Achieving sustainability in urban transport in developing and transition countries

Umwelt Bundes Amt
August 2011
Prof. Dr. Michael Bräuninger, Dr. Sven Schulze, Leon Leschus, Dr. Jürgen Perschon, Christof Hertel, Simon Field, Nicole Foletta

Although nearly one fourth of global CO2-emissions are caused by the transport sector, its effects cannot be reduced to impacts on climate change. Other sustainability problems induced by the transport sector include air pollution, noise and accidents. At the same time mobility has become a basic human need and there is a strong connection between economic development and the transport sector. These effects are especially relevant in urban areas. Nowadays half of the world’s population resides in cities and until the year 2050 this share is expected to rise to 70 %. Besides, cities today already account for nearly two thirds of global energy consumption and for more than 70 % of global CO2-emissions. Thus, this study focuses on sustainability issues in urban transport. Special attention is given to the situation in developing and emerging countries.

2. Best-Practice Examples 45
Case Study 1: National Financing Instruments: Second Generation Road Funds - The Case of Tanzania 45
Case Study 2: Local Financing Instruments in Sibiu, Romania 48
Case Study 3: Public Private Partnership (PPP) in Transport – Hong Kong 50
Case Study 4: Global Environment Facility (GEF): The Latin America Regional Sustainable Transport and Air Quality Project 53
Case Study 5: Climate Investment Fund (CIF) & Clean Technology Fund (CTF) for comprehensive urban transport systems: Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 55
Case Study 6: Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA) Morocco 58

3. Settlement structures 61
1. Background 61
2. Best-Practice Examples 66
Case Study 7: Coordination of Transportation and Land Use Planning in Curitiba, Brazil 66
Case Study 8: Affordable Housing in Bogota, Colombia 702
Case Study 9: Brownfield Redevelopment in Beijing, China 73
Case Study 10: Sustainable Urban Development in Kunming, China 77
4. Technological solutions 81
Tech-Box 1: Trolleybuses 85
Tech-Box 2: Bioethanol in Brazil 86
Tech-Box 3: Cable propelled transit in Caracas 88
5. Non-technological solutions 92
1. Background 92
1. General considerations 92
2. Push-measures 94
3. Pull-measures 99
2. Best-Practice Examples 103
Case Study 11: Restrictions on Car-use in Singapore 103
Case Study 12: Bus Rapid Transit in Curitiba, Brazil 107
Case Study 13: Institutional Reform and Bus Rapid Transit ‘Lite’ in Lagos, Nigeria 111
Case Study 14: The Car-free Medina of Fes, Morocco 116
Case Study 15: Non-motorised Transport in Guangzhou, China 119
Case Study 16: Cycle Rickshaw Modernisation in Delhi, India 123
5. Summary and policy recommendations 12

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Latin America and the Caribbean: Environment outlook

UNEP
2010

Over the past 12 years, within the GEO framework, UNEP has produced a series of global integrated environmental assessment reports aimed at providing comprehensive, scientifically credible, and policy-relevant assessments on the interaction between environment and society. In line with its core mandate of keeping the global environment under review, UNEP has developed a series of extensive consultative and participatory processes that have led to the production of four volumes of the comprehensive Global Environment Outlook (GEO). In Latin America and the Caribbean, this regional focus was designed both to adapt the generalizations of the global assessment to the considerably different environmental, political, economic and cultural realities of the LAC region, and to support regional, national, local and thematically focused groups to use the same methods to assess their immediate concerns. As with its global cousin, GEO-LAC aims to provide scientifically credible, policy-relevant, up-to-date assessment of, and outlook for, the state of the environment in Latin America and the Caribbean, using the GEO conceptual framework and process refined by UNEP over the past 12 years. As result, GEO analysts provide an impartial, scientifically sound analysis of the state of the environment, major impacts, drivers and options for action for decision makers and other regional actors concerned with the state of the environment. In addition, it analyses a number of possible scenarios. The groups that the GEO LAC report aims at reaching are policy makers, especially the LAC Forum of Environment Ministers and their advisors; scientists; activist civil society organizations, especially, indigenous people, youth, environmental NGOs, and business. The GEO process has many elements. It supports multi-stakeholder networking, provides a platform for the exchange of knowledge, promotes intra and inter-regional cooperation in identifying and addressing key environmental issues and concerns and builds capacity at many levels. Meeting users needs cuts across all elements of GEO outputs.

