Final Report March 2000
Cooperative Council for the Metropolitan Administration
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- Working-Level Council for the Metropolitan Transport Management
- Functions and Roles of the Metropolitan Transport Planning Office
Cooperative Council for the Metropolitan AdministrationA cooperative council for the metropolitan administration is a meeting of the heads of regional or local governments involved in a specific metropolitan area to discuss metropolitan problems. Under the formal meeting of the heads, a practice committee, which comprises working-level officials, treats the affairs actually. It was introduced in the Act on the Implementation of Local Autonomy in 1973, and has been operated actively from 1988. As of 1998, there exist 59 cooperative councils nationwide, in which 174 regional or local governments, including 5 metropolitan cities, are involved. The Council holds a formal meeting once a year, discussing the following issues: - Issues concerning the establishment of metropolitan planning and reform - Issues concerning the establishment of public facilities and management - Consultation, arrangement, or joint treatment of the boundary control between regions - Issues concerning prevention of air/environmental pollution - Issues concerning the allocation of resources, products, and commodities
- Issues concerning the establishment, change, expansion, or pavement of highways
If the problems are not solved at the council, the Minister of Administration and Local Autonomy intervenes and mediates between them for the settlement of the problems. Despite of the well-organized institutional device, the cooperative councils have not been very effective for solving metropolitan problems. First of all, an annual meeting was not enough to discuss and reach a consensus for many pending issues, and the procedures are too complicating. In addition, projects accompanying high budget often face with the opposition from local assembly or residents, and they are not subject to be promoted, even though there reaches an agreement at the metropolitan council. In particular, since transportation issues often need a large amount of budget and accompany regional conflicts of interests, it is usual that they are not easy to be solved. Working-Level Council for the Metropolitan Transport ManagementWhile the Cooperative Council for the Metropolitan Administration of Seoul Metropolitan Areas is in operation, handling overall metropolitan problems, the Working-Level Council for the Metropolitan Transport Management of Seoul Metropolitan Areas is to deal with transport issues in the metropolitan area. It was made at the 7th Cooperative Council for the Metropolitan Administration of Seoul Metropolitan Areas held in December 1995. The Working-Level Council for the Metropolitan Transport Management comprises the transport directors of Seoul City, Inchon City, and Kyonggi Province. The tasks of this Council are to discuss and settle down the problems such as the arrangement of bus routes and fares, improvements of roads in boundary section, cooperative improvement of highly congested areas, and other traffic issues. The Council has held several meetings of the heads and working-level officials, and the issues brought up were mostly pertaining to connecting road project issues. However, because of conflicts deciding which projects should go first and in sharing expenses for them, about 1/3 of the issues have been reached the agreements. For unsettled issues, central government mediates to seek the agreements. However, it is evaluated that it has limits in tackling the metropolitan transport issues. 13.5.3 Metropolitan Transport Planning Office of the Ministry of Construction and Transportation A Special Act on the Metropolitan Transport Planning and Management was enacted in 1997. According to the Act, the Metropolitan Transport Planning Office(MTPO) was formed in the Ministry of Construction and Transportation. Functions and Roles of the Metropolitan Transport Planning OfficeThe role of the MTPO is to establish a comprehensive master plans of transportation for the metropolitan area, to control and improve mass transportation operations, and to mediate disputes between concerned local governments on transport issues. The MTPO has established a 5-year master plans of transportation for the Seoul Metropolitan Area in 1998. The plan has a goal of establishing in phases a composite network, facilitating the use of mass transportation and increasing the efficiency of transport system. It has presented 14 major tasks, which are: - Phasing in a composite transport network . establishment of a principal circular road network . establishment of metropolitan subways, city railroad network . establishment of metropolitan bus routes . establishment of a transfer system - Facilitating the use of mass transportation . improvement of service for metropolitan subways and city rails . introduction of metropolitan transportation card for mass transportation payment - Increasing the efficiency of transport system to improve operation of transport facilities . function enhancement of principal roads . improvement of road signs . spread of intellectualized high-tech transport systems - Formulating a traffic safety-awareness . safety check and safety facilities expansion of metropolitan subway - Specialization/mechanizing transport policies . implementation of composite transport system research . implementation of regular metropolitan traffic research . operation and organization of metropolitan transport specialists’ forum and management enforcement The 5-year master plans of transportation for the metropolitan area by the MTPO has a priority to other plans in the practice legally. Regional or local governments should not establish a transportation plan which is in conflict with the MTPO master plan. This guarantees legal authority of the MTPO master plan, and effective for the management of metropolitan transport. The Special Account for the Transport Facilities provides 2% of total amount of the fund for metropolitan transport. Ch. 14 Promotion of the International Cooperation in the APEC Region 14.1 Objectives of the International Cooperation An international cooperation is not a unique concept applicable only to the urban transport field. As such, the international cooperation in this field may adopt the conventional means of other fields. Under the framework of the APEC, major objectives of the international cooperation in urban transport area are summarized as follows: Sharing of the member economies’ experiences and information on the urban transportation; Improvement of problem-solving abilities in each member economy;
To achieve the objectives above, some international cooperative activities, which could be carried out in conjunction with existing APEC activities under the APEC Transportation Working Group Scheme, are discussed. Although member economies have not yet thoroughly discussed the issues related to urban transport, it would be useful to first suggest the following ways and means of international cooperation. In order to create a synergy effect, it is desirable to seek the way to promote jointly the suggestions below through the meetings of the Urban Transport Forum. 14.2 Areas for the International Cooperation 14.2.1 Establishment and Dissemination of Urban Transport Database It is desirable that a database of urban transport should be established and made available to all member economies in order to identify what the problems are and decide what should be done. For them, one of member economies should lead the task, either individually or in cooperation with others. Korea, as a lead economy for the urban transport, could lead the job. The data will be collected from each of the member economies, processed in an advanced electronic format, and disseminated through the internet. If admitted by the consent of the APEC member economies, more detailed plans will be proposed. 14.2.2 Convening Workshops, Symposia, and Meetings Each of the member economies has very different experiences in terms of policy, traffic patterns, people’s behavior, technology, etc. The continuous sharing of these experiences is a useful way of international cooperation. Therefore, workshops, symposia, and various kinds of meetings could provide a forum in which member economies can discuss problems on specific subjects, thereby helping them improve their problem-solving abilities. Each member economy is expected to voluntarily initiate and host these meetings as appropriate. 14.2.3 Technology Transfer For the purpose of achieving efficiency and cost-effectiveness, advanced countries have introduced new types of vehicles and equipments, such as double-deck and articulated buses, van-type taxis, subways, various LRT’s, etc. New technologies, such as new LRT systems, traffic control and communication systems, GIS(Geographical Information Systems), CNS (Car Navigation Systems), Parking Information Systems, Road Safety Systems and Traffic Signal Systems, should be transferred from advanced economies to the others through the international cooperation. 14.2.4 Exchange and Training of Personnel Training of personnel engaged in the urban transportation field will be a long-term solution to many problems, even though not effective immediately. It will not directly solve the specific problems, but will be essential in both avoiding future problems and resolving them as they arise. It would be appropriate to make use of existing educational facilities rather than establishing new training centers. In some circumstances, it would be easier to utilize existing exchange programs on a bilateral basis between member economies; for example, a short-term dispatch of trainees to other member economies. 14.3 Direction for Future Cooperation At this stage it would be premature to suggest any types of future cooperation in this field, since there was no typical experience in cooperation in the field of urban transportation among APEC member economies. Therefore, possible activities for the future cooperation should be developed from the actual experiences of cooperating under the existing framework of APEC. Nonetheless, we need to cooperate and work together. Some of us have extensive freeway experiences, others have outstanding transit system. Each of us should explore other system to gain insights from various approaches. All of us need to learn more to educate ourselves and then to enable to better inform policy makers. Directory: new new -> Nonprofit grant application new -> Bulletin 4 Monday July 8, 2002 Backgammon new -> [0] B. Hardware [2] new -> [1] B. Hardware [1] new -> Last year four of the best Afrikaans Christian singers joined forces to tour Down Under with the production ‘Manne wat Glo’ new -> The Project Gutenberg ebook of The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended new -> Management and Marketing Download 1.53 Mb. Share with your friends:
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