SPECTRUM - Study of policies regarding economic instruments complementing transport regulation and the understanding of physical measures
Overview
Background & policy context:
SPECTRUM is a project funded by the EU as part of the Fifth Framework Programme.
The main objective of the SPECTRUM project is to: 'develop a theoretically sound framework for defining combinations of economic instruments, regulatory and physical measures in reaching the broad aims set by transport and other relevant policies' in terms of efficiency and equity.
As there is a tension between managing the transport system in such a way as to minimise social costs and simultaneously managing the system to meet increased demand, the work of SPECTRUM will address this problem by looking at the potential effects of using either individual instruments, complementary packages of instruments, or the consequences of substituting instruments, in managing the transport system.
Objectives:
The objectives are to provide the following four specific outputs:
- A theoretically sound framework for analysing the trade-off between objectives and identifying optimal combinations of economic and other instruments to achieve them. This will cover all modes, both passenger and freight transport, the urban and inter-urban context. Impacts will be indicated for equity, freight, passengers, safety and externalities as appropriate. The framework will be based on welfare economics and take into account impacts that cannot be monetised with current knowledge in a consistent way.
- Analysis and assessment of transport packages formed from economic and other instruments. Quantified evidence will be produced on the use of alternative instruments in managing urban or inter-urban capacity and the likely practical impacts of different approaches. This will involve case studies in both the urban and interurban contexts.
- Generalisation. Information for target users on the synthesised evidence and transferability of alternative transport management packages across the broader urban/inter-urban spectrum and their wider social impact. Transferability will be indicated for range of contexts including similar/non-similar sites and accession countries.
- Guidance and recommendations. Concrete suggestions for complementing and substituting economic measures with regulation and other instruments will be produced. Recommendations will be linked to identified EU policy priorities. Guidance will possibly be illustrated through a 'conceptual tool' to assist decision makers.
Methodology:
The problem that SPECTRUM is seeking to resolve is multi-dimensional, covering urban and inter-urban contexts, transport and wider policy objectives, passengers, freight, all modes, both high and low level impacts and a broad range of transport instruments. The scientific approach here has been designed to effectively structure this complex problem into three main Work Areas.
In the light of the current state of the art, it is inevitable that the project has to start by developing an overall high level framework for determining operational indicators for objectives, treating the various dimensions of equity, assessing policy measures in a consistent way, considering their transferability and, above all, identifying the attributes of integration, synergy, complementarity and substitution. The first Work Area has been designed to develop the high level framework and this will be described within the first publicly available SPECTRUM deliverable due to be released in early summer 2005.
Two parallel analysis and assessment Work Areas will simultaneously address the interurban and urban contexts specifically. These will take elements from the initial design of the framework and following a review of the impacts of individual measures, form packages of instruments. Case studies then explore empirical outputs that would be produced by the packages. Assessments of the impacts then feed back to the high level framework and (together with results from a theoretical study of synergies and impact measurement guidance) form the final comprehensive framework.
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