Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
With this panorama, it is not surprising to consider transport as the
villain of the
movie
, guilty of almost every wrong things regarding environment and, all in all,
quality of life. But the transport sector may be seen from different perspectives,
each on them, obviously, depending on which side are we. So, from an economic
point of view, transport contributes for more than 10% of the GDP of the European
Union, and gives employment to more than ten million people in the same context.
On the other side, as a social cohesion and land integration factor transport means
other interesting and by no means insignificant key aspect for economic competi-
tiveness of the different countries, fostering a number of associated activities, such
as auto-propulsion industry, assets, etc.
This said, transport has a dark but not hidden side, linked to the sustainable devel-
opment of our societies, focused on one of the three pillars of what we have called
“sustainability”: the environment, in such a way that being the results positive in the
other two - social and economic -, not the same can be said regarding this third one.
In other words: transport, and most of all, urban transport, is one of the main respon-
sible of pollution and climate change, not to mention the high energy consumption,
noise, dead and injuries, illness, congestion
[2]
, etc. Only road traffic congestion
amounts to 0.50% of EU GDP, and
business as usual
, will increase to 1% for 2010
[2]
. In fact, in Spain road traffic congestion meant 0.2% of the GDP
[3]
.
Since the aim of this paper is not to provide detailed information on issues that are
well known - emissions, climate change, etc., - we will focus on how some cities have
faced this problem through integrated strategies which take into account the interrela-
tions among land use patterns, transport supply and the role of the different modes of
transport, individual and collective, benefiting from the co-modality promoted by the
European Union in one of its most recent documents, the Green Paper: Towards a new
culture for urban mobility that, obviously, includes walking and cycling as well
[4]
.
That integrated approach, searching the balanced coordination of land use and
mobility, is well expressed through the Local Transport Plans (LTP, UK), Plans de
Déplacements Urbains (PDU, France), Piano de Mobilitá Urbana (PUM, Italy),
Planes de Movilidad Urbana Sostenible (PMUS, España), and the generic umbrella
for them all: Sustainable Urban Transport Plans (SUTP)
[5]
. This apparently tongue
twister (PDU, LTP, PUM, PMUS, etc.), has a common set of features through
which many cities have proven that, simple solutions are the most effective:
-
Covers the whole urban area
-
Aims to reduce the negative impacts of transport and tackle the rising volumes
of traffic and congestion
Should be linked to national/regional strategies
-
-
Cover all modes of transport
-
Include people and goods
-
Modal shift in favor of “soft” and alternatives modes
Furthermore, those strategies involve the coordination and efficient use of the
different modes of transport, to enhance the shift to more energy efficient transport
modes, to foster the reduction of transport demand and the implementation of
technological measures.
