TRANSFORuM stand at the ITF 2014 in Leipzig

TRANSFORuM had its own stand at the International Transport Forum 2014 in Leipzig (May 21 – 23). We invited the ITF attendees to share their views about the European Commission’s 2011 Transport White Paper and about a few hypothetical policy measures in each of the following four goals, which TRANSFORuM is focussing on:

  • Clean urban mobility
  • Long-distance freight
  • High-speed rail
  • Intermodal travel information, management and payment systems.

Results of the "sticker game"

On the White Paper per se we wanted to know whether people consider the respective goals desirable and feasible. The answer to each of these two parameter could be given on a coordinate system with two related axes: The horizontal axis ranged from „not desirable“ to „very desirable“; the vertical axis ranged from „not feasible“ to „high feasibility“. Every participant’s opinion on these two spectrums was articulated with a sticker at the appropriate position in this coordinate system.
Three different sticker sizes were available depending on the person’s  answer to the question „Were you previously aware of the White Paper goal?. A large sticker was handed out for a straight „Yes“, a medium size sticker for the answer „Partly“ and a small sticker for „No.“ The results for each of the four goals (= four thematic areas) can be seen below.

Results of the "budget allocation game"

The second set of questions was framed as a hypothetical budget-allocation tasks. The wording was: „You are a high-level politician and have to allocate €100 million between the following three policy priorities in order to reach the White Paper goal on [… one of the four goals …]. What are your priorities? Please distribute 10 balls (each worth €10 million) amongst the three tubes.“ For every thematic area we provided three acrylic tubes; each of them was labelled with one potential policy priority. The results are as shown below.

(We do not want to mention the precise number of balls allocated to the individual tubes in order to avoid the impression of statistical precision and validity.)

 

The options for urban mobility were:

  • Left: Electrification of road transport
  • Center: Fostering modal shift away from the individual car
  • Right: Clean city logistics

 

 

 

The options for long distance freight:

  • Left: Subsidies for the further construction of tracks for the exclusive use of freight
  • Center: Investment in infrastructure to facilitate modal shift from road to rail and water
  • Right: Restrictions for long-distance trucking (internalisation of external costs)

 

And the options for high-speed rail:

  • Left: Subsidies for the further construction of more tracks
  • Center: Fair and efficient competition in the rail market
  • Right: Integration with other transport modes & ensuring excellent service quality

 

Finally: The options for ITS:

  • Left: Harmonisation of technical standards
  • Center: Clarification of the political vision and agreement on priorities
  • Right: Implementation of advanced demonstration projects

Qualitative Comments

Of course we also provided every visitor of our stand the opportunity to leave qualitative comments in the form of written statements on little pieces of paper. In fact, we encouraged people to share their views to provide an explanation for their choices in both games. Read the results!