New Approaches to Ownership, Administration and Management of Low Volume Roads (2004)

© Esko Sirvio and Antti Talvitie (2004)

New Approaches to Ownership, Administration and Management of Low Volume Roads

Paper in WCTRS Conference, Istanbul, 2004. (with Esko Sirvio)

Esko Sirvio

President of Sirway Consulting Ltd.

Antti Talvitie
Consultant to the World Bank

aptalvitie(at)gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Low volume roads normally comprise about 80 percent of the total road network, but serve but 20% of the traffic. This has caused a difficult problem in many countries for owning, administering and managing this large road network whose importance is unquestioned but whose maintenance is neglected. This paper explores the various options for approaching these issues from the perspective that the vision is reached gradually through a process of incremental steps. It is taken for granted that the private sector carries out the supplier functions, the road works whether maintenance, rehabilitation, or construction.

Performance Indicators for the Road Sector (1999)

 

©Antti Talvitie, 1999

Performance Indicators for the Road Sector

Transportation 26; 5-30, 1999

Antti Talvitie, Senior Evaluation Officer (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

The World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington D.C. 20433, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT

Seeing the trend for public accountability of road administrations and noting the many reform efforts undertaken in transport sectors around the world, the OECD established a Scientific Expert Group on Performance Indicators for the Road Sector in 1996 to provide its member countries a framework for assessing road administrations’ performance.1 The results of the Expert Group's work is presented in this paper.

Fifteen indispensable, forty primary, and thirty-five secondary indicators are proposed to portray the road sector from different perspectives. They are designed to be changed in response to human needs and technological development and supplemented by country specific indicators. In keeping with this approach and in support of one of the maxims of the Expert Group that “useful performance indicators are those which are used”, an application in the form of a Field Test is now in progress by an OECD task force.

Things planners believe in, and things they deny (1997)

©Antti Talvitie, 1997

FULL PAPER, PDF, 235 KB, 27 pages

Things planners believe in, and things they deny

Transportation, No. 24. Vol 1. pp. 1-31. 1997

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

World Bank

ABSTRACT

The paper examines the economic theory of consumer behavior from the Modern Psychoanalytic point of view with a metaphor of (transport) planning as a backdrop. It is claimed that the utility maximization principle of economic theory, no matter how broadly interpreted, does not envelop the motivation of human behavior and that the economic explanation of the aims of human behavior, which disregards the "dark side" of man, will result in narrowly conceived plans and policies.

The application of economic theory, and other social sciences, to public policy has led to disjointedness of data collection, method of analysis, and planning and implementation. This, combined with a tautological behavioral theory, has made the current planning and public policy procedures self-verifying, and issues an invitation for a new theoretical approach which is comprehensive, does not ignore complexity and the large 'error term', and appreciates the unity of data collection, method of investigation, and process of implementation.

International Experiences in Restructuring the Road Sector (1996)

©Antti Talvitie, 1996

International Experiences in Restructuring the Road Sector

Transportation Research Record No. 1558, pp. 99-108, 1996.

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

The first part of the paper proposes an evolutionary continuum on which a modern and mature Road Administration develops. The paper outlines the five phases that appear necessary in this evolution. These are: (i) the establishment of traditional construction and maintenance organization; (ii) separation of client and producer functions; (iii) separation of client and producer organizations; (iv) corporatization or privatization of the producer organization; and (v) corporatization of the (client) road administration. The second part of the paper addresses the change management process: the framework process and its constituent cores. The framework process is the flow of activities in change management when moving from one organizational phase to another. The core activities are those which the road administration must address in the change process. Both of these are discussed in detail. It is asserted that a quick reorganization of road administrations is neither possible nor desirable. The exact path to be taken depends critically on the initial conditions from which the road administration embarks upon its development path.

