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This paper explores the implementation of the Indian Government's Smart Cities Mission in four cities. The Mission was to be delivered through a tightly specified governance form, known as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), although its function (smart urban renewal) was left more open. The national reform was, however, silent on how the SPV would work within the pre-existing network of actors. Using interviews and documentary analysis, the paper shows how the embedding of SPVs within pre-existing governance networks was strongly shaped by state-level decisions and local institutional dynamics. These insights open up new avenues for research into multi-level meta-governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study of current practice in policy transfer, and ways in which its effectiveness can be increased. A literature review identifies important factors in examining the transfer of policies. Results of interviews in eleven cities in Northern Europe and North America investigate these factors further. The principal motivations for policy transfer were strategic need and curiosity. Local officials and politicians dominated the process of initiating policy transfer, and local officials were also the leading players in transferring experience. A range of information sources are used in the search process but human interaction was the most important source of learning for two main reasons. First, there is too much information available through the Internet and the search techniques are not seen to be wholly effective in identifying the necessary information. Secondly, the information available on websites, portals and even good practice guides is not seen to be of mixed quality with risks of focussing only on successful implementation and therefore subject to some bias. Officials therefore rely on their trusted networks of peers for lessons as here they can access the ‘real implementation’ story and the unwritten lessons. Organisations which have a culture that is supportive of learning from elsewhere had strong and broad networks of external contacts and resourced their development whilst others are more insular or inward looking and reluctant to invest in policy lessons from elsewhere. Solutions to the problems identified in the evidence base are proposed. City to city policy transfer is a very active process in the field of transport. Not enough is yet understood about its benefits or the conditions under which it is most effective. Such understandings should help to promote and accelerate the uptake of effective and well matched policies.

A literature review of policy transfer in transport and cognate fields was conducted. It shows that there is little evidence on how cities learn from each other and even less on how this process occurs in the transport sector.The review identified a series of key aspects of policy transfer which the literature suggests might be important in understanding the process of, advantages and barriers to transferring innovative transport policies.Interviews were then conducted in 11 cities to further investigate the process of policy transfer and the role of academics within this. Seven cities were studied in Northern Europe (Leeds, Edinburgh, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bremen and Lyon, Nancy) and four in North America (Vancouver, Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle). This report presents the results of the synthesis of the city interviews.The key findings are:1. Cities are actively looking to learn from another but this process is unsystematic and sometimes inefficient2. The search for new policies is constrained by a lack of resources, particularly personnel3. Informal networks and information sharing based on professional contacts is the predominant method of initial knowledge transfer4. Local context is critical in determining whether policies will transfer well across cities and lack of fit is one reason for limited transfer5. Institutional barriers also exist to policy transfer which seem most likely to influence what gets implemented rather than what gets considered6. Key facilitators to overcome barriers to implementation are:a. A supportive political environment;b. Sufficient staff resources to commit to the projects;c. A culture of engaging with other cities and a structure that allows for staff at all levels to seek out information by contacting staff internally or at other organizations that are of a different staff/management level;d. An internal organisational culture to try new things; ande. co-funding of implementation from other government tiers or the private sector7. Academic research is one potential source of information on innovation and implementation but one which is underutilised in many cities. This was particularly true of the European cities compared with those in North America8. The academic and practitioner networks are not well connected and there are both practical and cultural barriers to better integration. In the light of these findings and a more detailed consideration of the cultural and practical barriers to better integration between academics and practitioners nine potential areas for future action are identified.

This paper explores how three cities (Seattle, Greater Manchester and Stockholm) have approached the governance of smart mobility services in the early stages of their introduction. The research finds that cities have limited steering capacity, and when they do steer services this is done on the assumption that smart mobility will deliver wider social, environmental and economic good. While broad-ranging benefits are yet to materialise to any identifiable degree, the potential for smart mobility to tackle some of the challenges of automobility undoubtedly remains, and the new services are acting to change mobility patterns in cities, at least for some people. We focus on the need to develop clear accountability arrangements between the public and the private sector, which we see as a necessary element of a collaborative governance approach that allows both sides to identify shared goals and maximise their achievement. However, we stress that developing a collaborative approach requires cities to govern with intent, which means that services need to be deployed or permitted with clear objectives and an understanding of their anticipated impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stakeholders play a crucial role in ensuring the smooth design and implementation of policies worldwide. This research presents the results of three focus groups carried out with stakeholders from different transport ministries and agencies involved in road safety in Nigeria. It aimed to understand their perception of road safety in Nigeria through discussing the road safety situation, measures, and strategies for improvement. Results showed that poor road design, organisation and implementation of road safety legislation, road user behaviour and inadequate research were impeding the improvement of road safety in Nigeria. Amongst the road safety measures discussed, public education and information campaigns were rated by each stakeholder group as very effective and easy to implement despite this not being supported by the wider literature. However, there were some variations in perception regarding the effectiveness of measures such as traffic control, road design and maintenance. Improving the road safety situation in Nigeria would require more concerted effort and an overall system-based policy reform involving both government and road users. The results of this study will contribute to and provide research evidence-based recommendations needed to design and develop integrated road safety policies and sustainable implementation strategies in Nigeria and other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With governments around the world committed to radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and transport-related mobilities making up a significant proportion of current carbon emissions, questions of how to change mobility systems have