Policy recommendations and implications for utilizing ICT to improve

6.4.1 Policy recommendations and implications for utilizing ICT to improve accessibility

The following recommendations aiming for practitioners and policy makers with regard to how to utilize ICT to improve accessibility of the Dutch Randstad area are derived from two perspectives. The first perspective gives recommendations in terms of the important factors that are recommended to be taken into consideration when developing ICT-related policies for improving accessibility of the Dutch Randstad area. The second perspective gives a discussion on the implications on how certain ICT-related policy instruments could be used based on the findings of this research.

From the first perspective, four major aspects that are critical and recommended to be considered in developing ICT-related policies to improve accessibility of the Dutch Randstad area can be highlighted. While the first two aspects can be considered as the derivation from the overview of the previous studies in the literature, the following two aspects are derived from this research.

First, it is critical to address this fundamental question on how accessibility shall be defined before any policy strategies are developed, to avoid misinterpretation and also to ensure that any ICT-related policies can be objectively evaluated. While

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More information of the TRISTAM sub-program can be found on the program’s official site: http://dbr.verdus.nl/pagina.asp?id=744

improving accessibility is widely acknowledged of importance to people and is a paramount goal of transport policies in the Netherlands, the term “accessibility” tends to be defined and interpreted in many different ways. It is partly because there are a wide range of accessibility definitions, but also because accessibility seems to be often poorly defined in many contexts. It is therefore recommended to clearly define the concept of accessibility. The definition and measures should be acceptable for policy-makers and practitioners. This also leads to the second advice.

Secondly, it is essential to introduce new accessibility measures in addition to those that are currently used by the Dutch government and policy makers (see Hoogendoorn-Lanser et al., 2012 for an overview of the measures that are commonly used by the Dutch government and policy makers). Despite their advantages, to the best of the author’s knowledge, these current accessibility measures that are mostly used ignore the role of ICT largely, and are not sufficient to capture ICT’s effects on accessibility. These measures can fall short in their capability to evaluate whether and to which extent the developed ICT-related strategies could result in improvements of accessibility of the Dutch Randstad area. For example, someone’s office/work can be highly inaccessible by car due to congestion, but at the same time be very accessible by ICT – the measures that ignore the role of ICT largely then become insufficient to capture the increase of accessibility due to ICT in this case. An accessibility measure that is based on a wider-scope definition becomes desirable in this sense, while this research shows that the so-called LogSum accessibility measure, which adopts a utility-based accessibility definition and takes discrete choice model-format, can be effectively and tangibly extended to incorporate traveler’s preferences for ICT into the measurement. It in turn can be used to effectively measure ICT’s effects on accessibility (e.g., for the above-described example where a traveler’s office/work is highly inaccessible by car while very accessible by ICT). The LogSum measure of accessibility is therefore strongly advised to be introduced into use when ICT-related policies for improving accessibility are to be planned and to be evaluated.

Thirdly, it is important to take travelers’ choices of and preferences for ICT into consideration when ICT-related policy strategies for improving the accessibility of the Dutch Randstad area are being developed. Although it has been increasingly acknowledged that ICT has impacts and may benefit a traveler’s accessibility, travelers’ preferences and choices with regard to the usage of ICT seem to be often ignored. This is largely because, on the one hand, the current accessibility measures that are mostly used for policy development do not consider these to a large extent, and, on the other hand, we have relatively limited related knowledge. This research, however, shows that varying travelers’ preferences and choices of the usage of ICT play a critical role in determining whether and to which extent ICT could help improving accessibility. Ignoring this aspect is most likely to result in biased estimation of the effectiveness of certain ICT-related policies and strategies for improving accessibility, and in turn to result in difficulty in evaluating these candidate policy options to improve accessibility. As without knowledge of travelers’ preferences in this regard, doing a proper assessment (e.g. cost-benefit analysis) of these policy options becomes difficult. It is therefore advisable for practitioners and policy makers to explicitly incorporate travelers’ preferences and choices in measuring the effects of ICT on accessibility and in developing and evaluating related policies.

