Understanding the ongoing struggle for land use and transport integration: Institutional incongruence in the Dutch national planning process

Abstract

Formal and informal institutions help shape processes of planning, as 'rules of the game'. However, institutions do not always align. As a result of changes in strategy and operation, institutional incongruence can emerge as old and new institutions conflict or as actors perceive and apply institutions in a different manner. In this article, we aim to gain insight in the concept of institutional incongruence and the way it shapes transport planning policy and implementation. To this end, we analyse the role of institutional congruence in the case of land use transport integration (LUTI) in the Netherlands. Although LUTI creates opportunities for beneficial synergies and helps avoid unwanted consequences, such as project time and project cost overruns, examples of successful deployment remain scarce. Through an institutional analysis of the Dutch national Planning, Programming and Budgeting (PPB) System for road infrastructure, we assess the ways in which LUTI is enabled or obstructed by formal and informal institutions. The one-year research project involves a triangulation of literature research, policy analysis, 22 expert interviews, focus groups and workshops. The findings illustrate that strategy and operation each present distinct formal and informal institutional incongruence that negatively influence land-use transport integration. We conclude that institutional incongruence is several instances of institutional incongruence can be found throughout the Dutch national planning process. These are partly inevitable because institutional change occurs gradually to reflect developments in society and manifests itself in both formal and informal rules. Therefore we recommend that, in order to achieve LUTI, the full institutional configuration of formal and informal rules, at strategic and operational level should be analysed, redesigned and aligned.

Policy design and infrastructure planning: finding tools to promote land use transport integration

“…These outcomes illustrate, in line with Rayner & Howlett (2009), that policy formation and implementation instruments strongly interrelate and should be considered together in a single mix. Furthermore, it underlines previous studies which highlighted that land use and transport integration requires attention and instruments throughout the policy process (Macario et al, 2005;van Geet et al, 2019a).…”

“…Over time, transport planning has incrementally evolved towards an advanced level of integration -see Figure 3.2 (Curtis & James, 2004;Heeres, 2017;van Geet et al, 2019a). Traditionally, transport planning was characterized by a sectoral unimodal approach in which sectoral specialization resulted in the segmented planning of roads, railways, and waterways (Busscher et al, 2015;Owens, 1995).…”

“…Over the course of decades, transport planning evolved from an unimodal approach, to a multimodal approach, to an integrated approach on land use and transport planning (Arts et al, 2016a;Busscher et al, 2015;Heeres et al, 2012). While the field has progressed towards increased integration, governments are struggling to come up with effective policy designs to support current integrated ambitions on land use and transport (Van Geet et al, 2019a).…”

“…To this end, we performed a historical analysis of the evolution of Dutch national transport planning policy goals and policy instruments between 1997 and 2018. We chose this case study because the national transport policy design underwent considerable changes in this period: policy goals changed as the planning approach shifted from a sectoral transport orientation to an integrated land use-transport planning orientation, and policy instruments were thoroughly revised (van Geet et al, 2019a).…”

Policy design dynamics: fitting goals and instruments in transport infrastructure planning in the Netherlands

“…Formulating a new policy strategy and revising the PPB system are institutionally different trajectories which involve different actors and follow different administrative and legal processes. Furthermore, the outcomes of Van Geet et al's (2019) institutional analysis on the Dutch national transport planning helps us understand the incremental instrumental development process observed in this study. The rigidity of formal budgeting and participation jurisdiction, together with informal political rules, generate powerful incentives to maintain traditional sectoral instruments that do not support contemporary policy goals on regional land use transport integration (Van Geet et al 2019).…”