Sustainable Transport Policy Research Articles

Do Socio-Economic Characteristics Affect Travel Behavior? A Comparative Study of Low-Carbon and Non-Low-Carbon Shopping Travel in Shenyang City, China.

Choices regarding mode of travel have an evident effect on environment pollutants and public health. This paper makes a significant contribution by examining the differences between low-carbon and non-low-carbon travel mode choices during shopping trips, and how socio-economic characteristics impact individual travel behavior based on data gathered from a questionnaire conducted in Shenyang, China. The study found that, firstly, low-carbon travel modes were more common than non-low-carbon travel modes for shopping, and the average travel distance by non-low-carbon modes was a little longer than that of low-carbon modes. Secondly, suburban and wholesale specialized commercial centers attracted more residents travelling longer distances by non-low carbon modes, especially private car, compared to regional commercial centers in inner city areas. Thirdly, strong relationships between car ownership, gender, monthly income, and travel mode choices were identified in a binary logistic regression model. This study thus highlights the importance of sustainable transportation policies to advocate low-carbon travel modes and reduce carbon emissions.

On the Appropriate Use of Life-Cycle Thinking for Evidence-Based Sustainable Transport Policy

iStock/arquiplay77Historically, energy policy has often dealt with issues relating to resource allocation, infrastructure development or international diplomacy,1,2 whereas environmental policy was...

Transport Choice Modeling for the Evaluation of New Transport Policies

Quantifying the impact of the application of sustainable transport policies is essential in order to mitigate effects of greenhouse gas emissions produced by the transport sector. One of the most common approaches used for this purpose is that of traffic modelling and simulation, which consists of emulating the operation of an entire road network. This article presents the results of fitting 8 well known data science methods for transport choice modelling, the area in which more research is needed. The models have been trained with information from Biscay province in Spain in order to match as many of its commuters as possible. Results show that the best models correctly forecast more than 51% of the trips recorded. Finally, the results have been validated with a second data set from the Silesian Voivodeship in Poland, showing that all models indeed maintain their forecasting ability.

Shopping mobility and travel carbon emissions among suburban residents: lessons from Shenyang city, China

This research examined the link between shopping mobility and travel CO2 emissions among suburban residents in Shenyang, China. We found suburban residents travelled 14.33 km and produced 1111.32 g of CO2 per shopping trip. The high emitters are mostly located at the urban fringe, travelling long distances and having a stronger dependency on cars. Furthermore, we used a binary logistic regression model to discover the main factors statistically significant in explaining private car usage. Evidence from this research indicates the need to formulate sustainable transport policies and reduce carbon emissions through compact urban forms and transit-oriented development.

Rapid urbanization and the need for sustainable transportation policies in Jakarta

Not only is Jakarta the largest metropolitan area in Southeast Asia, it is the also one of the most dynamic, though beset with most of the urban problems experienced in twenty-first century Southeast Asia. Batavia, colonial capital of the Netherland Indies in the first half of the 20th century was a small urban area of approximately 150,000 residents. In the second half, Batavia became Jakarta, the 28 million megacity capital of independent Indonesia. Among many urban problems, one major problem plagued Jakarta in the last two decades is traffic congestions. This paper discusses the extent to which rapid urbanization in Jakarta has contributed to the need for sustainable transportation policies in Jakarta. The development of MRT could be viable solutions to alleviate the acute traffic jams in Jakarta. Jakarta will need to implement other innovative sustainable transportation policies including promoting active live through more walking and bicycling, carpool matching services, shuttle services, telecommuting and downzoning in downtown areas.

Urban form, demographic and socio-economic correlates of walking, cycling, and e-biking: Evidence from eight neighborhoods in Beijing

This paper explores the urban form, demographic and socio-economic dependencies of walking, cycling and e-biking in Beijing based on a survey (N = 1427) of daily travel among residents in eight neighborhoods, enriched with urban form variables. The results show that walking is most frequently used, followed by cycling, which in turn is more frequent than e-biking. Walking and cycling are preferred when the accessibility of public facilities and services is good, while e-bikes are used when public transport provision is low. Urban form variables of population density, job employment density, and public facilities and services confirmed the experience from western countries that higher density mixed land use increases walking, cycling and e-biking. It is recommended that future sustainable transport policy addresses the maintenance of proximity environments at the neighborhood level. Furthermore, if the contribution of walking and cycling to sustainable urban mobility is to be maintained and repositioned, the younger generation requires substantial encouragement to get them to cycle more, while low education, low and middle income earners, non-hukou citizens are groups that should be encouraged to keep on walking, cycling and e-biking even if their income situation may improve in the future.