Finally, it is advisable for Dutch policy makers to take into account both components – both travel information- and teleworking/telecommunication-services – when considering policies, rather than two separate policies, in developing policies for improving accessibility of the Dutch Randstad area. This is because synergy benefits can be reaped. It is not only because both types of services are increasingly being provided via the same technology devices and media, but also because a traveler’s use of travel information- and teleworking/telecommunication options, as shown in the research, can result in synergy. That is, travel information that can help a traveler to assess travel alternatives and make choices becomes more valuable when the option to telework is present (and considered by the traveler as one of the choices) in addition to the travel alternatives available to the traveler. The option to telework also becomes more valuable when appropriate travel information is provided, as a traveler can decide on a specific day whether or not to telework at home based on the travel information. Such interaction in turns results in synergy as well for their effects on travelers’ accessibility. Therefore, it is strongly advisable to take into account both the “I” and the “C” in ICT when considering policies or investments in order to gain more benefits in utilizing ICT to improve traveler’s accessibility of the Dutch Randstad area.

Having discussed the recommendations from the first perspective, it is also of practical interest and relevance to discuss how certain ICT-related policy instruments can be used to improve accessibility for the Dutch Randstad area. Note that different from the above recommendations that are derived directly from this research, the following points are indirectly derived from the findings in this research on what types of factors could affect a traveler’s preferences for use of travel information- and teleworking-services and what types of factors could affect a traveler’s accessibility. These following points should be better regarded as conditional advice with implications of practical and policy relevance, while further in-depth investigations for the related points are still recommended before adopting or implementing them in practice.

First, it tends to be worthy of efforts to first investigate the critical factors and constraints that travelers are faced with and affect their accessibility most. The obtained information then can be used to evaluate what types of ICT-related instruments can be utilized most cost-effectively. It is shown in this research (Chapters 4 and 5) that, while constraints may cast negative effects on a traveler’s accessibility, the extent to which these negative effects will occur is largely affected by the tendency of the constraints being violated by the alternatives available to the traveler. This finding, to an extent, implies that the effectiveness of ICT policies in improving travelers’ accessibility is subject to the effectiveness of the related ICT- services (for what types of travelers in which area) in helping travelers relax or even avoid constraints. For example, it can be reasonably expected, although it is not particularly validated in this research, that travelers who commute to workplaces by car via routes with less reliable commuting time and more chances of congestion, may tend to be more affected by travel constraints (e.g., being late for work due to higher chances of congestion), resulting in reduction in accessibility more often. Policies to increase the chances of teleworking for these travelers could be more cost-effective and beneficial for their accessibility than implementing the same policies, e.g., for those commuting by bicycle (who would be less affected by congestion than those commuting by car).

Secondly, while it has been advised to take travelers’ preferences for ICT into consideration, it is still advisable to further clarify the related contexts in developing or evaluating ICT-related instruments, in particular when both travel information- and telecommunication-services are concerned. As shown in this research, different interaction effects could result from travelers having different preferences for travel information- and telecommunication-service subjective to different context. These findings indicate that the effectiveness of ICT in improving accessibility and the synergy between travel information- and telecommunication-services are largely subjective to the different contexts where travelers are situated. Therefore, it is advisable for practitioners and policy makers to distinguish the contexts and to further evaluate travelers’ preferences for travel information- and telecommunication-services according to the particular contexts when evaluating ICT-related policy instruments to be implemented in the Dutch Randstad area. Finally, a number of factors that could affect commuters’ preferences for acquiring travel information and teleworking are concluded from the research, giving implications to what kinds of policy strategies and measures can be utilized to promote commuters’ use of travel information and teleworking. These factors include: a) the reliability of commuting time. This factor has a significant negative effect on commuters’ preferences for acquiring travel information and for teleworking – implying that implementing ICT-services may be more beneficial to travelers who commute via routes with more unreliable commuting time than to those whose commuting times are more reliable (as also mentioned in the above first point); b) the extent to which commuters are allowed to telework from home. This factor may be determined by the aspects such as the type of work and the culture of work environment, and it has a positive effect on commuters’ preference for teleworking from home; c) the quality of the teleworking environment and facilities (e.g., the easiness to access files and software that are needed for teleworking, the availability of sufficient ICT equipment for teleworking), which has a significant positive effect on commuters’ preferences for teleworking from home, and d) the extent to which travel information is perceived available to travelers (e.g., how difficult it is for a traveler to find travel information), which has a significant positive effect on travelers’ preference for travel information.

6.4.2 Recommendations for utilizing the model developed in this research for