisations have implemented mobility management measuresas part of their site developments and that these have reduced cartravel to their site by 15–20% (DfT, 2008). One example is WellcomeTrust in Cambridge, England, which has paid for bus links to nearbyrail stations, built cycle paths and organised car sharing as part of a

planning agreement with the local authority. As a result, between2002 and 2007, the percentage of staff driving on their own to workfell from 70% to 56% (DfT, 2008, p 19). Similar planning conditionsrelated to a move to a new campus for Queen Margaret University(QMU) in Edinburgh, UK, have cut car use by staff and students from50% of trips in 2007 to 38% in 2009. The new campus is on the edgeof an urban area as opposed to the old location in an inner suburb;nonetheless, it attained these results with improved cycling andpublic transport connections and strong parking management.(QMU, personal communication, 2009).

A similar planning agreement for the Sihlcity shopping centre inZurich has achieved very low rates of car use to shopping and workat that development (Synergo, Zurich, personal communication,2008). Litman (2009) states that developments that incorporateMM strategies as part of the planning process exhibit vehicle tripgeneration levels 10–30% lower than developments without(http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm20.htm#_Toc119886798). In theUK a 2002 review of 20 case studies of site based mobilitymanagement plans (travel plans) (DfT, 2002) found a medianreduction in car use of 15%, and in the majority of the casesconsidered, there was a link to the planning system—that is, thetravel plan was in some way linked to an application for buildingpermission made for the site or by the employer based there. Thesame research also concluded that parking management wasfundamental to ‘‘high-achieving’’ travel plans; the planning systemplays an important role in shaping the supply of parking at newdevelopments in most EU countries, by means of parking standards(norms) for new development.

Thus in summary it is possible to conclude that there is limitedbut clear evidence that the integration of MM and the planningprocess can deliver the desired effects, at the individual site level atleast. This evidence stems only from personal communication andUK government reports, however, because the novelty of theconcept and the paucity of evaluation data in general in MM(see Enoch, 2008) mean that there is no academic literature knownto this author that documents the impacts on modal split of theintegration of MM with the planning of actual developments. Evenin the European country with the longest history of MM, theNetherlands, Metz (2007) in his seminal work Wegwijzer Mobili-

teitsmanagement, although presenting site by site examples of theintegration of planning and mobility management, had no dataavailable on the impacts of this on travel to and from the sites inquestion.

4. Research method

4.1. Research methods used in the project

A review of the current level of knowledge and practice set out inthe project’s state of the art analysis showed that there is relativelylittle knowledge about how to develop and implement this area ofMM practice in the majority of member states (MAX, 2007).Therefore, the project research plan set out a number of stepswhereby knowledge of this area could be increased, with theoverall objective of producing useful guidance for planners anddevelopers in all member state on how the planning system can bebetter used to secure more MM. The research was organised inthree main parts, Analysis, Simulation and Guidelines; this paper isbased on the first two.

The Analysis section of the project was, as its name suggests, ananalysis of the current level of the integration of sustainable transportand MM with planning in ten states (Sweden, Germany, Spain,Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland, the UK, as well as Irelandand the Netherlands). This selection was because of the compositionof the project consortium (Ireland and the Netherlands were covered

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T. Rye et al. / Transport Policy 18 (2011) 533–543 535

by the UK partner). To aid consistency in the information collected bydifferent project partners, a common analysis framework was used forthis part of the project.

The Planning Simulation Workshop stage of the work exploredthe possibilities of the integration of MM in the process of planningof new or renewed buildings and sites in the context of concretecases, each grounded within an actual planning context. Fiveplanning simulation workshops were conducted between Juneand August 2008 in Dortmund (Germany), Vilnius (Lithuania),Cracow (Poland), Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Getafe (Spain), allcountries where no or only little integration of transport andplanning or planning and MM takes place. These all considered theplanning and building permission process with reference to aspecific actual large new development in the area concerned. Eachsimulation consisted of a day-long workshop to which all thoseprofessionally involved in the planning permission process for thenew development were invited; typical attendees included plan-ners, architects, developers, transport and traffic engineers, thepublic transport company, environmental planners, the ultimatesite occupier where known and, sometimes, NGOs. The workshopfocus was the development in question as it was currently planned,followed by a discussion of the opportunities to integrate MM withthat development, and the problems that this might solve—and,potentially, cause. Clearly, this also included a discussion of thefeasibility of integrating MM measures with the development.Workshops were in most case structured, moderated and recordedby the project partners themselves, although in Spain a consultantskilled in workshop facilitation was used instead.

Depending on the local situation, each partner also modified thescope of their planning simulation in order to maximize itsrelevance to their situation. Some partners used the workshop todiscuss possible changes in land use plans and transport planningpractice to make the planning structure more conducive tosustainable transport and thus to MM (e.g. Spain). Other partners,such as those in Poland and Slovenia, also discussed sets of MMmeasures for a specific planned development which the developercould implement to cope with predicted transport problems. Thelocal building permission process and appropriate regulations andcontracts were discussed as well, for example in Germany.

In the planning simulations best practice examples of MMwere selected and their transferability to the country of theworkshops and its planning system were discussed. Existingexamples of how to integrate MM and planning were taken frommore advanced countries, where such integration has a longertradition. Case studies and regulations from England and Switzer-land were found especially useful, but also university or businessestravel plans from other countries were analysed (e.g. Austria,Belgium).

In general the planning simulation workshops offered a usefulmechanism whereby new ideas, solutions and possibilities werediscussed in an open atmosphere and more or less free fromexisting constraints. The informal discussion alongside existingcases supported the participant’s critical but realistic appraisal ofthe suggested solutions. They were free from pressure to producecertain results and were good starting points for finding suitablesolutions for the cases studied.

4.2. Methodology used for analysis of policy transfer

As acknowledged in the introduction, the project upon whichthis paper was based was not explicitly concerned with the study ofpolicy transfer; rather, it was an example of an attempt to under-take such transfer. A framework of policy transfer analysis is used inthe penultimate section of the paper to try better to understandhow, and how successfully, this particular example of policy

transfer functioned, and what this particular case can contributeto our wider understanding of policy transfer.

