Transport is central to development. Without physical access to jobs, health, education, and other amenities, the quality of life suffers; without physical access to resources and markets, growth stagnates, and poverty reduction cannot be sustained. Inappropriately designed transport strategies and programs, however, can result in networks and services that aggravate the condition of the poor, harm the environment, ignore the changing needs of users, and exceed the capacity of public finances. The Development Report 1994, which focused on infrastructure, stressed the importance of expanding the role of competitive markets and the involvement of the private sector to increase efficiency in the provision and operation of infrastructure and services. The report noted that this was easier to implement in some sectors, such as telecommunications, than in others, such as transport. This book endorses that general message and elaborates on how the specific characteristics of the different transport subsectors affect the potential for expanding the role of competitive markets. It also attempts to set the expanded role of markets explicitly in the broad framework of sustainable development. This is done in six chapters: (1) Refocusing Transport Sector Policy (The World Bank Group's Experience in Transport Lending; Challenges for Transport Policy; Sustainability as the Basis of Transport Policy; The Need for Policy and Institutional Reform; Notes); (2) Economic and Financial Sustainability (Competition in the Market: Private Ownership and Operations; Competition for the Market: Private Operation within a Framework of Public Control; Making Public Sector Management More Market Sensitive; Setting Efficient Prices; Notes); (3) Environmental Sustainability (Combining Reduction of Transport Costs with Environmental Awareness; Priority Components of a Transport Strategy; Addressing High-Priority Problems; Notes); (4) Social Sustainability (Designing General Transport Policy to Help the Poor; Addressing the Particular Problems of the Rural Poor; Mitigating the Unwanted Social Effects of Transport Policies; Note); (5) Redefining the Role of Governments in the Transport Sector (Establishing a Strong Institutional Framework; Setting Charges for Use That Reflect Costs; Strategic Public Planning to Complement the Market; Community Participation: A Necessary Complement to Markets; Notes); and (6) The Role of the World Bank Group in the Transport Sector (Improving the Performance of Transport Sectors; Partnerships in Transport Reform; Learning Systematically from Experience). A Glossary is provided.
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