Public Participation in the Helsinki Crosstown Artery Project (1996)

 

©Antti Talvitie, Tuija Pearson 1996

Public Participation in the Helsinki Crosstown Artery Project

Journal of Advanced Transportation, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 185-199

Antti Talvitie, (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

Tuija Pearson

ABSTRACT

The paper reports on citizen participation in the planning of Helsinki Crosstown Artery in the early 1990s. The project had difficult beginnings: there was disagreement on benefits and costs, a broad-based mistrust, and an externally prepared work program which sought to resolve these emotional disagreements using technical information. The citizen participation program consisted of Open Houses preceded by a newsletter, newspaper advertisements, a 1-800 Number hotline, and a responsiveness summary. Additional techniques were used as necessary. The design of the citizen participation program was sound and inexpensive, provided for continuous evaluation, and drove the planning work. Substantial informed consent was created in the project. The main conclusion from the present case study is this: in planning and in public participation emotional issues dominate and can rarely be solved by "rational" studies. The citizen participation technique evolved during the study is transferable and has broad planning implications.

Management System for Transport Infrastructure (1995)

 

©Antti Talvitie, 1995

Management System for Transport Infrastructure

Transportation Research Record, No. 1499,pp. 37-49, 1995.

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

The World Bank

Washington D.C., USA

ABSTRACT

Unlike for road rehabilitation or maintenance, no network level management models have been developed for new investments to transportation facilities to improve access, to increase capacity or to achieve other socially desirable goals. Yet, highway investment takes 40-80 percent of the road budget, and its share on other modes is not negligible. Two or three road network design models aimed at this objective have, however, been proposed. In this paper a model is described having the dual objective of network design and comprehensive, multimodal transport investment.

Organization, Management and Financing in a Road Agency (1994)

©Antti Talvitie and Jukka Hirvela, 1994

Organization, Management and Financing in a Road Agency

Transportation Research Record, No. 1450, pp.72-79, 1994, Washington DC (with J. Hirvela).

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

The World Bank

1818 H Street, Washington D.C. 20433, USA

(formerly Director in the Finnish National Road Administration)

and
Jukka Hirvelä, Director

Ministry of Finance, Finland

(Currently Director in the Finnish National Road Administration)

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on issues and concepts involved in the road administration organization, management, and financing. Road Administration organization is analyzed using a cost function which supported a decentralized "fractal organization" for a road agency. Road management systems are then discussed. It is argued that for the management systems to be useful must be compatible with the agency organization. Finally, the Road Fund and road user charges are discussed and their importance to road administration management elaborated.

Analysis of Productivity in Highway Construction (1991)

©Antti Talvitie and Catharina Sikow, 1991

Analysis of Productivity in Highway Construction

Transportation Research A, 1992 (with Catharina Sikow)

A.P. Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

and Catharina Sikow

Viatek Ltd, Espoo Finland

(Received 15 September 1991)

ABSTRACT

Productivity in a state administration has become an important topic in recent years. In the paper, productivity growth (decline) in highway construction over time and comparisons between different regions of a highway agency are made. The cost function is used to analyze the road construction process. The explanatory variables are the factor prices, the output levels and several factors over which the management of the highway agency has control. The hypotheses concerning economies of scale, both at the project level and at the region level, indicate increasing returns to scale. The implications of this and other results of the cost function hypotheses testing to road construction policy and productivity are discussed. Manipulation of the cost function makes it possible to compare productivity growth (decline) and average cost differences between regions or between points of time. In addition, the sources of productivity growth and unit cost difference can be traced to a pure regional effect, an input price effect, an output scale effect, a management effect, technical change and an unexplained component. In spite of the high statistical accuracy of the estimated cost function, this unexplained component, together with the output scale component, appeared to assume a major significance to productivity and average cost. The study shows the fundamental importance of the definition of output in productivity and cost efficiency studies if there are (dis)economies of scale. It is shown, in particular, that if economies of scale are present and they are not taken advantage of in the production, a "technological gap" develops. This means that the agency may appear to be performing in a cost-effective manner when it could, in fact, be performing much better. The method is applied and demonstrated using data from the Finnish Highway Administration. The implications of the results to improving the efficiency and organization of the agency are discussed.

Econometric Analysis of Highway Construction Technology (1989)

 

©Antti Talvitie, Catharina Sikow, 1989

Econometric Analysis of Highway Construction Technology

Selected Proceedings of the Fifth World Conference on Transport Research,
Volume II, pp 69-84, WCTR 1989 (with Catharina Sikow). 
 
