Editorial Urban transport initiatives: Implications for policy The papers in this Special Issue have been selected from those presented at the 12th World Conference on Transport Research in Lisbon in July 2010 under the aegis of the WCTRS Special Interest Group 10 on urban transport policy. The principal objectives of SIG 10 are as follows:  To collate experience on the performance of urban transport policy instruments.  To establish good practice in the evaluation of such instruments.  To enhance understanding of the design, implementation and performance of such instruments.  To encourage the development of interactive learning methods in the subject area for students, practitioners and decision makers. This Special Issue contributes in particular to the first three of these objectives, and focuses on the definition of objectives, the understanding and design of policy instruments, the ways in which they are packaged and enhancements to their implementation. 1. Defining objectives Traditionally the objectives of transport policy have con- cerned, in particular, improved efficiency, an enhanced environ- ment, greater safety, and their contributions to economic and social needs. Increasingly over the last decade this list has been expanded to consider issues of global warming, social exclusion, environmental justice and health. The first three papers deal in turn with the last three of these. Lucas (2012) provides a review of progress in the definition of social exclusion, the assessment of the impacts of transport on exclusion and the policy implications. She identifies a growing set of dimensions against which exclusion needs to be considered. No longer is it sufficient to consider economic, spatial and physical restrictions on access. Increasingly it is being realised that percep- tions of the facilities provided, ability to understand them and fear of the consequences of their use also present barriers. She illustrates these by reference to empirical research in Europe, Australia and Canada. However, she notes that, despite this growing understand- ing, there is still a policy vacuum in the actions needed to overcome exclusion. Gaffron’s (2012) paper covers the related theme of environ- mental justice, and outlines the ways in which different sectors of society are affected to differing degrees by the environmental impacts of transport. As in Lucas’ analysis, she argues that the dimensions of environmental justice need to be broadened from socio-economic and spatial factors to include education, employment, age and gender. In her detailed analysis she demon- strates that age and gender, in particular, affect time spent in the home and hence exposure to pollution and noise in adversely affected residential areas. Hess and Russell (2012) focus specifically on body mass index as an indicator of obesity, and use social surveys to seek explanatory relationships with individual and socio-economic characteristics, the built environment and transport facilities. Perhaps surprisingly they find little evidence of an association with built form, land use mix or an individual’s car use, but do find an association with availability of public transport services. 2. Understanding policy instruments Given the growing range of policy instruments available, it is inevitable that the papers selected are partial in their coverage. However, in considering cycling facilities, fares and road pricing they cover most of the principal passenger transport modes. Jones (2012) considers the provision of traffic free cycle paths in urban areas and their impact on willingness to cycle for what he calls ‘‘everyday cycling’’. He takes a case study in Stafford of the off road cycle routes which have been promoted extensively in the UK, principally for recreational use, and uses the Theory of Planned Behaviour to assess whether they are likely to have encouraged cycling for other purposes such as commuting and shopping. He concludes that their impact, on their own, has been small, and that other policy measures are needed if behavioural change is to be stimulated. Jansson and Angell (2012) assess the design of boundaries for zonal fare structures, using Oslo as a case study. They note that many fare structures are based on large numbers of zones which may prove inefficient and difficult for the user to assimilate. They develop, from first principles, a design method which can gen- erate alternative zone systems, for fares on their own and fares in the context of road pricing. Based partly on their method they develop six alternative structures and simulate their impact on patronage, revenue and subsidy. When compared with current conditions, the best options increase revenues per journey by around 5%, while only reducing patronage by around 3%, and at the same time result in much simpler fares’ structures. B¨ orjesson et al. (2012) carry out an extensive analysis of the Stockholm road pricing scheme. They demonstrate that the impacts on traffic flows and speeds have been sustained over a 4 year period, estimate the underlying elasticities of demand, and discuss the wide range of adaptation processes which users have adopted in response to pricing. As an extension, they look at the effects of the exemption for alternative fuel vehicles which Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tranpol Transport Policy 0967-070X/$ - see front matter & 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2012.02.007 Transport Policy 20 (2012) 103–104