TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION
OECD International Conference, Vancouver Canada

Home||300Words||Program||Sponsors||People||Papers||E-Forum||Concl's||Register||Elec-Env

Session 2C - Urban and Suburban Transportation

Abstract of address by Michael Bach

OECD/ECMT Project: Urban Travel and Sustainable Development

Making the car cleaner, quieter and more energy-efficient is a necessary but not sufficient condition for reconciling the car with sustainable urban development. To achieve this, a package of measures is needed: economic instruments, transport policies and land-use planning policies applied consistently over a long period of time, with the aim of bringing about a reduction in car use for urban travel. Further, we need to organize our cities to reduce the need to travel and reduce the demand for travel, especially by car.

This paper presents a report prepared under the guidance of an OECD/ECMT project group set up in May 1991. The three-year inquiry analysed the transport, planning and environmental policies in 20 countries and 132 cities. The final report was published by OECD/ECMT in April 1995 and examines:

• the trends and the problems;
• the policy levers available, in particular the roles of economic incentives and disincentives: the role of land-use planning; the potential of traffic calming and other new approaches to traffic management; and the use of marketing, telematics and other innovations to improve public transport; and
• their performance/achievements.

Acknowledging that present policies are unsustainable, the report proposes:

• a new approach for the 1990s and beyond which combines land-use and transport policies; and
• a three-stage process for moving toward sustainable urban development.

This three-stage approach advocates moving upwards to:

• best practice: adoption of best practice in land-use and transport planning.
• policy innovation: using innovative policies in land-use and transport planning, traffic management, to influence the pattern of development, the location of travel-generating uses and the choice of means of travel; and
• sustainable development: progressively increased fuel tax to significantly reduce vehicle kilometres and the amount of fuel used.

Whilst stages 1 and 2 will reduce the rate of growth of vehicle kilometres, only when stage 3 is reached will there be a significant reduction in car-kilometres and fuel use in road transport.

This report underlines the importance of combining, in coherent, reinforcing packages, land-use planning, economic, incentives and traffic management policies.

Home||300Words||Program||Sponsors||People||Papers||E-Forum||Concl's||Register||Elec-Env