Transfer of Innovative Policies between Cities to Promote Sustainability: Case Study Evidence

This paper describes how cities approach the challenging task of identifying, considering, and adopting innovative transport policies. Drawing on political science literature, the paper begins by establishing a framework for analyzing the process of policy transfer and policy learning. Cities were selected on the basis of their reputation for having adopted innovative policies. Data were collected from project reports and in-depth interviews with 40 professionals comprising planners, consultants, and operators in 11 cities across North America and northern Europe. This paper presents the findings from three key innovations: congestion charging, compact growth and transport planning, and carsharing. Each of these innovations was implemented at several sites, and there was evidence of learning across the sites studied. The case studies present a discussion of each policy alongside indications of its positive and negative impacts and then examine how the different cities approached the task of learning about how to introduce it and the issues that they faced. The paper identifies conditions that appear to support effective learning: reliance on strong networks of personal and professional contacts, drawing lessons from multiple sites, and financial and institutional support to facilitate the uptake of risky or technologically immature innovations.