Moving in sync

Abstract

Congestion in and pollution by traffic are amongst the most severe and urgent problems faced by both developed and developing countries these days. It is regarded as a "wicked" problem, which implies it is both hard to define the inherent problem and to find adequate measures to deal with. The complexity of transport systems makes it impossible for policy makers to fully grasp the effectiveness of each measure or intervention in detail. In policy maker‘s policy toolkits, there are traditionally two categories of transport measures that transport infrastructures supply (TIS) or transport demand management (TDM). However, these transport measures in reality are usually designed and implemented uncooperatively, some of which hardly receive political or public acceptance and others possibly cause unexpected negative side effects. Policy packaging is regarded as a prominent approach to solve these problems of single measures, because it can improve the acceptance of single policy measures, eliminate their negative effects after implementation, and produce larger synergy effects. However, in spite of these advantages, policy packaging complicates the whole policy making and implementation process, involving complex values, actors, and measures, and challenges policy maker‘s consciousness and capacities. This is why there is rare successful policy packaging in reality...