The framework used is that developed by Dolowitz and Marsh(2000), illustrated in Fig. 1. This framework allows a view to betaken on why and where transfer takes place, who is involved, andhow to demonstrate that transfer has or has not been successful. Aswell as using this framework as an analytical tool, this paper alsomakes some suggestions as to how it could be improved. The keyquestions from the framework around which the analysis isstructured are as follows:

Why did the transfer take place? Was it at one extreme what isknown as ‘‘tightly bounded’’—that is, limited in what wastransferred; or did those seeking transfer try to find all possiblytransferable policies? Was the transfer voluntary or in any wayrequired or coerced? � Who was involved in the transfer—politicians, policy actors

(e.g. local authority officers), ‘‘policy entrepreneurs’’ (those suchas academics who carpet-bag new ideas around different cities andcountries, whilst not themselves being in a position to implementthese ideas), or others? What were their respective roles?

� In comparison to the entire policy concept that is put forward,

what if anything was transferred—for example, all aspects of anew planning process, or perhaps only the basic concept? Whatwas transferred in its entirety, what was perhaps transferredbut then adapted, and what was simply ignored or judgedinapplicable in the new location—and why? Adding to Dolowitzand Marsh’s framework, it is useful also to consider the processof adopting a new policy within a country, once it has beenintroduced to that country via policy transfer.

� Where is policy transferred from? Does there seem to be any

obvious preference for transfers from local examples, or cultu-rally similar contexts? If the new policy idea comes from a muchmore foreign country, does this affect in any way how much istransferred?

� In general, what constraints seem to exist on transfer? Institu-

tional differences; trust in the source of the new idea; language,for example?

� Was the transfer a success—and is there any way to judge this?

To Dolowitz and Marsh’s framework this paper adds a furthercategory, which is ‘‘What has to happen to transfer the policywithin a country once it has ‘‘arrived’’ from another?’’. Thiscategory emerges from the experience of the project, where theplanning simulation workshops can be seen as an early stage oftransfer of a new policy idea into a country but, thereafter, the keychallenge becomes transfer within that country. This is related tothe way in which a European project sits within the policy contextof a given country: those who are involved in the project from thatcountry are, because of their relationship with the project andothers within it, most likely to be open to the policy ideas that theproject is trying to transfer. They can then be seen to act as policy‘‘ambassadors’’, trying to increase awareness and adoption of thatpolicy in their own country—not least because language barriersoften make it difficult for the project itself to engage directly withthe policy community in that country. Others from that countrymay be more peripherally involved in the project and much lesscommitted to it—an example would be the participants in theplanning simulation workshops reported here. This corresponds toDe Jong and Edelenbos (2007) view of projects of this nature havingdifferent groups of actors within them: the ‘‘core’’, who do much ofthe work and effectively ‘‘speak one another’s language’’; the‘‘adopters’’, who participate to an extent; and the ‘‘lurkers’’, whoobserve but in other respects are largely passive within the project.The ‘‘ambassadors’’ in this project fell into either the core or

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Why Transfer? Continuum

Want To……………………Have To

Who Is Involved in Transfer?

What is Transferred?

From Where? Degrees of

Transfer

ConstraintsonTransfer

How To Demonstrate PolicyTransfer

How Tran-sfer Leads to Policy Failure

Voluntary Mixtures Coercive Past Within-a-Nation

Cross-National

Lesson Drawing(Perfect Rationality)

Lesson Drawing (BoundedRationality)

DirectImposition

Elected Officials

Policies

(Goals) (Content) (Instruments)

Internal State Governments

International Organizations

Copying Policy complexity (Newspaper) (Magazine) (TV) (Radio)

Media Uninformed Transfer

International Pressures

(Image)(Consensus) (Perceptions)

Bureaucrats Civil Servants

Programmes Global City Governments

Regional State Local Governments

Emulation Past Policies Reports

(Commissioned) (Un-commissioned)

IncompleteTransfer

Externalities

Conditionality

(Loans) (Conditionsattached to Business Activity)

Pressure Groups PoliticalParties

Institutions

Ideologies

Local Authorities

Mixtures

Inspiration

StructuralInstitutional Feasibility

(Ideology) (Cultural proximity)(technology) (economic) (bureaucratic)

Conferences

Meetings/Visits

Inappropriate Transfer

Obligations Policy Entrepreneurs/ Experts

Attitudes/CulturalValues

Consultants Think Tanks Transnational Corporations Supranational Corporations

NegativeLessons

PastRelations

Language Statements (written) (verbal)

Fig. 1. Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) Framework for Policy Transfer.

T. Rye et al. / Transport Policy 18 (2011) 533–543536

adopters groups, whilst participants in the planning simulationworkshops were more ‘‘lurkers’’. A key challenge for policy transferis to make this group more active proponents of the policy inquestion—an issue which will be returned to in Section 6.

It may also be pertinent to bear in mind that Dolowitz andMarsh’s framework was developed with reference to centralgovernment policies (welfare, child support), and the transfer fromthe North American to UK context. In this situation, the relevantcentral government department(s) were in a position to bothtransfer the policy and then to implement it directly. The MAXproject concerns planning policy which is a regional and localgovernment responsibility. Thus policy may be transferred into acountry but planners from only a few regional and local govern-ment jurisdictions may initially be aware of the transfer; howknowledge of the policy and how to use it then spreads around thecountry is a second critical stage of the policy transfer process. Thisis why it has been added in this paper’s analysis.

Thus the paper uses a range of methodological techniques toexamine how policy transfer in this field may work. It now goes onto the first of these, a country-by-country analysis of the level ofintegration in different European states.

5. Current level of integration of planning and mobilitymanagement in selected European states

Policy integration can be viewed in a number of ways: verticalintegration, between levels of government; horizontal, within thesame organisation – for example, between land-use planners andtransport planners; between different authorities in differentareas; and between sections or professions in the same department– again, the example of planners and transport planners is oftenrelevant here (Geerlings and Stead, 2003). The project on which thispaper is based did not use this typology as an analytical frameworkbut it sought out examples of these different kinds of integration asa means of strengthening sustainable transport’s role – andparticularly mobility management – as an objective of the land

use planning system, and of the planning instruments and practicesthat could bring this about.

Thus, this section of the paper presents the results from astructured examination of the planning systems of different EUmember states, and Switzerland, before attempting to categorisethese in terms of their similarities. There is a large literature on theintegration of land use and transport planning, and this topic hasbeen the subject of many EU research projects—for example, underthe 5th and 6th Framework programmes, we find (at least) thefollowing, with their respective objectives:

ECOCITY (Urban Development Towards Appropriate Structuresfor Sustainable Transport)—aimed to develop settlement pat-terns giving priority to the requirements of sustainable trans-port. Necessary conditions are compactness and a balanced mixof land uses at suitable sites. The aim was to design modelsettlements in six participating countries and to derive generalguidelines for planning. � PLUME (Planning and Urban Mobility in Europe)—aimed to

facilitate the transfer of innovation in the field of planning andurban mobility from the research community to end users in thecities of Europe in order to improve urban quality of life.

