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Distinguished
Transport Lecture Series 2010
Professor David Banister
Professor of Transport Studies and Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford University, U.K.
Cities, Mobility and Climate
Change
Date: 21 June 2010 (Monday)
Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m.
Venue: Wang Gungwu
Theatre, Graduate House, The University of Hong Kong (Map)
Lecture Abstract
Societies gain enormous benefits from travel, as economies have become
more globalised and as the new communications infrastructure allows
international networking at low cost. Globalised media coverage has
contributed to people's increased aspirations and expectations, along with
more educational and leisure opportunities, and increasing wealth. There
is a true internationalisation of all activities, and travel forms an
essential part of that process, however, this is fuelled by carbon, and
there is evidence that carbon emissions are affecting the global climate
with irreversible long term consequences. Transport is the one sector
where a reduction in energy use and emissions is proving to be
extraordinarily difficult to achieve despite some success in urban areas,
where there are many good examples of reductions in energy use in
transport, through demand management, public transport investment,
priority for walking and cycling, and soft measures targeting single
occupancy cars. Planners have also actively created more high quality
local neighbourhoods, with innovative housing, mixed use developments, and
an emphasis on accessibility, all intended to reduce the need to travel
(particularly by car), to reduce distance travelled and encourage greater
use of public transport, walking and cycling. There are signs that such
city living is becoming "fashionable" with more people adopting
sustainable lifestyles (Banister, 2005). This paper presents a global
picture of what is happening in terms of cities, mobility and climate
change, highlighting recent trends. It is argued that the current
situation is unsustainable, and that transport must contribute fully to
achieving carbon reduction targets. A proposed alternative is presented,
based on the sustainable mobility paradigm (Banister, 2008) that looks at
ways to reduce the need to travel in cities. The belief that technology
provides the solution is misplaced, as technological innovation can only
get us part of the way to sustainable transport. Finally, it is suggested
that there may be opportunities for cities in the developing world to
switch to low carbon systems without passing through the period of oil
dependency. Potentially, the future is bright for low carbon transport in
cities, but the real question is whether there is the commitment and
leadership to follow such a path.
About the Speaker
David Banister is Professor of Transport Studies at Oxford University
and Director of the Transport Studies Unit, and a Fellow of St Anne's
College. Until 2006, he was Professor of Transport Planning at University
College London. He has also been Research Fellow at the Warren Centre in
the University of Sydney (2001-2002) on the Sustainable Transport for a
Sustainable City project, was Visiting VSB Professor at the Tinbergen
Institute in Amsterdam (1994-1997), and Visiting Professor at the
University of Bodenkultur in Vienna in 2007. He has been a Trustee of the
Civic Trust and Chair of their Policy Committee (2005-2009), and is Acting
Director of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University. He is
editor of two International Journals and on the Editorial Boards of 6
other Journals. He has authored or edited 18 research books related to
transport, published over 150 papers in international refereed journals,
and more than 250 other research papers.
Please click <here>
to download the presentation file.
 
Professor Rune Elvik
Chief Research Political Scientist, Institute of Transport Economics, Norway
Paradoxes of Rationality in
Road Safety Policy
Date: 17 November 2010 (Wednesday)
Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m.
Venue: Wang Gungwu
Theatre, Graduate House, The University of Hong Kong (Map)
Lecture Abstract
Rationality is a well-established ideal for transport safety policy.
