World leaders will convene in New York for the UN Climate Summit 2014 next week. The summit called by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for 23 September is intended to catalyse action for combatting climate change. One of eight action areas identified is transport; the first time the UN has targeted the sector as a climate policy player in its own right.
Building on this important development, ITF is feeding its expertise into the UN process in multiple ways. The Global Fuel Efficiency Initiative (GFEI), of which ITF is a member, has been selected as an Energy Efficiency Accelerator by the UN's Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative. GFEI held an Accelerator Symposium in Paris on 5 September hosted by the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, and will be present at the Climate Summit in New York in the main energy session.
In the pre-summit week, ITF Secretary-General José Viegas is at the Asian Development Bank's Transport Forum in Manila,
Philippines underlining the crucial role of the Asian economies and their transport policy choices for sustainable development.
On 22 September, Viegas will be in New York for a high-level summit side event with Michael Bloomberg, President of
the C40 Group of cities and former mayor of New York, Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), and Maria van der Hoeven, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). The focus will be on the contribution of rail to sustainable, low carbon development.
ITF is also preparing to support the work of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable Transport. Following the appointment of Olof Persson, CEO of Volvo Group and member of ITF's Corporate Partnership Board, as co-chair of the
Advisory Group, José Viegas met with Persson's senior staff in Paris
to discuss potential ITF input. A second meeting is planned during the Climate Summit in New York.
Experts Gather at ITF to Review Tools for
Improved Policy Making
Potential improvements in investment
appraisal is the subject of an
ITF Roundtable in Paris, France from 15-16 September, titled "Ex-post assessments of transport investments and policy interventions:
Prerequisites for ex-post assessments and methodological challenges". Chaired by
UK expert Tom Worsley, the Roundtable will bring international experts together
to review practices, examine data and review the range of tools which
can be employed. As a new service, video-on-demand recordings of the
four presentations by: Dan Graham, Imperial College of London, UK;
Geraldine Barker, NAO, UK; Alain Bonnafous, LET, France; and
Stephen Fitzroy,
EDR, USA will be available from the ITF website from
Monday 22 September. A video summary by Roundtable Chair, Tom Worsley,
(UK) will also be online. (Pictured
at the Roundtable (l-r) Tom Worsley (Chair), Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK,
Stephen Perkins, ITF Head of Research, Dejan Makovsek,
ITF Economist)
Benefits of Travel Time Reliability Highlighted
at ITS World Congress
Reducing uncertainty for travellers about the time it will take to reach their destination should become a policy priority for authorities.
Research showing that the cost of unreliable travel may rival that of
congestion was the focus of a presentation by ITF Senior Economist
Jari Kauppila at the ITS World Congress in Detroit, USA on 10 September.
Developing a regulatory roadmap for autonomous driving was the
subject of an ITF Corporate Partnership Board members project group meeting
also held during the Congress. The project is being coordinated by ITF
Economist Philippe Crist. ITF was also represented with an exhibition stand. (Photo: ITF's Sharon
Masterson (left) with Sunny Huang, President of Liaoning Forever Enterprise Group, China, at the ITF Stand during ITS World Congress 2014)
The
ITF Annual Summit on Transport, Trade and Tourism will
take place in Leipzig, Germany from 27-29 May 2015. External
organisations can become involved in the Summit programme through:
World's Largest Transport Research Database
Proves a Success
More than three million searches have been performed on the Transport Research International
Documentation (TRID) database since its launch in 2011.
The database, the world's largest for published or on-going transport
research, is freely accessible via the Transportation Research Board's
website (see below).
Research organisations are encouraged to
play an active role in developing transport knowledge by becoming
members of ITRD (International Transport Research Documentation),
which coordinates inputs from its members into TRID. Members enjoy
promotional conditions and exposure for their research.
The need for seamless transport
and the role of air cargo in supporting high-value global supply chains
were
the focus of open remarks at a panel moderated by ITF Economist Alain
Lumbroso at the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) first Air Cargo Development Forum
in Zhengzhou, China on 3 September 2014.
The ITF's Transport Management Board
(TMB) met in Paris, France on 3 September 2014 for an extraordinary meeting to prepare the regular October meeting of the TMB, which will take place from 27-29 October, also in Paris.
The Group on Road
Transport's Sub-Group on Quality Charter Enforcement and Incitation Mechanisms met
in Paris on 4 September to prepare documents on Quality Charter
implementation for the Group's next meeting. The Sub-Group on Fresh Thinking on Market Access Regime for International Road Freight Services in the ECMT Area finalised its concept note
on 5 September which will also be submitted to the Group on Road Transport
for information and free discussion during their next meeting in Paris on
25-26 September.
ITF is
very pleased to welcome two new staff members: Joanne Leung,
a principal economist at New Zealand Ministry of Transport, joins ITF on a
two-month secondment. Her roles at ITF include finalising the working
group report on the assessment of policies for long-term transition to
sustainable transport. New Zealand holds the 2015 Presidency of the ITF.
Alain Lumbroso has joined the ITF as an economist working in the
Research Centre. Alain will lead the Roundtable on Public Transport
Market Orientation and Innovation and provide support to the aviation working group. Alain is on leave from the Canadian Ministry of Transport, Transport Canada, where he was the Chief of Aviation and Marine Statistics and Analysis and the Canadian delegate to the Joint OECD/ITF Transport Research Committee.