� PROPOLIS (Planning and Research for Land Use and Transport

for Increasing Urban Sustainability)—to research, develop andtest integrated land use and transport policies, tools andcomprehensive assessment methodologies in order to definesustainable long term urban strategies and to demonstrate theireffects in European cities.

� SCATTER (Sprawling Cities And TransporT: from Evaluation to

Recommendations)—aimed to study the causes and conse-quences of urban sprawl in order to design and to assess theefficiency of measures aiming to prevent, mitigate or controlthis trend that threatens most of the European cities.

� SESAME (Derivation of the Relationship between Land-Use,

Behaviour Patterns and Travel Demand for Political and Invest-ment Decisions)—aimed to provide city planners with a com-mon set of indicators and methods to facilitate more effective

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T. Rye et al. / Transport Policy 18 (2011) 533–543 537

decisions on land-use and mobility policies. From a researchpoint of view, the indicators were intended to support cross-citycomparisons, in order to reach a more robust hypothesis andbetter validation of statistical relationships between indicators.

� SUTRA (Sustainable Urban Transportation)—aimed to develop a

consistent and comprehensive approach and planning metho-dology for the analysis of urban transportation problems, tohelp to design strategies for sustainable cities.

� TRANSPLUS (Transport Planning, Land Use and Sustain-

ability)—aimed to identify best practice in the organisation ofland use and transport measures in order to reduce cardependency in European cities and regions and promoteeconomic, social and environmental improvement.

However, a reading of the available final deliverables from theseprojects shows that they did not provide a comparative analysis ofthe way in which existing land use planning systems support orhinder the incorporation of more sustainable transport as anobjective of those systems. They tended instead to focus principallyon the contribution of different planning policy instruments tobringing about more sustainable transport systems—often model-ling the impacts of different planning scenarios on transportoutcomes. As Geerlings and Stead (2003:191) say, ‘‘Several of theprojectsy focus on policy options, instruments or assessmentmethods. There is much less focus on institutional, organisationalor implementation issues’’. On page 194, they continue: ‘‘There isstill only a limited understanding of what has made some placesmore successful than others in implementing effective strategies’’.The project on which this paper is based made an attempt toaddress these issues, and part of this analysis is reported in thissection of the paper.

5.1. Summary of integration of MM, sustainable transport and

planning in the countries reviewed

Initially, the project considered the planning instruments and

levels of government that play a role in the building permission process,and the influence of these both in theory and in practice. In general,the most important planning instrument in making a decision overwhether to grant building permission is the local plan or itsequivalent; the municipality has to be satisfied that the buildingthat the developer wants to build conforms to the requirements ofthe local plan. In general the decision on whether or not to grantbuilding permission is largely or exclusively the responsibility ofthe municipality and cannot be directly influenced by other levelsof government, although there are some exceptions to this(e.g. Switzerland).

Transport-related factors that can influence the building per-mission decision include, variously, the following:

The size of the development (sometimes measured in terms ofhow much traffic it will generate). Larger developments oftenmerit special/different treatment both within plans, and in thebuilding permission process. In Switzerland, for example, thecanton plays a much more active role in dealing with applica-tions for building permission for large buildings than forsmaller, and there are certain categories of development(e.g. large shopping centres) in which the canton, the level ofgovernment above the municipality, has a considerable influ-ence over the building permission decision—although the finaldecision still rests with the municipality. This is to ensure thatthe impacts of such developments – which will be felt region-wide – are mitigated. � Infrastructure provision—municipalities in many countries

wish to be satisfied that, before the building opens, utilities

and road and footway infrastructure is in place. In somecountries such as Poland and Lithuania this is limited toensuring that the development is connected to existing infra-structure; in Ireland, the UK, Switzerland and Germany it couldmean that developers pay to upgrade off-site infrastructure thatwill be put under pressure by the additional impact of thedevelopment or that they provide infrastructure to assist accessby modes other than the single occupant car, such as pedestrianconnectivity to bus stops, bicycle parking or preferential carpoolparking locations.

� The environmental impact of the development. This is taken

into account in Sweden, both in terms of local plans, and inactual planning decisions—the national level does have thepower (albeit it is rarely used) to overturn local decisions onlocal plans and building permission where it feels that nationalnorms on the environment may be threatened by the plan and/or development. In the Netherlands, larger buildings in someland use categories need environmental permits as well asbuilding permission before they can open, and some munici-palities (e.g. Amsterdam) have in the past used the environ-mental permit as a means to lever mobility management intothat organisation. In Switzerland applicants for developmentswith more than 300 parking spaces planned have to deliver anenvironmental impact assessment study. These are evaluatedby the cantonal authorities and if the environmental impacts areconsidered to be too high it can require a reduction in thenumber of parking spaces sought by the applicant. The envir-onmental impact assessment study is a part of the buildingpermit process.

� Parking provision. In many countries, such as Spain, the Nether-

lands, Germany, rural Ireland and Poland, the municipality willnormally have to satisfy itself that at least the stipulatedminimum amount of parking is being provided by thedeveloper.

In the Netherlands and Sweden, the development of land alsorequires a separate agreement between developer and localauthority on how that land is going to be used and how thedeveloper will pay for the common costs of the development,which can include transport aspects such as new roads inside thedevelopment. In 2008, a part of the new Dutch planning lawallowed local authorities to require contributions from developersfor infrastructure that is not on the site, including cycle paths andPT infrastructure, and to refuse development permission if suchcontributions are not paid. This is a strengthening of the existingsituation, where developers made limited contributions to infra-structure within the development perimeter.

The main conclusion to draw from this section of the analysis isthat there are points in the land use planning process in manycountries where transport issues have an influence on the planningdecision. However, these points differ greatly between countries inhow frequently they appear and in their level of influence in thatprocess; and although they exist, they are rarely used in asystematic way such that transport becomes a key influencingfactor in every planning decision for developments over a certainsize, for example.

The next section of the country analyses considered what

flexibility planning instruments offer in order that MM can be included,

and their ability to support, hinder or allow MM and supporting

measures. Because planning systems are wide in scope, and becauseas Geerlings and Stead (2003) note, there has been little considera-tion of the integration of transport and land use planning within theplanning policy literature, it was not possible to find previous workthat had systematically compared across European states the scopethat the land use planning system offers to integrate mobilitymanagement within it. Comparative work on planning systems

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certainly exists (e.g. Healey and Williams, 1993) but it tends tocompare systems at a broader level. Hence the project on which thispaper is based can be seen to make a contribution to our under-standing of a specific aspect of European states’ planningsystems—that is, the degree to which they integrate policy onmobility management.