A.P. Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)
and Catharina Sikow

ABSTRACT

Finland Highway and Waterways Administration (TVH) data from 1978 to 1987, supplemented over 100 recently completed highway project data, with a duration of 1-4 years. The paper is a comprehensive analysis of highway construction technology with implications for road administration organization and management. Three groups of variables were used: four output classes (Y,); four input factor prices (P); and three management variables (M). Time variable gives a general idea of technological change. The flexible translog cost function was used to estimate the highway construction cost function:

Total costs = f(P, Y, M,T, D) 

According to tests, input prices were found separable from both outputs and management variables, but the latter two not separable from each other. There are economies of scale but no economies of scope. TVH is a multi-product firm, with non-Leontief form and non-Cobb-Douglas type production function construction technology.

Analysis of Technology Bus Firms (1989)

 

©Antti Talvitie and Tom Backstrom, 1989

Analysis of Technology Bus Firms

Finnish Economic Papers - Volume 2-Number 2-Autumn 1989

Antti Talvitie

Finland Highway and Waterway Administration, SF-00521 Helsinki
and
Tom Backstrom

Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, SF-00100 Helsinki

ABSTRACT

The study examines the structure of technology of (Finnish) bus companies. Economies of scale and scope, effect of service type and peaking on the average costs, substitution of factors of production, and technical change are analyzed. The majority of the Finnish bus companies operate at too low a level of production to be cost efficient. With »average» product mix the optimum level of output is 6.5 million bus kilometers per year on the Finnish market. The companies can obtain a cost advantage by having a versatile product-mix. The marginal costs of (six) service types change together with the productmix. The peak period marginal costs are similarly dependent on the productmix which influences how efficiently the capacity, often acquired to satisfy the peak period demands, can be utilized outside the peak period.

A Comparison of Privately and Publicly Owned Bus Companies and a Public Bus Transit Agency (1985)

 

©Antti Talvitie, Ari Heinilä, 1985

A Comparison of Privately and Publicly Owned Bus Companies and a Public Bus Transit Agency

ANTTI TALVITIE and ARI HEINILÄ

ABSTRACT

An examination is made of the level of service provided to patrons, the cost structure, the productivity, and the profitability of the companies that offer regularly scheduled bus service in the Metropolitan area of Helsinki, Finland, which includes the cities of Espoo and Vantaa. Data are given on the following types of bus companies: city-owned, private, and a public bus transit agency, Helsingin Kaupungin Liikennelaitos, in Helsinki. The data are averages, and they conceal a variance that is often substantial.. It is believed that this variance is due more to management and managerial skills than to economies of scale or operating environment. Unit costs of bus transportation in the Helsinki region and the composition of these unit costs are presented. A discussion of productivity concludes the paper.

An Assessment of Land Use and Socioeconomic Forecasts in the Baltimore Region (1981)

 ©Antti Talvitie, Michael Morris, Mark Anderson, 2016

An Assessment of Land Use and Socioeconomic Forecasts in the Baltimore Region

Transportation Research Record (1981) (with M. Morris and M. Anderson).

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

Michael Morris and Mark Anderson

ABSTRACT

Accuracy of forecasts for population, labor force, employment, and car ownership from 1962 to 1975 in the Baltimore area are examined. Comparisons are made at three levels of zonal aggregation-city and suburbs, traffic districts, and traffic zones. The lack of information about household size and household income made inferences from the results incomplete. The results show that regionwide forecasts were accurate for all the variables except population. However, allocation of these forecasts between city and suburbs, to traffic districts, and to traffic zones was quite inaccurate. The correlation coefficient between predicted and actual changes varied from 0.93 to 0.17 for the city zones and from 0.28 to 0.02 for the suburban zones. The corresponding ranges at the traffic-district level were from 0.86 to 0.61 and from 0.36 to 0.30, respectively. The results in the paper point toward large errors and uncertainties in the independent variables of traditional traveldemand models.

An Equilibrium Model System For Transportation Corridors (1980)

 

©Antti Talvitie, Ibrahim Hasan

An Equilibrium Model System For Transportation Corridors

Transportation Research-B, Vol. 14B, pp. 165-174, 1980, Pergamon Press. (with I. Hasan).

