Bertolini, 2012

Negative impacts of hypermobility on natural and social environments are growing

dramatically
Urban planning still seems to see mobility as just one among many particular concerns,
rather than a central, structuring perspective on the development of cities
Interaction between developments in transport and telecommunication technologies
and developments in the economic, social and cultural sphere have made mobility a
defining characteristics of modern societies
Business processes are more spatially articulated; management, administration and
production are all held at different places: make use of the differences between
locations to meet a growing variety of requirements
Without mobility unable to interact or get access to basic services: we have to move
=> coercive flexibility
Effort and costs involved in mobility have decreased while mobility options have rapidly
increased
Research documents a mix of partial replacement, the generation of new mobility and
the creation of new physical and virtual combinations
Physical encounters necessary to maintain digital relationships
Developing companies strongly growing in mobility in comparison to developed
countries
Urbs (cities) and civitas (civilians) appear to have become disconnected. Activities by
the inhabitants of cities now take place at numerous locations and are linked in all kinds
of ways, while households and firms inside the same city may scarcely have
relationships with others
Dilemma of the essential condition of mobility and its negative consequences
Mobility appears to have become the victim of its own success
Predict and prevent in 80s and 90s: idea was that the predicted mobility demand in fact
had to be avoided, primarily by discouraging car use and by promoting alternative
means of transport or by replacing mobility with telecommunications
New approach is trying to find a balance between the two; identify forms of mobility
which acknowledge the need and desirability of mobility and can reduce its negative
effects: sustainable mobility
Three challenges: coming to terms with systemic nature of urban mobility, finding ways
of coping with inherent uncertainty surrounding developments in the system of urban
mobility and developing effective linkages between planning science and planning
practice
There are clear connections between urban form and transportation
Transport land use feedback cycle: suburbanisation and growth in car use have
mutually reinforced each other, as have the development of public transport and
compact urbanisation. Patterns of land use determine the places at which people carry
out activities
Not completely representative: developments determined by more factors and risk of
overlooking role of individual agents. Cycle must be seen as open and its development
as co-determined by other factors
Development of transport systems not only determined by the demand for movements
but also by relatively autonomous developments on the supply side, such as
technological innovation and mobility policy
Response time varies: patterns of activities can be changed relatively quickly, changes
in land use and transport systems demand much greater amounts of time
Successful policy is also aware of the complexities of the transport land use
relationship, and thus of the often decisive role of developments outside the cycle and
of the possibility of unexpected short circuits inside the cycle
Debates spurred by the dilemma of urban mobility appear to be characterised by
lasting, irreducible uncertainty regarding planning goals and means
1

A situation in which the uncertainty regarding goals and means cannot be reduced, the
focus of planning has to shift from searching for certainty to searching for robustness
and flexibility
Robust goals even if uncertain are relevant in a number of possible future contexts
Goals and means which appear to be robust have to be experimented and bargained
over in order to explore their desirability and feasibility in addressing practical problems
The more diverse mobility systems of European and Asian cities, where more fuel
efficient cars, public transport and non-motorised means of transport also play a role,
seem to have proven to be more durable than the USA in this respect
Institutional spaces for this interaction are often not present and need to be created
and, where these are already present, consolidation needs to take place
If they stay in their separate worlds planning scientists and practitioners are doomed to
substandard achievements
Transport and land use planning are in practice still largely separated professions, as
are the public and private institutions to which they cater
Research should help us understanding transport and land use dynamics in its complex
relationship with economic, social and cultural processes
Interaction between planning science and practice should be central to the education
philosophy and reflection in action be acknowledged as the main way professionals
learn
If proposed planning approaches are to be more than promising concepts and are also
to improve actual planning practice, they need to be tested and further developed in
the context of their intended use, as is common in other sciences aiming at changing,
not just understanding the world