Identification of determinants for rescheduling travel mode choice and transportation policies to reduce car use in urban areas

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a qualitative analysis about the determinants related to rescheduling travel mode decisions during the activity scheduling process. Notably, we were interested to study changes between intention and behavior. Data used came from an in-depth Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) follow up survey to habitual drivers carried out during the implementation of a panel survey. An interpretative qualitative method based on Analytic Induction was used to cope with the complex nature of rescheduling decisions and the characteristics of the data. The Theory of Planned Behavior has been used to gain a better understanding of the reasons associated with rescheduling travel mode decisions and to obtain a possible explanation of the phenomena studied. In our sample, 12 codes were identified as the main determinants of travel mode changing. Main reasons for rescheduling a travel mode are different considering gender, age, and the type of travel mode change. Main reasons for changing a nonprivate preplanned travel mode to a private travel mode are different considering the type of travel mode preplanned. New determinants of rescheduling decisions different from those associated with other activity scheduling decisions previously identified emerge when analyzing travel mode changes. A number of important sustainable transportation policies to reduce car use in urban areas are derived from the results of this study.

Family formation and everyday travel in Britain since c.1850

This paper focuses on the extent to which everyday travel behaviour in Britain changes in relation to family responsibilities, and examines how this has altered over the past century and a half. It is argued that prior to the mid-twentieth century changes in the family such as increased child-care responsibilities barely influenced the modes of transport used for everyday travel, but that increasingly in the later twentieth century people adjusted their travel behaviour during the family formation phases of the life cycle. In particular, parents of young children have become more car-dependent and less likely to walk or cycle. Data are drawn from two separate projects, one that collected travel life histories from the past half-century as context for research on cycling in later life, and one that uses personal diaries to reveal everyday mobility strategies of people in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is argued that the observed changes are due not only to increased access to a wide range of different transport forms, especially the motor car, but also to changes in societal perceptions of risk and norms of travel behaviour. In conclusion, it is suggested that more awareness of past travel behaviours could aid the development and implementation of more sustainable transport policies in the UK.

Quality of Life, Multimodality, and the Demise of the Autocentric Metropolis: A Multivariate Analysis of 148 Mid-Size U.S. Cities

Quality of life has recently gained prominence in the urban affairs, development, and planning debates. A wide-range of factors have been linked to quality of life, including environmental health, commute times, arts and cultural amenities, school quality, housing availability, and economic concerns. The accessibility inherent in multimodal transportation is critical in the functioning of metropolitan areas. What has not been explored is the association between multimodal transportation and urban quality of life. In this paper, we adapt the method of urban sociologists, Harvey Molotch and Richard Appelbaum, to explore the association between multimodality and 12 measures of quality of life. We analyze 148 cities in the United States with populations over 50,000 that are more than 20 miles from other similarly sized cities. Our test measure is the percentage of workers who commute by some means other than a single-occupant vehicle. Using bivariate and multivariate analysis, this study shows a higher quality of life in counties and metropolitan areas with higher levels of multimodal commuting. These findings underscore the positive impact of sustainable transportation policies on quality of life and opens up new directions for research and policy in the built environment.

Electric-Car-Sharing in Urban Logistics – The Analysis of Implementation and Maintenance

The implementation of the sustainable transport policy in cities aims at finding various solutions that support the use of ‘clean energy’ in urban logistics. One of current global sustainable transport trends involves various measures related to electromobility. An example of electromobility in urban logistics is the e-car-sharing, or a short-term electric car rental. Since electric car-sharing is rather new to the transport market, operators and cities and metropolises may face various difficulties while implementing such services. Based on still operating and discontinued e-car-sharing systems, the authors analysed strengths and weaknesses of those systems with the focus on implementation and maintenance issues. The goal of the article is to determine strengths and challenges for e-car-sharing in urban logistics. The article is designed to assist stakeholders interested in the implementation of e-car-sharing. The analysis was provided under the international research project of ‘Electric travelling platform to support the implementation of electromobility in Smart Cities based on ICT applications’ funded from the National Research and Development Centre as a part of the ERA-NET CoFund Electric Mobility Europe Programme.

Using Grey Relational Analysis to Evaluate Energy Consumption, CO₂ Emissions and Growth Patterns in China's Provincial Transportation Sectors.

