Advancing a bioeconomy requires that policymakers understand how the design and coherence of public policy can contribute, or create barriers, to its development. Ireland’s first National Policy Statement on the Bioeconomy (February 2018) recognized the significance of policy coherence as a critical factor in a successful transition to a bioeconomy. Qualitative document analysis was employed to assess the level of coherence across a range of relevant policy documents. As is the case with most other countries the key sub-sectors related to the bioeconomy in Ireland have independent policy documents for their own developmental process, with obvious potential for conflict. The results of the analysis indicated inconsistency across sectors, highlighting the requirement to update certain strategy documents in order to raise the level of cross-sectoral coherence. This process is essential in both avoiding a ‘silo’ mentality and enabling the concept of the bioeconomy and its associated objectives to become mainstreamed. The methodology employed in this research is easily transferable and should prove useful for other countries in transition to a bioeconomy to assess the strengths and weaknesses of relevant documents and identify where change is required.
The deployment of zero-emission vehicles has the potential to drastically reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from road transport. The purpose of this study is to provide evidence on, and quantify the factors that influence, the European market for electric and fuel cell car technologies. The paper reports the results of a stated preference survey among 1,248 car owners in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom. The variables that influence powertrain choice are quantified in a nested multinomial logit model. We find that the electric car purchase price continues to be a major deterrent to sales in the surveyed countries. The majority of the respondents considered government incentives as fundamental or important for considering an electric car purchase. Because of the differences in the socio-economic characteristics of consumers in each country, the effectiveness of government incentives may vary across Europe.
Some trips are better than others, and more and more studies find that active travel (walking and cycling) is more satisfying than motorized forms of travel (using the car or public transport). Why is this the case? Using data on travel satisfaction from 4134 commutes to a large University campus in Dublin, Ireland, this paper replicates the differences in travel satisfaction between active and motorized travel. We attribute these differences in large part to the duration of the trip. Subjective trip characteristics, such as safety and convenience, also play important roles. The trip duration explains rush-hour effects as well as why people starting from less affluent and more difficult-to-reach places are less satisfied with their trips. Longer-term policy options suggested by these results include infrastructure developments and spatial development strategies. A shorter-term initiative would be to delay university schedules in the morning to avoid low travel satisfaction during the slow rush-hour period and simultaneously ease pressure on the transport network at peak times.
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