The country analyses from this project show that certainplanning instruments offer the potential to include MM, givensufficient political will. For example:

In Sweden, in the contract between developer and localauthority that governs the development of land, there is scopeto include requirements for MM. � In Spain, the traffic impact assessment of sites that is already

undertaken could be expanded to include other modes oftransport and MM for managing transport to the site.

� In Poland, it seems that it could be a legal possibility to require of

developers the provision, not only of roads into the develop-ment, but PT and cycle infrastructure as well; and possibly tolimit parking provision in addition.

In Germany, Slovenia and Lithuania, building permission couldbe granted subject to conditions such as the provision of free trialbus tickets for new residents of an area, or the installation of bicycleparking, or the provision of a free bus by the developer. The lattercase has already happened in Vilnius in Lithuania.

In the Netherlands there are already isolated examples ofcontracts between authorities and developers regarding MM innew business areas, in particular. For details of one example, see theGoudse Poort case in the OPTIMUM2 project (www.optimum2.org). Those involved in this example noted that particular chal-lenges in brokering such a contract include the changing prioritiesof developers, as markets change; and trying to persuade localauthorities to adopt new, previously untested ideas such ascontracts.

This is encouraging, insofar as it shows that there are avenueswithin the planning system via which the integration of MM andthe planning process could be pursued. However, as German andSwedish reports pointed out, in most cases, while these opportu-nities exist, their use is far from systematic and often dependent onthere being particularly interested members of staff and/or poli-ticians in a given municipality, who will then pursue thisopportunity.

The last section of analysis dealt with the question how does the

integration of MM in the building permission process work in those

countries that do it already. The countries in which this process hasdeveloped beyond an ad-hoc approach are the UK, Switzerland and,to an extent, Ireland and Sweden. This analysis also helps to addressGeerlings and Stead (2003) desire to see more work that tries tounpick the reasons why, in some states, planning and transportpolicy are more closely integrated that in others.

In the UK, since the early 1990s there has been a tradition ofcarrying out what were initially called traffic impact assessments(TIAs) to predict and then cater for the increase in traffic caused by anew development over a certain size. A typical size would be adevelopment that will generate 100 or more one-way trips in a typicalpeak hour, although in particularly congested locations, a smallerdevelopment would still require a TIA. Now known as a TransportAssessment (TA), because it should deal with access to the develop-ment by all modes, it is not a legal requirement, but it is usually takenseriously in the planning decision for larger developments. Its use issupported by government (and the national roads agencies), and thedecision on whether or not to grant building permission for a largenew development can often be dependent on the transport impactsand how they will be managed. One of the reasons why national

government may take the building permission decision out of thehands of a local council could be if it feels that the TA results have notbeen sufficiently taken into account. The main reason that MM hasbeen built into the TA and building permission process is due tonational planning guidance issued by the national government, whichis also an important consideration (although not a direct legalrequirement) in building permission decisions. The 1999 edition ofthis guidance, PPG13 Transport (DETR, 2001), was the first to mentionthe idea of requiring or otherwise securing travel plans (site basedmobility plans) as part of the TA and building permission process.Prior to this, however, some more forward-thinking local authoritieswere already doing so, particularly if they were responsible foreconomically buoyant and congested areas. The use of MM in thebuilding permission process is now quite well institutionalised inmany local authorities (see Rye, Ison, Young and Green, forthcoming).This is not to say that its implementation is straightforward nor that italways achieves the desired results; but to suggest MM as part of thebuilding permission process is no longer always seen as a novel andrisky undertaking.

Ireland is at the same kind of stage at which the UK found itself5–10 years ago: there is considerable national policy guidancesupporting the use of the planning system to bring about sustain-able transport objectives, but only the most forward-thinking localauthorities have so far taken this to the stage of bringing MM intobuilding permission decisions. However, this type of integration isnow supported by national guidance such as that issued by the IrishNational Roads Authority (NRA, 2007).

Sweden is at a similar stage also. Thus in these countries,national government is giving a policy lead on the integration ofMM with planning, directly through planning guidance but also viaincreasing emphasis on Sustainable Urban Transport Plans, butlocal authorities have a great deal of flexibility in how they chooseto interpret such guidance.

In Switzerland, there are a number of factors that together bringabout the integration of MM with the building permission process:

The special land-use plan, which covers an area smaller than thelocal land use plan, and is typically produced for large newdevelopments such as regional shopping centres, as well as forthe revitalisation of districts or for new employment zones.This offers the opportunity to specify the accessibility of the siteand to make contracts with landowners about MM in anydevelopment on the site. � National maximum parking standards, including reductions in

these maxima in areas of higher PT accessibility. These stan-dards are restraint-based—that is, they will not provide enoughparking for everyone who wants to drive to a development.They act as a strong national framework for the amount ofparking to be provided at new developments.

� The right of objection for environmental organisations, such as

the Swiss Transport and Environment Association, who can anddo suggest conditions with which new developments shouldconform. This includes conditions related to MM.

� Environmental impact assessment for developments with more

than 300 parking spaces; if this finds that thresholds for impactswill be exceeded by traffic generated by the development, thenMM would often be used to mitigate these impacts.

There is a national framework for MM for urban agglomerationsin Switzerland and this is reflected in cantonal (regional) and localplans. The involvement of the canton in building permissiondecisions also raises the importance of MM in these decisions. Inthis way, the application of MM within the process has become aregular activity rather than something applied on an ad-hoc basisby a small number of municipalities.

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5.2. Summary

From this description of the planning systems of different states,it is possible to discern some groupings of states with somewhatsimilar systems. These groupings of states correspond quite closelyto ‘‘families’’ of planning systems identified by various previousstudies, such as that by Newman and Thornley (1996). Thesefamilies are the Germanic, British, Nordic, Napoleonic (SouthernEuropean) and Eastern European. As Nadin and Stead (2008)explain, these families, or social models of planning, bear somerelationship to comparative welfare and legal models of Europeansocieties. All planning systems bar the British are in theory at leasthighly codified, with legislation stipulating what is permitted to bebuilt where; the British system is more permissive, reflecting theBritish reliance on common law rather than legal codes. Thedifference in the groupings identified in this paper compared withthose presented by Newman and Thornley (1996) is that noseparate Nordic grouping appears, because the categorization inthis paper is based more on the way in which sustainable transportand mobility management are integrated with the planningsystem, rather than on the planning system in its entirety. Nordoes a Napoleonic grouping appear, since only Spain was con-sidered in the country analyses.