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14214, U.S.A.

and

Ibrahim Hasan

University of California, Berkeley, CA 94721, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT

The paper describes a method for equilibrating travel demand and transport levei of service when both demand and service levels are expressed by means of equations. Following the non-rigorous presentation of the method, its application as part of a complete model system in a transportation corridor study is discussed.

Models for Transportation Level of Service (1980)

 

©Antti Talvitie and Youssef Dehghani, 1980

Models for Transportation Level of Service

Transportation Research-B, Vol. 14B, pp. 87-99, 1980, Pergamon Press. (with Y. Dehghani)

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)
and Youssef Dehghani

State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14214, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT

The paper describes the development of models for predicting travel times of door to door trips for both transit and automobile trips. The models for access times have a distribution associated with them and permit a truly disaggregate assignment of travel time components. The equations for linehaul travel time of the highway using modes (bus, auto) are volume dependent and can thus be used in equilibrating travel demand and level of service. All the models are related directly to transportation policy options-changing bus line spacings, bus headways, number of (priority) lanes, etc.-and translate the effects of such policies into specific values of the level-of-service attributes without the need to code networks and run paths. The use of the models in a practical application is also discussed.

Inaccurate or Incomplete Data as a Source of Uncertainty in Econometric or Attitudinal Models of Travel Behavior (1979)

©Antti Talvitie, 1973

Inaccurate or Incomplete Data as a Source of Uncertainty in Econometric or Attitudinal Models of Travel Behavior

New Horizons in Travel Behavior, Brög, W., A.H. Meyburg, and P. Stopher, Eds. D.C. Heath, Lexington, MA. 1979.

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

The chapter discusses the uncertainties and errors in level-of-service data, in land-use and socioeconomic data, and in behavior data, and their effects on models and forecasts of travel behavior. Evidence is shown to suggest that there are substantial errors in transportation level-of-service data and in forecast land-use and socioeconomic data. Of the service variables, the excess time components and auto costs are especially poorly approximated. There also is uncertainty about what car costs ought to be calculated, and how. It is shown that these decisions affect the choice models significantly. The allocation of land-use and socioeconomic variables to traffic zones is done quite inaccurately, even though the totals for the region may be predicted well. Population forecasts, which may mean household-size forecasts, appear to be subject to a large degree of uncertainty. Finally, the chapter discusses briefly the uncertainties present in travel-behavior interviews. It is claimed that intrasubjective and intersubjective uncertainties are inevitable in any interview and that their effects are many and substantial but presently unknown.

Comparison of Observed and Coded Network Travel Time and Cost Measurements (1979)

 

©Antti Talvitie, Youssef Dehghani, 1979

Comparison of Observed and Coded Network Travel Time and Cost Measurements

Transportation Research Record 723, pp. 46-51, Washington, D.C. 1979 (with Y. Dehghani).

Antti Talvitie and Youssef Dehghani,

State University of New York, Buffalo

ABSTRACT

The paper compares two types of measurements of trip times: those provided by the standard network algorithms are compared with trip-time components observed along the traveler's path from home to work and back. The two types of measurements are found to be different. The root mean square errors of the network measurements with respect to observed values are very large (75-135 percent of the mean value) for the non-line-haul travel time components. The means and the variances of the network measured variables, as a rule, are much smaller than the variances or means of the manually coded observed-travel times. Coefficients estimated by using the two types of data are not numerically similar. Statistical tests show that at least the alternative-specific constants' and the level-of-service variables' coefficients are different in the models developed by using the two types of data. Finally, the effect of substantial errors in level-of-service measurements on travel forecasts is discussed. It is also shown that good (short-run) travel forecasts can be obtained from the network-based models provided that consistent network coding conventions are followed and incremental forecasts are avoided.

Specification, Transferability and the Effect of Data Outliers in Modeling the Choice of Mode in Urban Travel (1978)

 
©Antti Talvitie, Daniel Kirshner 1978

ANTTI TALVITIE

State University of New York, Buffalo, N. Y. 14214

and

DANIEL KIRSHNER

Cambridge Systematics Inc./West, Berkeley, Ca., U.S. A .

