UTTRI Director Professor Eric J. Miller was a guest panelist for “How Can Policy Makers Incentivize Innovation in Public Transit,” a webinar presented by Pantonium on December 3, 2020. Other panelists included UTTRI Advisory Board Member Drew Fagan, former Ontario Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, and Mariya Frost, Director at the Coles Center for Transportation. Luke Mellor hosted and Jeremy Eves of Pantonium moderated the discussion.
Given that transit agencies’ traditional sources of revenue have dried up due to the COVID crisis, there have been questions on how transit can innovate – and how policy makers can help.
Professor Miller discussed how funding and operating subsidies still make sense, but noted that questions remain on the amount and effectiveness of some policies. He said that policy gridlock was prevalent, such that projects were locked into conventional thinking, although the City of Toronto has instituted measures such as express bus lanes and other pilot projects.
Innovation is tough in government with underfunded transit agencies who have responsibilities to policy makers. To help this, accommodating governments by reducing risk when taking on pilot projects could incentivize innovation given proper policies. Additionally, there is a role for the private sector to push the envelope in transit.
Panelist Mariya Frost talked about how COVID is an opportunity to reinvent how transit can provide services and compete with mobility services on new technology platforms. In evaluating cost-effectiveness, she explored ideas on structures for financial aid and possibility reforming transit board governance. Frost advocated for private-public partnerships that would focus on innovation that can impact specific mobility outcomes of users, e.g. customizing services.
Through the lens of his experience in government, Drew Fagan discussed short-term and long-term incentives, good politics vs. good policy, and building the right projects the right way. He noted a lack of incentives for innovation, challenges in coordination at regional levels, and lack of good data for good decision-making. Fagan championed the need for a national transit hub that prioritizes data and compares strategies. In addition, he believes in openness to, and support of, new ideas. He proposed that rapid response funds for small scale projects could be made available to encourage innovative ideas that bubble up from outside of government.
- Watch the video recording for the full webinar discussion “How Can Policy Makers Incentivize Innovation in Public Transit” on Pantonium’s YouTube channel.
- Listen to the podcast of the webinar “How Can Policy Makers Incentivize Innovation in Public Transit,” Pantonium Transit Stories.
About the panelists
Drew Fagan is a professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, and a senior advisor at McMillan Vantage Policy Group, a national public affairs firm. He has previously spent twelve years in leadership positions with the governments of Ontario and Canada. With Ontario, he was Deputy Minister of Infrastructure with responsibility for Ontario’s long-term infrastructure plan. At the federal level, he served as Assistant Deputy Minister for strategic policy and planning at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (now Global Affairs Canada).
Mariya Frost is a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in Political Science and has completed courses in accounting and business administration at Saint Martin’s University. She spent ten years working in the private sector and as a staff member at the U.S. House of Representatives and the Washington state senate. She is on the Board of Directors for the Eastside Transportation Association, a member of the Jim MacIsaac Research Committee, a working member of the Washington State Autonomous Vehicle Work Group Subcommittee on Infrastructure & Systems, and a member of the Women of Washington civic group. She is a widely-recognized expert in state transportation policy, and her analysis and online commentary appear regularly in news coverage statewide.
Professor Eric J. Miller (BASc, MASc University of Toronto; PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is a faculty member in the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto since 1983, and currently Director of the U of T Transportation Research Institute. His research interests include travel demand modeling, integrated urban system modeling, and sustainable transportation planning. He is the recipient of the 2018 International Association for Travel Behaviour Research Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2020 UofT Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering Safwat Zaky Research Leader Award.