The transportation sector is a complex system. Collecting transportation activity and the associated emissions data is extremely expensive and time-consuming. Grey Relational Analysis provides a viable alternative to overcome data insufficiency and gives insights for decision makers into such a complex system. In this paper, we achieved three major goals: (i) we explored the inter-relationships among transportation development, energy consumption and CO2 emissions for 30 provincial units in China; (ii) we identified the transportation development mode for each individual province; and (iii) we revealed policy implications regarding the sustainable transportation development at the provincial level. We can classify the 30 provinces into eight development modes according to the calculated Grey Relational Grades. Results also indicated that energy consumption has the largest influence on CO2 emission changes. Lastly, sustainable transportation policies were discussed at the province level according to the level of economy, urbanization and transportation energy structure.

Commute mode diversity and income inequality: an inter-urban analysis of 148 midsize US cities

ABSTRACTLittle is known about the relationship between multi-modal transportation environments and aspects of sustainable urban development, such as reduced income inequality and affordable housing. This study, adapted from Molotch and Appelbaum's inter-city differential method, studied 148 semi-isolated mid-size cities. Using U.S. Census data from 2013, we found that increased diversity in commute modality is associated with less income inequality between white and African-American households, as well as between men and women. Commute mode diversity is also associated with higher earnings for white women and African-American men. Our study also shows that cities with more commuter mode diversity are associated with higher home property values and affordable rental markets compared to automobile dependent cities. These results undercut the notion that increasing automobile ownership is a reasonable policy response to urban poverty, and suggest that sustainable transportation policy can produce positive economic gains for cities. This work adds to the growing literature identifying fundamental differences between multimodal and automobile dependent cities.

RESPONSE OF FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL AS SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT POLICY (CASE STUDY: WORKERS IN JAKARTA)

Motorization in urban areas contributes several problems such as congestion, accidents, gas emissions, noises, andinfrastructure breakage. Meanwhile, most of the developing countries cannot overcome such growth activities, as well as inJakarta. By December 2013, Vice Governor of Jakarta proposes fuel subsidy removal policy as one of sustainable transportpolicy. This study is intended to understand and investigate how fuel subsidy removal policy scenarios (25%, 50%, and 100%)in Jakarta affects travelers’ behavior and analyze such policy to support sustainable transport by using qualitative researchmethodology. Interviews and questionnaires survey is conducted to workers in Jakarta, which includes ranking scale questionfor traveler response options. The result shows that half of the respondents are not affected and will only respond to fuel priceincreasing at IDR 31,400 for gasoline price and IDR 26,300 for ADO (Auto Diesel Oil). Moreover, there is a tendency ofrespondent's to the response by changing their travel mode choices into more fuel efficient private vehicle.

Repurposing the paving: The case of surplus residential parking in Davis, CA

The city of Davis, CA, has a rich history of high bicycling levels, and the city has ambitious transportation policies and goals. However, both the city of Davis and transportation scholars have overlooked the potential opportunities a surplus of on-street residential parking provides to cities. The existing literature on the influence of parking policy and provision has focused primarily on commercial districts and on large metropolises, neglecting parking in more purely residential areas. In this descriptive case study, we systematically observed the number of cars on a transect of residential streets in the early morning and late evening on weekdays to conservatively estimate the average peak parking demand by residents as a percentage of available parking spaces. On average, only 2 in 7 available parking spaces were occupied during peak hours. We note that the over-provision of on-street parking in residential neighborhoods could be a nexus for the city to achieve its sustainable transportation policy goals while addressing its fiscal and housing supply challenges. We discuss possible design solutions, including providing ecosystem services, implementing traffic calming measures, and creating accessory dwelling units.

Event sustainability and transportation policy: A model-based cluster analysis for a cross-comparison of hallmark events

Transportation is one of the main topics in the wide-ranging theme of event sustainability. The aim of this article is to make a contribution towards the evaluation of the sustainable transportation policies implemented by the organizers of hallmark events, to establish an accurate and objective methodology for a cross-comparison. The organizers, policy makers and the host community are the main stakeholders interested in an evaluation of the degree of sustainability implicit in the mobility policy of an event. A non-hierarchical model-based clustering is performed, using a sample of periodical Italian hallmark events, and then examined to determine whether there is a difference in the distribution of a selection of auxiliary variables among the clusters. The results show that neither visitor number, nor the number of inhabitants in the host city, is associated with the cluster membership. However, the theme of the event appears to be associated with the estimated partition.