This categorization is potentially important because the policytransfer literature (e.g. Marsden and May, 2008) suggests that citiesand countries learn most from those of their counterparts that areclosest to them in political geography terms, so one might expectthat policy transfer would be more likely to take place betweenthese groupings of countries, which are defined as follows:

Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. Austria (notconsidered until a later stage of the research than that on whichthis research is based) is also in this grouping. Similarities areapparent in the existence of regional planning guidance, stronglegislation governing planning, and in the use of detailed sitedevelopment plans as part of the planning process in many ofthese countries. However, it is interesting that the deliberate use ofland use planning to support sustainable transport, and theintegration of mobility management with planning, has reallyonly occurred to any systematic extent in Switzerland, amongst allthese countries, because only here are higher levels of governmentable to intervene actively in planning decisions. � Spain does not, amongst the countries considered, belong to any

grouping.

� UK and Ireland. Since Ireland was part of the UK until the inter-

war period, it is perhaps unsurprising that the planning systemsof the two countries retain similarities. Language and theinterchange of transport/planning professionals also promotesa cross-fertilisation of policy ideas. However, perhaps due tolower levels of economic growth (until recently), and also due tocultural differences, the Irish planning system has been some-what weaker than its UK counterpart and this has an influence inthe degree to which newer ideas such as MM can take root there.The influence of North American transport planning practice hasalso had an important impact in the UK, at least, by spreadingknowledge and then acceptance of transportation impactassessments, which have now become an institutionalisedmechanism for analyzing and managing the transport impactsof new developments.

� Lithuania, Poland, and to an extent Slovenia (although the latter

appears influenced also by Austria). Here planning systems fromcommunist times retain a certain inflexibility whilst at the sametime being unsuited to managing development under capitalism.At the same time, evidence from project partners and from theliterature suggests very strong links between local administrations

and the development industry (see Sykora, 1999, for discussion ofthese issues). These factors taken together make conditionsproblematic, at least in the short term, for greater integration ofMM and planning; the planning simulation workshops discussedlater in the paper also point to a reluctance in these countries(particularly in Poland and Lithuania) to accept ideas about formsof regulation from older member states.

In spite of being able to identify these groupings it is, with thepossible exception of the UK and Ireland, very difficult to discern agreat deal of policy transfer from one member state to another. Forexample, in spite of this analysis and previous literature agreeing thatboth Switzerland and Germany belong in the same group, there is noevidence of policy transfer in the area of integration of sustainabletransport and mobility management with planning. On the otherhand, the UK and Switzerland, in spite of being in different groups,appear to have developed similar approaches to this topic within theirrespective planning systems. Nadin and Stead (2008:40) speak of a‘‘convergence’’ in European planning systems as a result of competi-tion, cooperation and learning between cities and regions in differentEuropean countries. However, this does not yet seem to have been thecase in the area of planning that is the topic of this paper, implyingthat there remain some significant barriers to policy transfer in thisarea, as discussed further in Sections 5 and 6.

6. Potential for integration in selected European states

This section reports the results of the planning simulation work-shops to assess how far the new ideas discussed could be transferredto the five countries where workshops took place. It is not knownprecisely why particular actors joined the planning workshop process,over and above the fact that they were asked to do so by universitiesand research institutes (project partners) in their area. To say that thiswas simply a transfer from a Western European run project to alargely Eastern European set of simulation workshops would be anoversimplification (the work package was, for example, coordinatedby a Slovenian organisation), but the workshops were very muchbased on participants taking up the offer (from the project) of findingout about new policy ideas, rather than those participants activelyseeking new ideas, and this is likely to have influenced the alacritywith which these new ideas were embraced—or not. The followingsections now discuss the results of the workshops.

6.1. Acceptance and transferability of instruments and measures

Generally, MM and its measures were accepted by mostparticipants, but the feasibility and direct transferability for theirown country, town or development was doubted. A reason forscepticism with regard to transferability and effectiveness ofmeasures are the poor preconditions for car alternative modes insome of the selected case study countries. New member stateparticipants seemed to be especially reluctant to accept solutionsdirectly transferred from western countries—so this begs thequestion as to whether and how far good practice examples fromthose countries could play a role in bringing about a wideracceptance of the integration of MM with land use planning.

A direct transfer is difficult due to differences in (mobility)culture as well. Those differences are expressed especially inrelation to bicycle use and bicycle parking facilities. In somecountries bicycles are use as an everyday mode, in some theyare not widely used or used only for leisure. Requiring sufficientbicycle parking for new developments is included in respectivelaws and regulations in some countries such as Germany. Stan-dards are seen as hard to transfer to countries where bicycles arenot widely used for every day transport (for example, Lithuania).

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Some partners stated that in their countries, the car has a greatimportance as a status symbol. Measures which aim to limit car useor car parking spaces are in many countries quite unknown and areviewed as very unpopular. Some participants doubted that suchmeasures would be supported or enacted by politicians, even if it isaccepted that they could help to resolve problems in accessing newdevelopments and decreasing congestion around them.

6.2. Accessibility of sites considered

It was found that in most of the development sites, theintegration of land use and transport is often poor, especially theplanned connections to the existing PT network, while bicycle orpedestrian routes are in most cases of poor quality. The wideraccessibility of neighbourhoods or major destination points withinthe city is rarely taken into consideration when preparing detailedsite development plans. Thus consideration of the mobility needs offuture users and generated traffic is not a part of the planningprocess. It was perceived that many land use planners did not seemto be aware of these needs and emerging transport problems.Alternative modes of travelling, i.e. other than car, are normally nottaken into consideration. On the other hand, the planning for aspecial site does normally not need to deal with further connec-tions to other parts of the town; such matters are seldom part ofsingle site development plans, for example.

Here, the problem of poor preconditions for mobility managementcomes into focus. MM alone cannot solve all problems of accessibility;a minimum of infrastructure and some supply of public transport arerequired before additional measures, based on information, promo-tion and cooperation, can be implemented. This is especially true incountries where public transport (infrastructure, supply and organi-sation) is seen as the exclusive responsibility of the public sector.

