Untitled - Civic Exchange

Chapter 1: A Sustainable Transport Policy
• Growth in road transport - road traffic, construction of new infrastructure, and associated costs;
• Growth in air transport - air traffic, aircraft noise, and emissions;
• Congestion and associated costs;
• Road casualties and associated costs;
• Dependence on finite fossil fuel sources;
• Vehicle emissions - air pollution and its global, regional, and local impacts and, to a lesser
extent, water pollution;
• Noise, vibration, visual intrusion, and other disturbance due to transport; and
• Car-dependent planning and development (especially in developed economies) - inaccessibility
to non-car users, high consumption of land, impact on community, social disruption, urban
sprawl, decaying urban fabric.
Challenges of multidisciplinary policy-making
Progress towards sustainable transport depends on a wide variety of factors. It is often extremely difficult
for policy-makers to understand the complexity of different policy options, such as how to set the optimal
mix of incentives to change individual travel behavior or apply the right set of emissions control
technologies. Developing and implementing an effective sustainable transport policy requires good data,
continuous research, experimentation, and constant feedback from a diverse range of disciplines. The
ability to develop a decision-making system that integrates knowledge and applies it on the ground is easier
said than done.
The attempt by the United Kingdom's Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) to articulate
a new transport policy illustrates the complexities involved in implementing the concept of sustainable
development. 20 The Eighteenth Report on Transport and the Environment stated that transport policies
need to meet a set of wide-ranging objectives, including the integration of transport and land use policies,
compliance with air quality standards, and mobility for all members of the community, and, at the same
time, reduce environmental damage, use existing infrastructure efficiently, protect natural and cultural
heritage areas, reduce the use of non-renewable resources, and reduce noise from transport. 21 Most
governments lack experience in this type of multidisciplinary policy-making.
However, when governments are able to put together an imaginative package of policy instruments with a
realistic approach to long-term change this is far more effective than taking a piecemeal or ad hoc approach
to sustainability. Thus, the best approach is to work backwards from the desired outcome of a policy and
then develop long-term policy scenarios to explore how to achieve this outcome. This is often known as
the scenario-building approach or the backcasting method. 22 Such an approach provides a useful
framework for decision-making, identifies constraints and opportunities, allows a variety of possible
approaches, helps with assessment of alternative policies, and increases creativity and choice. 23 9
20 RCEP (1994), Transport and the Environment.
21
Ibid, xviii.
22
The OECD's environmentally sustainable transport approach started with a "portrayal of a sustainable transport
future, the development of environmental and health quality objectives and criteria, and derived quantified targets
with dates and milestones, and the specification and implementation of packages of measures required to achieve a
sustainable transport future." The European Commission on Policy Scenarios for Sustainable Mobility also
followed a similar methodology. OECD (2000), Environmentally Sustainable Transport Guidelines, p.7 and
Banister, D., Stead, D., et al (2000), European Transport Policy and Sustainable Mobility.
23 May, cited in Banister, D. and Stead, D. (2001), "Sustainable transport policies: scenarios for the future," in
Giorgi, L. and Pohoryles, R.J., eds., Transport Policy and Research: What Future Aldershot: Ashgate, p.91.