Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Only slow and ad hoc implementation has taken place,and incremental progress is actually
made against objectives, with levels of transport CO2 emissions stabilising at best. Relative
to the other emitting sectors (industry and domestic), the transport sector is performing very
poorly in terms of decarbonising. By default, the politicians are waiting for the 'silver bullet'
technological solution, to enable a dramatic reduction in transport emissions - but this will
not happen - and in the meantime CO2 is still being produced and it will remain active in
the atmosphere for up to 100 years.
The aim of this topic is to arrive at a better understanding of how transport can contribute
to sustainability in cities. It uses case study analysis - from London, Oxfordshire, Delhi, Jinan
and Auckland - to explore the richness and heterogeneity in approach for different contexts.
It seeks to understand the different baselines, the potential policy interventions on offer, the
approaches for strategy and policy-making, and the most effective means of reaching strategic
targets. This is tackled through using scenario analysis methodologies, not conventionally
used in the transport sector, and combining these with a quantification of likely policy measure
and scenario impacts, and more conventional multi-criteria analysis against scenarios. The
different contexts are considered in the following five case study chapters, exploring
the possible mitigation pathways that also give benefits against wider sustainability aspirations.
alternative and attractive futures are possible. We hope this improved understanding, and dis-
cussion around the key strategic decisions that need to be made - the 'strategic conversations'
(Van der Heijden, 1996) - will help us move beyond our current unsustainable transport
behaviours. However, alongside, the current transport trends and dependence on the car in
almost all cities is also very evident, and we are realistic about the trends and also the
attractiveness of the car for many people, if not most. This can be viewed as representing a
form of false consciousness (and certainly complacency), perhaps of hyperreality in transport.
Lewis Carroll (1893) and Jorge Luis Borges (1960) famously describe the process of map
making, where the map first represents the territory, but then replaces it and ultimately precedes
it - as an illustration of the process of simulacra. This concept might be used to help us
understand the representation of motorisation and travel - the difference between the advertising
dream and the reality of the impact of mass motorisation on the environment, social inclusion,
the economy and the city - and perhaps encourage us to frame and shape the debate around
sustainable travel in a different and more realistic manner:
In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a Single
province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire
Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were found somehow wanting,
and so the College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same
Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the Study
of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude
cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigours of sun and
Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the Map are still to be found, Sheltering
an occasional Beast or beggar; in the whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline
of Geography.
(Borges, 1960, p. 181)
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These are, of course, huge ambitions. Achieving sustainability in transport will involve a
major break from current mainstream trends and aspirations, even beliefs, with many of us
