Collaborative Dialogues in Strategic Multi-Modal Studies – New Tool for Exploring Efficient Solutions in Transport Planning
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KTH Architecture and the Built Environment Collaborative Dialogues in Strategic Multi-Modal Studies – New Tool for Exploring Efficient Solutions in Transport Planning Experiences from the Swedish and the Finnish Contexts Laura Poskiparta Degree Project SoM EX 2013-14 Master (Two Years), Sustainable Urban Planning and Design Stockholm 2013 KTH, Royal Institute of Technology Department of Urban Planning and Environment Division of Urban and Regional Studies FOREWORD Many scholars claim that the world is growing ever more complex, more diversified and rich, but also more fragmented and conflictual; adding new particular aspects to past collective experiences, in a way that new actors and interest are added to the stage of politics and also to the field of planning. It is a system too complex to overview and measure in its entirety, and not easily understood or transformable in its partiality, which brings new challenges and issues to the fore of today’s planning and policy debate; who acts on behalf of society?; how can we understand common action for creating public goods in a time of more diversified values and more fragmented structures?; what planning tools are the most appropriate for reaching proper and prudent action for change?; how is coordination facilitated in this complex web of responsibilities, needs and demands? These are just a few essentially important questions that need to be uttered and addressed for shaping perspectives and sharpen lenses when one is trying to understand current reforms of the Swedish transport planning system, as well as the changes taking place in many other countries, such as Finland. These reforms are being undertaken in order to strengthen process qualities and further the production of effective and innovative solutions on transport related problems, for reaching the objectives of sustainable development. It is however the questions regarding proper planning tools and the need for efficient coordination, which are at the very heart of a three year research project at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan that is being financed by the Swedish Transport Administration (STA). One important instrument for reaching the procedural objectives is the new planning activity “Strategic Choice of Measures”; a collaborative planning study at the early stages of the planning process that is connecting top-down system-approach with bottom-up initiatives and needs through an unconditional and multimodal problem-defining and problem-solving deliberative process. The purpose of the project is to understand the “Strategic Choice of Measure” method’s institutional ability to provide with effective and innovative solutions on transport related problems (abbreviation REIL, in STA documents). In order to understand a phenomenon one also needs perspectives and images of alternative conduct, which is why I suggested last fall to the group of Master students in Urban Planning that this research project was interested in a study on neighboring countries activities and policy measures on strategic transport planning. Having Finland in mind as the wished-for country of comparison, Laura Poskiparta approached me with ambition and interest, which set us off on a developing and creative journey in understanding Finnish circumstances and Swedish context. Laura’s excellent master’s thesis on a comparison of the Finnish emerging planning concept with the centrally dictated ‘informal’ Swedish planning method, gives us ample of interesting differences, leaving out the similarities for now, in forming and performing a planning process. Her carefully and creative molding of complex planning theory with empirical observations give us interesting analytical information on planning behavior and actors (mis)conductial processing in the Finnish pilot study. The findings show us, in my interpretation, the meaning of governance, and the importance of acknowledging planning as decision- making, and thus realizing the perpetual presence of ‘agency’ (power) and the questions; who gets to influence the activities and why? And these questions are followed by the inquiry on different conduct; how can these issues of participation and deliberation best be dealt with, through sectorial or spatial processes? The Finnish case provide us with observations on conduct performed in circumstances that deal with issues of transport problems in a more comprehensive spatial context than the Swedish counterpart. I wish you a most interesting read! John Odhage Project manager REIL, and PhD-student Urban and Regional Planning, KTH 1 2 ABSTRACT Collaborative Dialogues in Strategic Multi-Modal Studies – New Tool for Exploring Efficient Solutions in Transport Planning Experiences from the Swedish and the Finnish Contexts In recent years, the development considerations within transport planning have started to examine needs from a more comprehensive perspective in order to shift the focus of planning away from favoring automobile travel. New approaches are emerging around the world to face the challenges we are confronted with, such as urbanization, dispersion of community structures, change in population structure, aging, climate change, and tightening budgets. Therefore, this thesis is aiming to gain more insight on new approaches in transport planning by comparing emerging systems in Sweden and in Finland. The comparison is focused on the renewed procedures at the early stages of transport planning; the methods to conduct multi- modal studies through collaborative decision-making processes in both countries. Thus, in this thesis the renewed preliminary transport planning in Finland and the Swedish method of Strategic Choice of Measures are compared based on implications from practice. The main purpose is to learn from practice and therefore, the data for comparison is based on conducted test cases that aim to develop the emerging planning processes in both countries. In Sweden, the preliminary version of the new planning method, developed by the Swedish Transport Administration, was tested with six cases during 2011. KTH was commissioned to conduct a study to examine the collaborative planning of involved actors in each of these cases, and the cases together. Thus, in the Swedish context, the data for comparison will be collected from the earlier study conducted by a KTH researcher John Odhage. In the Finnish context, a case study will be carried out for the data collection. The chosen case consists of a pilot study initiated in Finland in 2012 for the purpose of collecting ideas for the development of a renewed preliminary planning process. In general, both countries approaches aim at creating efficient procedures that would contribute to cost-efficiency and sustainable development as well as fulfilling other aims of the transport policy of each country. The focus of the comparison is on the critical aspects of multi-modal studies and three features of a collaborative process; the choice of actors, the problem formulation, and the process management. The comparison is carried out based on theoretical implications and the experiences from practice are scrutinized against the ideal approach of each country. It has become apparent that three clearly distinctive differences between the approaches can be pointed out: the role of the transport administration, the creation of a steering committee, and creation of a concept for process guidance. In addition, the four-step principle is the multi- modal tool used in both countries approaches to generate alternative measures to transport related issues. The basic idea of the principle is in the first place to influence land use, transport demand, and choice of travel mode, and secondly to examine if the use of existing transport system can be optimized prior to construction. However, based on the experiences from practice, it seems that in both countries processes the focus of generating alternative measures is leaning more against minor or large new investments. Thus, the search for complementary measures to achieve considerable cost-savings and more importantly, sustainable development, is perceived challenging. Key words: transport planning, multi-modal planning, collaborative decision-making process, dialogue, cost-efficiency, sustainable development 3 SAMMANFATTNING Gemensamma dialoger i strategiska multimodala studier – ett nytt vertyg för att undersöka effektiva lösningar inom transportplanering Erfarenheter från Sverige och Finland Under de senaste åren har transportplaneringens utveckling gått mot att undersöka behoven utifrån ett mer omfattande perspektiv i syfte att flytta fokus i planeringen från bilresande. Nya metoder växer fram runt om i världen för att möta de utmaningar som vi står inför så som: urbanisering, förändrad samhällsstruktur, förändrad befolkningsstruktur, åldrande, klimatförändringar och stramare budgetar. Denna uppsats syftar till att skapa en större insyn i nya metoder för transportplanering genom att jämföra olika system för detta i Finland och i Sverige. Jämförelsen fokuserar på nya processer i inledningsskedet av transportsystemets planeringsprocess samt metoder för att genomföra multimodala studier genom ett gemensamt beslutsfattande i de båda länderna. Därmed baseras studiens resultat på en praktiskt jämförelse. Studien gör en jämförelse av den nya preliminära trafikplaneringen i Finland och den svenska åtgärdsvalsmetodiken. Det huvudsakliga syftet i studien är att ta lärdom av praktiska exempel, därför bygger datan i jämförelsen på testfall utförda i båda länderna vilka syftar