Partnerships for Progress

Abstract

Road infrastructure institutions and organizations are beginning to face a period of major change that will affect current partnerships in the transportation sector. The fundamental element of this change centers around the increasing importance of the concept of sustainability, which is developing from the increasing realization that the world has geophysical limits and that transportation systems, in common with many other human systems, are putting increasing pressure on these limits. The paper first reviews four perspectives of sustainability: negative, superficial, weak, and strong. It then evaluates how the ethical principles of strong sustainability could translate into transportation sector policy, based on the Swedish Vision Zero approach to road safety, within the overall concept of sustainability across society. Understanding of the implications of a possible sustainable road transportation infrastructure policy involves a preliminary evaluation of potential changes in current transportation institutions in the light of a number of indicated outcomes in a framework of pricing and investment, integration, mobility, and modal change. Four broad classifications of road infrastructure organization are then reviewed: departmental systems, public agencies with a degree of political independence, government-owned companies, and public–private partnerships. In each case, the structures are reviewed to understand the potential for sustainable outcomes from current systems, together with the likely consequences for future elected government functions. The paper concludes with a brief examination of the political process of change and the need for change to bring together community partnerships to support progress.