This relates to the assignment of public and private tasks withinthe countries planning system. Problems emerge especially wherethe public sector has an image as an unreliable partner in, forexample, providing planned new public transport services andinfrastructure. In the planning simulation in Vilnius this wascertainly the case. There the private developer was unwilling toconsider financing improved public transport accessibility, becauseif the city were to realise its stated plans for public transportimprovements, then accessibility by public transport would not besuch a big problem. A strategy for and the implementation of anetwork of comfortable and safe pedestrian and bicycle paths isalso seen as a task for the whole city. Whilst local connections tomajor destinations like train stations, main shopping areas for dailyconsumer needs, schools, etc. could be considered as part of thedetailed site development plan, developers in some simulationworkshops were not willing to countenance even this.

6.3. Parking standards

In most countries the parking standards for new developmentsare minimum standards. For those it mostly seems to be a totallynew concept to offer a reduction of those numbers if othermeasures are implemented instead, in order to minimise transportproblems for new developments and to encourage the use ofalternative modes. This matter was discussed in all simulations. Inmost cases, the parking regulations are not completely under thelocal authority’s responsibility but rather they are set by higherlevel of government. In many German states, some flexibility ispossible in order to take account of local conditions such as PTaccessibility. In Poland, Slovenia and Spain, flexibility is possiblebut rarely used.

In contrast to the other workshops, where high numbers ofplanned parking spaces were discussed as a major problem, the

small number of parking spaces was one of the main problems forthe site in Ljubljana. Here, a small number of car parking spaces wasaccepted within the building permission process without anobligation to implement additional measures. These will not satisfyexpected demand, so additional measures are needed to cope. Toavoid a massive spill-over to the neighbourhood (search traffic andparking) the need for implementation of additional measures wasdiscussed and accepted during the planning simulation workshop.

6.4. Developers contributing to MM and obligations on developers to

undertake MM

The suggestions that developers could contribute to animprovement outside of the development area was generally seenas a problematic issue and one which is not accepted by the privateparty. Furthermore, in many countries this suggestion is not legallypossible within the existing planning laws and regulations. Devel-opers were, perhaps not surprisingly, not particularly supportive ofbeing asked to pay for measures that they do not currently fund.However, in some cases, including Poland and Spain, it was notedthat the detailed site plan required for large new developmentscould, with sufficient political will, be modified to require devel-opers to provide MM measures. However, this is perceived as risky,and leadership from higher levels of government is required inorder to make MM a more accepted and common part of the landuse planning and building permission process.

In none of the five countries is there an obligation to include MMinto the planning process but in most of them there are some pointswithin the planning process where either the preconditions couldbe improved or MM could be negotiated with the developers on avoluntary basis. In Slovenia, the traffic impact assessment processis an opportunity to negotiate about accessibility improvements tothe site, and not only access by car. In Dortmund (Germany), thereis the possibility to negotiate the number of parking spacesrequired at a new development, to a certain degree, between thecity authority and site developer. Here, local conditions have to betaken into account and a reduction of the number of spaces inexchange for the adoption by the developer and site occupier ofother measures (e.g. a travel plan) is possible. But, as long as thereare standards set by higher levels of government, any obligation toreduce parking spaces and use MM instead was most likely to berejected. These kinds of solutions are only accepted as a voluntaryand additional option to existing regulations. The main barrierseems to be fear of competition between cities/sites for newdevelopments and businesses. The participants perceive a strongcompetition between the cities and fear that they will weaken theircities’ attractiveness by obliging the developer to undertake MMactivities. Additionally, there are many open questions about howto secure and guarantee such commitments and about the mon-itoring of the effectiveness of agreed MM measures.

This review of the planning simulation workshops has shown thatthe current situation for the integration of MM and planning in a cross-section of member states is not particularly favourable—to date, therehas clearly been little policy transfer in this field and the planningsimulation workshops are very much a first step in the policy transferprocess in the member states where they took place. However, giventhat the simulations all showed a quite low level of knowledge aboutMM in general, let alone MM in the planning process, then it seemsthat a project such as this one can play a useful role in enhancingknowledge of this possible form of integration throughout the EU.

7. Discussion: policy transfer

Transferability is a key question in almost all EU researchprojects and the one that is the subject of this paper was no

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exception: whether experience and practice from one country canbe transferred and applied in another. The key ways in whichtransferability was explored were a cross-national analysis ofplanning systems, and the planning simulation workshops, inwhich the idea of integrating MM with the building permissionprocess at specific sites in five partner countries was explored. Inthis section the questions from Dolowitz and Marsh framework, asset out in Section 3, are used as a framework for understanding thecontribution that the project made to policy transfer.

An important caveat on the project’s findings on transferabilityis that it is impossible within the scope of a project of this nature togive detailed guidance on the legal feasibility of transferringpractice from one planning system to another; this is a key issue,but one the project did not have the resources to research.Notwithstanding the earlier points made about the acceptabilityof MM in different countries, from the research that has beenconducted, the following ideas emerge on transferability.

7.1. Why the transfer took place

In terms of the pressures that have brought about the policytransfer that has occurred in the EU project under consideration inthis paper, these sit midway in the Dolowitz and Marsh continuumof ‘‘want to’’ to ‘‘have to’’, but it is clear that little transfer wouldhave taken place were it not for the existence of a project whoseraison d’etre was to transfer knowledge from one part of the EU toanother. Policy transfer was not forced on participants by govern-ment or by a powerful external organisation such as the IMF; norwas this project a case of perfectly rational lesson drawing.

However, the introduction of these new policy ideas via theproject has also meshed, in some cases (e.g. Spain, Slovenia) with areadiness to consider the idea due to internal pressures orproblems, largely related to congestion and access to new devel-opments. For example, in Slovenia, it was accepted that thedevelopment considered in the planning simulation workshopthere (a new university building) will have access problems and soMM could help to solve these. In Spain, the area considered in theplanning simulation workshop may have large parking spilloverproblems and undermine formal park and ride at a nearby station.

7.2. Who was involved

Academics and consultants active in the project consortiumtransferred ideas to other consultants, academics and, importantly,bureaucrats; so of the nine categories of actors identified byDolowitz and Marsh (2000), only three were present in this process.It is however worth noting that private and public developers ofland were also present at the simulation workshops, as wereagencies of the government such as public transport operators andthe police, so this implies that there may be more categories of actorthat can be involved in policy transfer.

A key mediating factor in the process was the cultural values of thepeople involved, and this has clearly had an impact on the accept-ability of the new ideas in the different contexts into which they wereintroduced. This was particularly so in Lithuania, where the planningsystem is particularly formulaic and rule-bound, and so there is littleroom for new concepts such as mobility management.