Urban traffic and induced air quality modeling and simulation: Methodology and illustrative example

Modeling vehicular pollution in urban areas is essential in decision-making for urban planning and sustainable transport policies. Indeed, guaranteeing a breathable air quality in the acceptable levels specified by the World Health Organization (WHO) reinforces the road towards a sustainable urban development.In this work, we present the methodology and the different steps for the implementation of a sustainable transport decision tool permitting to perform a macroscopic simulation of road traffic using a first-order approach using the Cell Transmission Model (CTM) approach and a Dynamic Node Transmission Model (DNTM) approach for intersections; an estimation of the linear emission rates of the roads based on fleet statistics and the implementation of the simplified COPERT4 method; and finally the estimation of the near-instantaneous concentration of pollutants in urban areas. This tool is used to estimate the map of CO and NOx pollutants in the vicinity of a roundabout in the city of Sousse-Tunisia for the reference year 2015.

Commute mode diversity and public health: A multivariate analysis of 148 US cities

ABSTRACTUrban sprawl has a negative relationship with regional health outcomes, such as high obesity and chronic diseases related to physical inactivity. At the same time, literature has shown that walkable built environments are connected to lower obesity rates and increased physical activity. Less understood is the association of modal diversity with those health outcomes. This research studies a range of public health outcomes to determine their associations with commute mode diversity. Researchers adapted the methodology of urban sociologists Harvey Molotch and Richard Appelbaum to explore twelve different health measures in 148 US counties and their metropolitan statistical areas. The test measure is the percentage of commuters who use some means other than a single-occupant vehicle (SOV). The percentage of such commuters ranges from as low as 11% in Houston County, Alabama to as high as 36% in Honolulu County, Hawaii. Using bivariate and multivariate analyses, we found better health outcomes in counties and metropolitan areas that have fewer workers commuting by SOV. These findings underscore the positive impact of sustainable transportation policies on community health and open up a new direction for public health research and the built environment.

Social Sensitivity Analyses Applied to Environmental Assessment Processes

Social sensitivity analysis is aimed at exploring the robustness of complex governance processes through the involvement of stakeholders. This approach is based on the concepts of transparency and citizen participation. This paper presents a new methodology for the application of sensitivity analysis to environmental assessment projects. The general idea behind this method involves making the results of natural resource planning processes available to an “extended peer community”. This community, also known as a stakeholder community, is allowed to evaluate the quality of planning processes and give their opinion on the results. A Decision Support System based on institutional analysis, multi-criteria analysis and focus group sessions is used to implement this approach in a case study involving sustainable land-based transport policies in Tenerife, Canary Islands. In this exercise, stakeholders are involved in framing transport governance issues appropriately and then in defining and assessing plausible policy alternatives. The results obtained highlight that social sensitivity analysis is a viable approach that guarantees robustness in environmental governance. In addition, methodological suggestions are made that might be of use to the sustainability assessment community.

Sustainable transport policy - An evaluation of Singapore's past, present and future

The whole world is in a fuel crisis nearly approaching exhaustion, with climate change knocking at our doorsteps. In the fight against global warming, one of the principle components that demands technocratic attention is Transportation, not just as a significant contributor to atmospheric emissions but from a much broader perspective of environmental sustainability. From the traditional technocratic aspect of transport planning, our epiphany comes in the form of Land Use integrated sustainable transport policy in which Singapore has been a pioneer, and has led the way for both developed and developing nations in terms of mobility management. We intend to investigate Singapore’s Transport policy timeline delving into the past, present and future, with a case by case analysis for varying dimensions in the present scenario through selective benchmarking against contemporary cities like Hong Kong, London and New York. The discussions will include themes of modal split, land use policy, vehicular ownership, emission policy, parking policy, safety and road traffic management to name a few. A visualization of Singapore’s future in transportation particularly from the perspective of automated vehicles in conjunction with last mile solutions is also detailed.

Human Dimensions Approach towards Integrating Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning Policies: A Decision Support System (DSS) Based on Stated Preferences Data

While a lot of progress has been made in Germany to reduce CO2 emissions in the past years in almost all sectors of economy, however, the sector of transportation shows increasing CO2 emissions in the same period of time. Likewise, sustainability objectives of German land use policies have not been met so far, especially with regard of the continuously high rate of greenfield land used up for new housing development. In this paper, it is argued that environmental issues of both sectors have to be addressed by integrating urban housing development and transportation infrastructure planning policies. The paper reports on a stated preferences survey among house buyers in Germany, using a discrete choice approach, where parameters of sustainable urban design and sustainable transport are both integrated into one model. Building on concepts of behavioral economics, preferences are elicited for sub-samples of different “environmental awareness”. Results show differences in tastes for higher building densities to reduce land consumption as well as differences in tastes for transport infrastructure development and frequency of public transport parameters. In addition, a decision support system is developed to analyze the impact of individual parameters on choosing one alternative over the other. Form this, conclusions on potential market shares for sustainable housing and transport development are drawn and recommendations are given to implement integrated urban design and transportation infrastructure policies.