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Implementing sustainable urban travel policies in Mexico

International Transport Forum
Discussion Paper 2011 - 14
April 2011

This report describes the main challenges to urban travel in Mexico. We focus on some of the basic causes of urban transport problems, and we analyze some urban travel policies that could be considered good practices towards sustainable urban development. Mexico City is the emblematic case.

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Urban transport and climate change action plans

GIZ - SUTP
May 2011

More and more cities around the world are developing dedicated Climate Change Action Plans to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and improve the local air quality for their inhabitants. The transport sector usually plays a crucial role in any such strategy. In many cases, transportation is the primary source of CO2 and other GHGs, contributing up to 40 percent of the cities’ total emissions.

This paper summarises the measures outlined in Climate Change Action Plans of more than 30 cities in all continents. Its focus is on the actions proposed in the transport chapter of the relevant plans. However, in many cases other Urban Transport Planning documents (Transportation Master Plans, Land Use Plans, etc.) play a key role for implementing specific measures, while the Climate Action Plans outline the more general goals.

The measures initiated to reduce these negative impacts of urban transport take many forms. Increasing the share of public transport and non-motorised modes such as walking and cycling are core elements in many emission reduction strategies, but most often they are supplemented by other short-term and long-term measures. One key feature of most actions proposed is that they provide several co-benefits: many options not only reduce GHG emissions and improve air quality, but also enhance energy efficiency and – especially in the developing world – contribute to better transport services for the poor.

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Study on Urban Access Restriction

European Commission
December 2010

This document reports on the results of a study funded by the EC – DG MOVE to investigate the state-ofthe-art of Access Restriction Schemes (ARS) in Europe and identify actions in which the European Union could engage to promote better awareness of the ARS concept, of the implementation options and of their effects, and to foster the dissemination and exchange of best practice in this field.

Access Restriction Schemes: a European study

An increasing number of European cities is engaged in the design and implementation of demand management strategies based upon the concept of "controlled access", which entails the more or less gradual interdiction of selected urban areas to traffic. Access restriction policies vary a great deal, depending on the chosen exclusion criteria. Popular examples include closure of inner city areas and other sensitive zones to less clean and energy efficient vehicles or to freight vehicles above a certain weight, to private vehicles owned by non-residents in the restricted area, or to motorized vehicles altogether.

The current situation is characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity, on several accounts:

• The objectives of the Access Restriction Schemes (ARS): so far schemes were mainly driven by air quality targets, but other strategic objectives are forcefully emerging, including e.g. transport efficiency, economic growth etc.
• the type of access restriction: i.e. which traffic is specifically targeted? (passengers Vs freight, vehicle technology, time slots, etc.)
• the instruments adopted: they can be regulatory/prescriptive (bans, vehicle standards, etc.) or/and market based (road and/or parking pricing, bonuses, paying permits, incentives, etc), while information based instruments can supplement/facilitate the implementation of both regulatory and economic instruments – the technical/technological solutions adopted to implement and enforce the schemes

From the EU perspective, the heterogeneity of the schemes experimented/planned so far entails major drawbacks, notably:

• higher costs (no mainstream technological/organizational solution)
• undue/undesired discrimination (vehicles/users authorized in City X may be unauthorized in City Y)

Although subsidiarity and proportionality principles limit the scope of EU intervention, the recent Urban Sustainable Mobility Action Plan calls for a proactive role of the EU, focusing on the identification of best practices and their diffusion across European cities.

Study Abstract
Executive Summary
The European Traveller
Recommendations to the EU
Final Report

Project's webiste: http://www.accessrestriction.eu/

Environmental impacts of international shipping: The role of ports

Edited by Nils Axel Braathen
OECD
February 2011

While efficient ports are vital to the economic development of their surrounding areas, the related ship traffic, the handling of the goods in the ports and the hinterland distribution can cause a number of negative environmental impacts.

This book examines the environmental impacts of international maritime transport, and looks more in detail at the impacts stemming from near-port shipping activities, the handling of the goods in the ports and from the distribution of the goods to the surrounding regions. It focuses on five ports: Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, the United States; Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Port Metro Vancouver, Canada; and Busan, Korea.