It is also clear that this second stage of policy transfer frominternational to domestic will encounter barriers of languagewhich should not be underestimated in a European context—these initially limit policy transfer in many cases to those whospeak English, who tend (in new member states at least) to beyounger and less senior and thus often have less influence in thepolicy making process.

Based on the experience of this project, the authors would alsoargue that policy transfer is a somewhat serendipitous process,dependent on particular actors – those with influence, but alsothose with enthusiasm, openness to outside ideas and languageskills – actually finding out about a new idea. The planningsimulation workshops helped to do this to some extent; becausemore people there now know about the policy, its transfer to thecities in which these workshops were held is now more likely thanit was previously—although how much more likely is very difficultto measure. A coincidence of well-informed and enthusiastic policyactors in a given location can make the difference between a newpolicy being adopted by them—but they need to find out that thepolicy in question exists, and this is where a project of this type canassist.

7.3. What was transferred, and to what degree

In terms of Dolowitz and Marsh’s framework and the compo-nents within it, there was an attempt to transfer sub-elements ofpolicy: goals, content and instruments. The project showed that theplanning simulation workshops stimulated the consideration ofintegrating MM with the land use planning process in, for example,Slovenia, Spain and Poland—a particular case is the use ofmaximum parking standards, or at least managing on-site parkingmore actively. It was also clear in this case that only elements of thewhole policy that was being advocated by the project were evenpartially accepted as applicable to their own country context bymost participants in the planning simulation workshops. This wasfor reasons such as the novelty of the policy, different legal andother framework conditions, and differing national traditions of therole of the developer compared to the public authority in planningfor new developments.

7.4. Where is policy transferred from

The policy transfer process in this project was initially inter-national, as the concept in the planning simulation workshops wasto work towards some form of emulation of the imported policyidea, mediated of course by local circumstances. It then rapidlybecame a case of domestic/internal transfer, from consultants andacademics to different levels of government within each country.This process is discussed further, below.

7.5. What constraints exist on transfer (but also what opportunities

exist to facilitate it)

It is clear from the planning simulation workshops that there aresignificant constraints on transfer of this policy at present in manyof the countries considered. Certainly the mix of structuralproblems and various aspects of (in)feasibility of transfer thatare listed in Dolowitz and Marsh’s framework under ‘‘constraintson policy transfer’’ have been found to be relevant in this paper.

Framework conditions – legal and technical – were seen to bebarriers to policy transfer in several of the countries where work-shops took place – for example, the Slovenian national constructionby-law would have to be changed to allow the use of maximumparking standards for residential use in that country. In thissituation, creative thinking is called for; or the policy may simplynot be transferable and this must be accepted. Also, ideology, or atleast views about the general applicability of western ideas in anew member state coloured the receptiveness of Lithuanian work-shop participants to the new policy ideas about which they werelearning. In addition, concerns about the feasibility of a policy in itsdetailed functioning could be a brake on policy transfer; this wasthe case in the German simulation workshop, where participants

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were worried that it would be difficult to monitor the impacts of atravel plan and to hold a developer to any mode share targets thatthey had signed up to.

On the other hand, this project also showed that there are clearopportunities that can be used to facilitate policy transfer, such aswhen there are other policy changes in related fields underway. Forexample, if a city is moving to adopt a sustainable urban transportplan (SUTP) for the first time, this represents an opportunity fortransfer of the related policy of integrating MM and land-useplanning. Ljubljana is a possible case of this.

The project showed that there are many similarities in planningsystems, particularly in the ways that Local Plans and Detailed SiteDevelopment Plans are made; and in the responsibilities ofdifferent levels of government in the planning system. This meansthat there is ‘‘space’’ for the integration of MM in the planningprocess of many countries, through negotiation at least; and thiscan be done on (through negotiation) a municipality-by-munici-pality and case-by-case basis, incrementally. Partners in the projectnoted that such case-by-case adoption of the policy has beenobserved in more ‘‘innovative’’ municipalities such as Lund inSweden, Cork in Ireland and Munich in Germany.

Therefore many of the means that the project has identified toinclude MM in the planning process are transferable, but they mayonly be transferred in the first instance to one or two developmentswhere one or two staff or local politicians have a particular interestin or knowledge of MM, or where management of transportimpacts of new development is a particularly high local politicalpriority. For example, it is possible to negotiate a travel plan for anew development in Slovenia if local interests supported the ideaand where there are people involved who have some knowledge/awareness of the concept—but this may only be the case for a fewdevelopments, initially at least. In contrast, in England, this is amore widespread practice because it is now supported by local andnational policy as well as, now, with some years of experience.Nonetheless, the basic concept can be seen to be capable of transferfrom England to Slovenia.

The challenge for Slovenia is then to make this practice one that isnormal and consistently applied, rather than one that is ad-hoc andone-off. The personal experience of project partners such as theSlovenian Urban Planning Institute supports the notion that interna-tional projects without doubt assist in the transfer process by informingabout, and raising the profile and credibility of, a new policy concept.

7.6. Is it possible to judge whether the policy transfer was a success?

In the case of the attempt at policy transfer that is documented inthis paper, it is perhaps too early to judge whether the transfer was asuccess. Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) refer to three forms of policy(transfer) failure: uninformed transfer, incomplete transfer, andinappropriate transfer. The MAX project does not suffer the first,since it was reasonably well-informed about the way in which thepolicy operates in those countries where it has been implementedwith some success. However, there is a strong likelihood that it maynot be possible to transfer all the factors to other countries that madethe policy relatively successful in countries such as the UK andSwitzerland—this is the second form of failure. In addition, asalluded to earlier in this paper, planning policy operates in verydifferent social, political and ideological contexts across Europe andtherefore there is a risk of the third type of failure.

7.7. What has to happen to transfer the policy within a country once it

has ‘‘arrived’’ from another?

The experience from the project that is the subject of this papershows that, to begin transferring experience and practice from one

country to another, the key requirements are a knowledge of thatpractice (e.g. what is a travel plan and why it can realise benefitswhen integrated into a new development) and the political will orinterest to make the transfer and try something new. As notedearlier in this paper and by the literature (De Jong and Edelenbos,2007, for example), that interest or will can come from one of anumber of different groups of actors, not just politicians: forexample, the first steps in integrating MM with the planningprocess in Nottingham, UK (a policy transfer from North America),were taken because of the interest and knowledge of local authoritystaff, not politicians. How and how far the idea of integrating MMwith planning is well known/accepted is crucial to its initial take-up, and the evidence from this project’s attempt at policy transfershows that such projects can play a role in the policy transferprocess insofar as they at least encourage initial awareness anddiscussion of a new policy possibility in a country where it has notbeen discussed before.