Indeed, it has been claimed that if we only are rational enough, we can
solve all our problems. This, however, can only be the case if rationality
is a uniquely defined ideal, i.e. if it is always clear that only one
solution to a problem is rationally justified and no other solution can be
claimed to be rational. A paradox of rationality refers to any situation
in which conflicting choices can both be defended as rational. When a
paradox of rationality occurs, the normative guidance provided by the
principle of rationality normally breaks down. This paper will first
outline what the implication for road safety policy of an ideal of perfect
rationality. Based on this ideal, a set of paradoxes of rationality will
be discussed. More specifically, the following paradoxes will be
discussed: (1) Choices between policy options that produce identical
safety benefits may be arbitrarily influenced by irrelevant background
characteristics, i.e. violate the axiom of independence of irrelevant
alternatives. (2) Choices between policy options based on aggregate
willingness-to-pay for safety improvements may violate individual
preferences, i.e. there is an unintended reversal of preferences resulting
from the aggregation of preferences. (3) Choices between policy options
based on aggregate willingness-to pay for safety improvements may
disregard the intensity of individual preferences, i.e. favour those who
have a weak preference for safety at the expense of those who have a
strong preference for safety. (4) Choices between a policy option
favouring the poor and a policy option favouring the rich may favour the
rich, because the declining marginal utility of money makes it impossible
for the poor to compensate the rich in utility terms, i.e. the threshold a
benefit-cost ratio satisfying the criterion of a potential Pareto
improvement may be higher for the poor than for the rich. (5) A policy
option that looks attractive and passes the benefit-cost test ex ante may
fail an ex-post compensation test if utility depends both on wealth and
health and is more risk aversive with respect to health than with respect
to wealth. (6) Some road safety measures will be cost-effective from a
societal point of view, but not necessarily from an individual point of
view, i.e. there is sometimes a conflict between individual and collective
rationality. (7) Resource allocation based on grants from the central
government stimulates strategic coalition building among regional and
local units of government that undermines an efficient allocation of
resources. The implications of these paradoxes of rationality for road
safety policy will be discussed.
About the Speaker
Rune Elvik is a political scientist from the University of Oslo. He
attained the degree of doctor of political science (dr. polit) in 1993 and
the degree of doctor of philosophy (dr. philos) in 1999. In 2007, he
attained the ph D degree at Aalborg University in Denmark. His main areas
of research include evaluation of the effects of road safety measures,
research synthesis by means of meta-analysis, and cost-benefit analysis.
Since 1994, he has been chief research officer in charge of risk analyses
and cost-benefit analyses. This area had a strategic research programme on
meta-analysis from 2000 to 2008. Rune Elvik has taken part in several
international research projects organised by the European Commission, the
OECD, the European Transport Safety Council and the US Transportation
Research Board. During the years 1997-2004 he was associate editor of
Accident Analysis and Prevention. From 2005, he has been one of the
editors-in-chief of the journal. From 1999, Elvik has been a member of the
committee for safety data, analysis and evaluation of the Transportation
Research Board. From 2008 to 2010, Elvik was professor of road safety
studies at Aalborg university in Denmark (20 % working time). From 2009,
he is professor of road safety studies at Lund university in Sweden (20 %
working time).
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Professor Richard Knowles
Professor of Transport Geography, University of Salford, U.K.
Transport Shaping Space, Before and After Peak Oil
Date: 14 December 2010 (Tuesday)
Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m.
Venue: Wang Gungwu
Theatre, Graduate House, The University of Hong Kong (Map)
Lecture Abstract
This lecture examines the role of transport in shaping space and
potential consequences of Peak Oil. The lecture starts by reviewing the
differential collapse in time-space resulting from successive transport
innovations. Historical impacts of cheaper and faster transport on spatial
development are considered at different geographical scales. Whilst there
is now widespread recognition of the negative environmental consequences
of burning oil, much less consideration has been given nationally or
globally to the future supply and price of oil. Peak Oil (peak global oil
production) is looming whilst the growth in global consumption outstrips
known and anticipated reserves. As a finite resource, oil is unsustainable
but it is the sole or dominant fuel for all modes of mechanized transport
except railways. Already, the era of cheap 'easy oil' appears to be over.
Higher oil prices should encourage the development of alternative fuels
and technologies and the main alternatives are briefly examined. The
lecture concludes by examining the potential consequences of Peak Oil for
transport and future patterns of spatial development.
About the Speaker
Professor Richard Knowles is Professor of Transport Geography at the
University of Salford, United Kingdom. He is the Editor of the Journal of
Transport Geography and
the President of the International Geographical Union's Commission on
Transport and Geography. His valuable contribution to transport research
is widely recognized internationally. Professor Knowles received the 2004
Edward Ullman Award in Transportation Geography (Association of American
Geographers) and the 2010 Alan Hay Award in Transport Geography (Royal
Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers). He is a member of
UK's EPSRC funded, Sustainable Urban Environments SUE2 Research Team, and
the co-editor of Knowles, Shaw & Docherty (2008) Transport
Geographies: Mobilities, Flows and Spaces, Blackwell, Oxford. Professor
Knowles is the author of numerous research papers, books and book
chapters, conference papers, reports and book reviews.
Please click <here>
to download the presentation file.
 
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