The book provides examples of the environmental problems related to port activities (such as air pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases, water pollution, noise, spread of invasive species, etc.) and highlights a number of different policy instruments that can be used to limit the negative impacts. It is a valuable resource for policy makers and researchers alike.

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1º Inventário nacional de emissões atmosféricas por veículos automotores rodoviários: relatório final

Ministério do Meio Ambiente
Secretaria de Mudanças Climáticas e Qualidade Ambiental
Departamento de Mudanças Climáticas
Gerência de Qualidade do Ar
Janeiro 2011

O 1º Inventário Nacional de Emissões Atmosféricas por Veículos Automotores Rodoviários representa um subsídio valioso para a atuação do poder público e da própria sociedade no planejamento, implantação e acompanhamento de políticas voltadas à melhoria da qualidade ambiental e à mitigação das mudanças climáticas. Trata-se de um instrumento que, ao definir uma metodologia de referência nacional, restaura a missão institucional contínua de cumprir as demandas do principal marco normativo da gestão da qualidade do ar no país, o Programa Nacional de Controle da Qualidade do Ar (PRONAR), instituído pela Resolução CONAMA nº 5 de 1989 que pressupõe, entre outros, a implantação do Programa Nacional de Inventários de Fontes Poluidoras do Ar.

O presente documento apresenta as emissões de 1980 a 2009 e as projeções até 2020 dos poluentes regulamentados pelos programas PROCONVE e PROMOT: monóxido de carbono (CO), óxidos de nitrogênio (NOx), hidrocarbonetos não-metano (NMHC), aldeídos (RCHO) e material particulado (MP); além dos gases de efeito estufa, dióxido de carbono (CO2) e metano (CH4). O Inventário permite ainda, conhecer as contribuições relativas das frotas de automóveis, veículos comerciais leves, ônibus, caminhões e motocicletas nas emissões; e como as diferentes fases dos programas responsáveis desde 1986 pela introdução de combustíveis de melhor qualidade e tecnologias automotivas mais avançadas influenciaram, e ainda poderão influenciar as emissões.

Como instrumento de gestão ambiental, a elaboração do Inventário Nacional é, portanto, uma iniciativa que extrapola em muito a compilação de informações geradas por diferentes instituições públicas e privadas, permitindo que, entre seus inúmeros usos, contribua para a definição de novos limites de emissão, para a melhoria da qualidade dos combustíveis, ou sirva de subsídio a programas de eficiência energética. Quando detalhado para a escala local, constitui informação valiosa também para auxiliar na avaliação do impacto das emissões sobre a saúde humana e para o planejamento, a elaboração e a avaliação dos Planos de Controle de Poluição por Veículos em Uso (PCPV).

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Press Release

Growing wealthier: Smart Growth, Climate Change and Prosperity

Center for Clean Air Policy
2011

CCAP’s new report, Growing Wealthier: Smart Growth, Climate Change and Prosperity, authors Chuck Kooshian and Steve Winkelman discuss how application of smart growth principles can improve the bottom line for businesses, households and governments by increasing property values, cutting fuel and infrastructure costs, creating jobs, enhancing public health and strengthening communities.

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Air Quality Management

Module 5a - Sustainable Urban Transport Project
Dietrich Schwela
SUTP
GTZ
2009 Update

Urban air pollution is a serious problem causing numerous unnoticed and unaccounted fatalities. The transport sector is one of the major contributors to the appalling air quality. Local authorities often struggle to implement an effective Air Quality Management strategy to tackle this problem.

The recently revised module 5a: Air Quality Management serves to assist policy-makers and their advisors in developing countries. The module helps to determine the best measures to abate air pollution with limited information.

The module provides practical advice to developing countries on developing legally enforceable air quality standards and simplified clean air implementation plans. Within the module, important issues related to legal aspects, adverse effects of poor air quality, exposure-response relationships and the assessment of acceptable levels of risks are covered. The module also mentions sources of information on the health effects of air pollution under different geographical, social, economic and cultural conditions. Strengthening the capability for implementing air quality standards is also highlighted in the module. Furthermore, the factors that need to be considered in urban air quality management are discussed and guidance on urban air quality management is provided in this module.

Registered SUTP users can download the document from here. Unregistered users can register here and then proceed to download after login.

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