However, the next step in international policy transfer is for thepolicy to move from one that is considered, adopted and imple-mented in an ad-hoc way to one that is institutionalised within theland-use/transport planning system of a country or region. To dothis, changes in regional and national policy and law may berequired. This therefore needs lobbying and awareness-raising atthe national and regional level; and some political recognition thatsuch policies are beneficial—as there has been in Ireland orSweden, for example. In the UK and Switzerland, the integrationof MM and planning occurs in practice both because policy exists,but also because planning law gives higher levels of governmentsome control over municipalities in the areas of plan-making andthe granting of building permission (see Cullingworth and Nadin,2009). It is possible that in countries where there is less control byhigher levels of government, the implementation of any national/regional policy on integration – if it exists — will be more variable.(The converse of this of course is where national government hassome influence over local government and national governmentpolicy does not encourage integration of MM and planning.)

The difference between ‘‘ad-hoc’’ policy transfer and systematictake-up of the new policy that this research has identified perhapshelps to refine the Dolowitz and Marsh framework, at least when it isapplied to international projects. To move from ad-hoc to systematicpolicy transfer, the transfer process has to change from one that isinternational to one that is within and between the institutions of asingle country. To give an example from MAX, this process hasperhaps now begun in Slovenia: the concept of maximum parkingstandards was identified in the planning simulation workshop but isnow being discussed at the national level.

How to adapt the policy or practice is a matter for localjudgement, based on knowledge of how it is used in anothercountry, and what the differences are in the new country –corresponding with Dolowitz and Marsh’s (1996) possibilities ofpolicy emulation, copying or mixing. From the limited experienceof the planning simulation workshops, it seems that policies could

be transferred without very much adaptation (as long as structuralbarriers do not exist—see final point, below), but that the con-straints on policy transfer discussed earlier will tend to ‘‘waterdown’’ the policy in terms of its content and instruments, wellbefore it is implemented in the recipient country; thus at best aform of policy mixing is observed. It is however possible that evenwhere few or no substantive constraints to transfer (such as legalbarriers) exist, the policy is transferred into the ‘‘recipient’’ countryin so far as a very few people involved in a project find out about thenew concept, but it then is transferred no further because there isno active facilitation of its transfer within the country. There seemsto be a difference here, then, between a substantive constraint ontransfer, and ‘‘benign neglect’’ of the new concept—but both lead tothe same result, that is, limited or no actual policy transfer.

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8. Conclusions

The conclusion first considers the degree to which the integra-tion of MM with the land use planning process has been shown tobe possible, and where and why it occurs. It then turns to thequestion of the wider lessons on policy transfer gained from theproject.

The analysis of current practice in ten states and the planningsimulations carried out in five states has shown that, in relation tothe title of this paper, integrating MM with the planning process is anovel policy area and one about which most countries are onlybeginning to learn. There has been to date only a slow and verypiecemeal transfer of this policy area from more active states(e.g. Switzerland, UK) to others. This is for a number of reasons:

There is very little current knowledge of MM measures andpractice in many of the member states studied and wheresimulations were held. Clearly they are at too early a stage tocontemplate regulation of MM measures when they know littleabout what they are, or what they can do. � The poor accessibility of many of the sites studied in the

simulations would make it quite difficult to regulate a require-ment for MM measures, since the locations of the developmentsare so unsupportive of MM, in many cases.

� There is a reluctance—found also in those countries that do

practice some form of (semi-) regulatory approach to MM in theplanning process to place what are perceived as additionalburdens on developers. Laws change only slowly; the new(2008) law on land development in the Netherlands has beenmany years in gestation, for example.

� Other regulations make it problematic to try to enforce MM

measures within the planning process. For example, in Ger-many, monies cannot by law be secured from developers forpublic transport improvements to a development, unless theyare in lieu of parking spaces that would otherwise have beenconstructed.

� As is often the case in MM (Rye, 2002), where there is

recognition that a development will suffer accessibility pro-blems (as in the Ljubljana workshop) then there is a greaterreadiness to accept the new policy idea as a way of solving theproblem.

Amongst those countries that have tried a more regulatoryapproach to MM in the planning process (the UK and Switzerland),they have been able to do so because this tradition exists from otheraspects of planning—it did not have to be developed solely to dealwith MM. It is notable that in spite of being categorised in twoseparate groups of countries according to their planning tradition,they nonetheless were able to evolve quite similar approaches tothe integration of MM with their planning system.

In terms of wider lessons for policy transfer, this paper hasshown that the project’s approach is one that can have only arelatively small impact on transfer. This is for a variety of reasons,related to Dolowitz and Marsh’s framework: the policy transfer wasnot actively sought out by or required of policy makers in the‘‘recipient’’ country, but rather offered to them; only a very smallnumber of individuals were involved, many of whom were notespecially committed to the idea of the policy being transferred;the policy came from elsewhere, in some cases from countries withvery different governance and planning cultures than the ‘‘reci-pient’’ states; there are in some cases some significant legal andorganisational barriers to policy transfer; and there is a risk ofincomplete and inappropriate transfer. In designing such projectsin the future, it would be a useful exercise to do so with a

knowledge of Dolowitz’ and Marsh’s framework, and then toevaluate whether as a result policy transfer is any more successful.

In the transfer of a policy that is the responsibility of regional orlocal government or other non-central state organisations, thepolicy transfer process is really two stage: from another country toa few people in the ‘‘recipient’’ country, and then within thatcountry—a process of diffusion, in effect. This is not wholly clear inDolowitz’ and Marsh’s framework but for EU projects that seektransfer in policy domains that are the primary responsibility oflower levels of government, it is a crucial consideration.

Whilst the countries considered in this paper clearly fall intogroupings of different social models and planning systems, thesegroupings do not seem to have greatly affected the transfer of thepolicy considered here; the policy was not considered morefavourably in those countries sharing a planning tradition with acountry from which the policy originated.

So in sum, we can say that if a more widespread integration ofMM in the planning process is desired, then more supportivenational/regional policy and legislative frameworks will berequired but, in addition and just as importantly, a greaterawareness of how MM can be integrated into planning withinexisting structures will be needed, and it is in this relatively limitedbut not unimportant manner that the MAX project encouragedpolicy transfer in this case.

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