ABSTRACT

Three problems of great importance to urban travel demand modeling using multinominal logit models are examined in this paper. They are (1) the effect of data outliers on model coefficients; (2) the effect of model specification on coefficients and model explanatory power; and (3) the transferability of model coefficients within the region, between regions, and in time.

Four data sets are used in the study. They are: Washington, D.C., Minneapolis-St.

Paul, and two data sets from the San Francisco Bay Area, Pre-BART and Post-BART. The data are standard home-interview survey data appended with network supplied modal travel cost and time information.

Policy Analysis of a Transportation Corridor (1978)

©Antti Talvitie, 2025

Policy Analysis of a Transportation Corridor describes a travel demand assessment for eleven land use and level-of-service options. The demand forecasts were carried out using a representative sample of travelers expanded to cover the study area. The methods and models are explained in two papers under the Travel Demand of the blogpost: Models for Transportation Level of Service (for access and linehaul) and An Equilibrium Model System for Transportation Corridors. 

The analyses with comprehensive descriptions of travel demand were conducted in one week using the expansion of traveler sample enumeration method and a comprehensive network, travel pricing, and land use definitions. Costs of the plans can be analytically related to the planning options (not reported in this paper but described elsewhere in The Final Report Series, Vol. X) to facilitate benefit-cost analyses.

Aggregate Travel Demand Analysis With Disaggregate or Aggregate Travel Demand Models (1973)

 

©Antti Talvitie, 1973

Aggregate Travel Demand Analysis With Disaggregate or Aggregate Travel Demand Models

Transportation Research Forum Proceedings, pp. 583-604, August 1973, R.B. Cross Co., Oxford, Indiana.

Antti Talvitie (aptalvitie(at)gmail.com)

ABSTRACT

THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER is to develop a method of aggregation to be used in travel-demand analysis and forecasting. This is an important task because aggregation is always needed in travel demand anal sis. Transportation systems and people need to be aggregated geographically into zones to facilitate demand forecasting aggregation of heterogenous modes of travel is often done to simplify the analysis process; heterogenous people are lumped together for fewer market segments to reduce the size of the problem and so forth.

Antti Talvitie CV

CURRICULUM VITAE

NAME: Antti Petri TALVITIE

PROFESSION: Transport Management Expert, Psychoanalyst, and Professor of Transportation

NATIONALITY: Finland

SUMMARY: Mr. Talvitie is a transportation consultant and psychoanalyst. Previously he worked in the World Bank; as Director of Highway Construction and Maintenance in the Finnish Road Administration; and in the private sector. He was a Professor and Chairman of the Civil Engineering Department in the State University on New York at Buffalo, and Professor (Emeritus) at Aalto University, Espoo, Finland. 

As a self-employed consultant working for Consultancies, and International Financing Institutions mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, and China. Important assignments include:

- Technical Adviser for the financier banks in E-18 PPP project in Finland, for which he also carried out Due Diligence. 

- Team member in the World Bank’s evaluation of the Bank’s Governance and Anti-Corruption (GAC) Strategy

- Team member in the World Bank’s Fee-Based service contracts to Bulgaria, Poland, Kuwait, Russia, and Romania. 

- Project assignments in Armenia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, India, Russia, and Latin American countries. 

- Team member in a PPP consultancy service for the Tanzanian Ministry of Finance in the transport sector. 

- Team member in Consultancy Services for the design of enhanced business and change management processes for Road Asset Management in Nigeria. 

- Carried out Project Performance Assessments (PPAR) and Implementation Completion Reports (ICR) in several countries for the World Bank, and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). 

- Consultant for World Bank loan to establish PPP procedures in China 

- Lead evaluator of the World Bank’s Multidonor Trust Fund for Mobility and Logistics (MOLO) Evaluation 

As World Bank staff, Program Team Leader for Romania, Armenia, and Georgia transport programs. Task Team Leader for the Azerbaijan Highway project, and a team member in a rural development project in Romania and a highway project in Russia. Lead evaluator of China’s Transport Sector Program and numerous Project Performance Assessments (PPAR) and Implementation Completion Reports (ICR) for Romania, Thailand, Indonesia, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, Jamaica, Uganda, Tanzania, Jordan, China, Yemen, and Pakistan.

Download Antti Talvitie full 2024 CV. 193 KB, 9 pages.