become a pressing concern. Yet the urgency of this challenge cannot be met with more of the same – particularly in terms of narrow discussions of behaviour change that fail to draw upon the wealth of relevant social scientific research. New methods of collaborating and bringing together communities – whether policymakers, academics, or publics – will also be key. Greg Marsden brings a particularly interesting set of perspectives to the question of what future travel demand might look like, and how we can change practices to get there. While currently a Professor of Transport Governance at Leeds University, Greg has spent significant periods working with policymakers – both within Transport for London and supporting the UK Parliament Transport Select Committee, which scrutinises the UK Department for Transport's (DfT) spending and policies. Our conversation looks at how spaces can be fostered for new ways of thinking, communicating and collaborating to address the challenge of rapidly decarbonising transport systems. Though largely focused upon the UK, the conversation highlights issues related to policy engagement, theory and evidence, and understandings of sharing that will have much wider relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public acceptability is a major concern for road pricing schemes in Western countries but has not yet been sufficiently studied in the context of Chinese cities, a number of which are considering the introduction of such travel constraint measures. This study explores factors influencing public acceptability of a proposed congestion charge in the City of Beijing. In so doing, the study focuses on understanding the appropriateness of Western frameworks for assessing public acceptability in the Chinese context. Through literature review and focus groups a survey to test different public acceptability constructs was developed (N = 1104). A Structural Equation Model was used to analyze relationships that exist among the different aspects of public acceptability. The results demonstrate that public acceptability is dominantly influenced by the level of trust toward the Government and experts. Various determinants in the Western context, such as access to information and perceived effectiveness were not found to have a significant impact on public acceptability. The results imply that public acceptability of congestion charging in the Chinese context has a stronger resonance with wider social issues such as equity than more specific transport problems such as congestion. As such, attempting to present evidence on the anticipated effectiveness of the policy in alleviating congestion and smog may not make the policy more acceptable to the public. The overall inference of the study is that contextual factors are more important than has been previously considered within public acceptability studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorising the relationships between information communication technology (ICT), travel and work continues to preoccupy researchers interested in multinational corporations (MNCs). One motivation is the desire to understand ways of reducing demand for and the negative consequences of business travel. Existing studies offer, however, little in the way of theoretical explanation of why situations that require travel arise in the first instance and how they might be avoided. To address this shortcoming, this paper analyses two case study engineering consultancy MNCs to develop a novel sociomaterial perspective on the role of travel and ICTs. It introduces the concept of the synthetic work mobility situation which highlights the way ICT and travel exert agency that constitutes ways of working and the organisational form of MNCs. The concept also recasts questions about ways of reducing demand for travel as questions about ways of reconstituting the sociomaterial organisation of the MNC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand how the UK government's headline climate change targets are translated into action at the local level in the transport sector drawing on the findings of research in two English regions. In doing so, these headline targets are identified as a symbolic meta-policy that results in little action on the ground and which challenges established conceptions of policy implementation. Both the 'meta' and 'symbolic' aspects of the policy offer part of the explanation for the lack of substantive action on the ground. As a meta-policy, the headline targets across government require the elaboration of other policies at other levels such as targets for government departments and local authorities, but these are largely absent, leaving the meta-policy without teeth. Over time, these headline targets have developed into a symbolic policy, serving political goals but having little practical effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Highlights and Abstract This article provides the first detailed and evidence-based account of the coalition government's approach to transport-related carbon management., It exposes the existence of a 'governance vacuum' between the statutory target and a very weak devolved implementation system (i.e. 'fuzzy governance' and 'fuzzy accountability')., Research in four major city regions reveals a systemic switch from an emphasis on carbon management and reduction towards economic growth and job creation., Officials within the policy design and delivery chain emphasise the manner in which the demands of democratic politics tend to frustrate meaningful policy change., A general demand by actors at the local level not for the discretions delivered by localism but for a more robust and centrally managed-even statutory-governance framework., The Climate Change Act 2008 received global acclaim for embedding an ambitious set of targets for the reduction of carbon emissions in legislation. This article explores the policies and institutional frameworks in place to deliver transport-related carbon reductions as part of the subsequent Carbon Plan. A detailed methodology involving institutional mapping, interviews and focus groups combined with a theoretical approach that combines the theory of multi-level governance with the literature on 'blame avoidance' serves to reveal a complex system of 'fuzzy governance' and 'fuzzy accountability'. Put simply, it reveals there are no practical sub-national implementation levers for achieving the statutory targets. Apart from symbolic or rhetorical commitments, the emphasis of policy-makers at all levels in the delivery chain has switched from carbon management and reduction to economic growth and job creation. This raises fresh research questions about the pathologies of democratic competition and future responses to the climate change challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK Climate Change Act 2008 commits to a reduction of 80% in national GHG emissions by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. This article explores what happens next where these top-level aspirations are expected to be turned into radical action. It does so through examination of the transport sector, which is a highly complex, fragmented, and multi-level delivery environment. The research draws on cases studies of four major cities with different governance structures within the two distinct, yet connected, national contexts of England and Scotland. It integrates a range of theoretical legacies, namely ‘muddling through’, multi-level governance, and positional analysis, to look across governmental layers and out to non-governmental actors at all levels. Underneath the 80% target, the framework for action remains unclear. Lower-tiered authorities report difficulties in acting in a more comprehensive or rapid manner than upper tiers of government, largely because of the potential costs involved and a significant resource dependency on national governments. Ambition is also tempered by conflicts with economic growth objectives and the difficulties in aligning the objectives of the myriad of public and private organizations that need to take action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]