Integrated Transport: From Policy to Practice

Travel is an essential part of everyday life and today most journeys are multimodal. It is the total travel experience that counts and integrated transport must reduce the inconvenience of transfers between modes. Most research and many publications on transport policy advocate sustainable transport, but the priority given to integration has been negligible. Yet integration is one of the most important means to advance sustainable transport and sustainability more generally.

While integrated transport systems are seen to be an ideal, there is a failure to make the transition from policy to practice. The authors argue that the achievement of sustainable transport is still a dream, as an integrated transport policy is a prerequisite for a sustainable transport system. It is only when the two concepts of sustainability and integration operate in the same direction and in a positive way that real progress can be made.

In this book, transportation experts from across the world have addressed the questions about what is integration, why is it so important and why is it so hard to achieve? The book provides an in-depth analysis of these issues and it aims to provide a better understanding of the subject, about what should be strived for, about what is realistic to expect, and about how to move forward towards a more integrated provision of transport infrastructure, services and management.

Moshe Givoni is a Senior Researcher at the Transport Studies Unit (TSU) which is part of the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE) at Oxford University. He is also a Research Fellow at Wolfson College. Before joining Oxford he was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Department of Spatial Economics, Free University Amsterdam. He gained his PhD at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London and his academic background also includes degrees in Economics and Geography (BA) and Business Administration (MBA) from Tel-Aviv University.

David Banister is Professor of Transport Studies at the University of Oxford and Director of the Transport Studies Unit. He is also currently Director of the Environmental Change Institute in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. Until 2006, he was Professor of Transport Planning at University College London.