Wilson, 2001
-

A communicative rationality would place language and discourse at the core of

transportation planning: leads to greater attention to desired transportation ends,
better integration of means and ends, new forms of participation and learning and
enhanced deliberative capacity
For planning gridlock is not gridlock until we have defined it as a problem and decided
to do something to address it. Transportation planning depend on what gridlock means
and establishing meaning is an inherently social and linguistically based process
Perspective offered is that language profoundly shapes our view of the world
Global aim of communicative rationality is to create a rational basis for constructing
ends and means in a democratic society, by enriching public and political discourse,
focus on interactive processes. It reorients planning from a form of scientific,
instrumental rationality to a form of reason based on consensual discussion
Alexander: many forms of rationality (communicative, instrumental, strategic etc.), real
question is appropriately matching the form of rationality to the planning circumstance.
This paper takes different approach: anticipating a paradigm shift that will radically
change the basis of knowing and the process for making transportation planning
decisions
Tension between formal process of planning bases on scientific, instrumental rationality
and the reality of political bargaining and gamesmanship
Predominant method of transportation planning is instrumental rationality, a process of
optimising means (plans and programs) according to identified ends (goals)
Instrumental rationality assumes that the actors in a planning process are autonomous
individuals who refine their knowledge against universal principles and that planning
roles can be divided into various analysis, evaluation and decision-making tasks
A transportation planning process that follows a sequence of steps and treats ends and
means separately. It is a process in which the core problem is optimising means to
achieve ends that are derived from decision-makers and society; transportation
planners play a technocratic role
2

Pas (1995) summarises a step-by-step process that elaborates the classic ends-means
process; a nine-step process includes: problem and issue identification, formulation of
goals and objectives, data collection, generation of alternatives, analysis, evaluation,
decision-making, implementation and system monitoring => shows planning as
responding to societal values, public opinion, institutions and stakeholders
Main activity of planning is designing, analysing and evaluating alternative means
Objectivist epistemology (theory of knowledge) and instrumental rationality method go
hand-in-hand if one element cannot be supported it is difficult to justify the other
Difficult for transportation planners to reach consensus: multiple stakeholders often
have different goals and objectives; in recent decades these have widened significantly
Instead of perfect information and analytic certainty, planners find contested,
ideological information and models that are stretched to represent complex behavioural
realities
A survey instrument or model does not exist disconnected from speech in a place and
time. Surveys and models have an audience, they respond to what came before, they
construct the roles of planners and others and they are built on language concepts
Harvey: transportation models must respond to the fact that values are invoked and
mediated through the process, rather than resolved at an early stage
Meyer and Miller argue for an approach that will help decision-makers reach god
decisions rather than focus exclusively on the right answer
Altschuler argues that political systems seek inclusiveness and broad support for policy
rather than optimisation. They seek to accommodate new demands while leaving
existing arrangements largely undisturbed and attempt to confine issues to create winwin outcomes
Although there have been growing requirements for participation, it is generally
participation with a small p. Members of the public are rarely engaged in a substantive
dialogue about transportation. Instead, their input is usually sought after the problem
has been defined, after analysis has been completed and after alternative projects have
been designed
Result of the split between the traditional transportation planning paradigm and politics
is an increasingly dysfunctional planning process. In highly congested regions, private
sector-led transportation planning often steps in to fill the void left by dysfunctional
public transportation planning, either by taking on planning functions or by providing
substitutes for travel
Instrumental rationality and objectivism are part of traditional notions of modernism
and progress, yet these foundational elements have been transformed. In recent years
social theorists use the term postmodernism to describe changes that undermine
traditional modernist notions, including instrumental rationality and objectivism.
Postmodernism recognises that there is no longer a single organising narrative around
which a plan can optimise
Milroys four observations about implications of postmodernism for planning are used to
discuss the context for transportation planning
First: postmodern questions conventional beliefs and seeks to understand the power
relations beneath them, second: it challenges the notion of universals as bases of truth,
third: it asserts that a clear delineation between subjective and objective is not
possible, fourth: it is said to value plurality and difference
Communicative rationality is concerned with creating a rational basis for constructing
end and means in a democratic society an approach that integrates scientific and
interpretive/social learning approaches
Habermas proposed communicative rationality as a form of rationality that transcends
scientific rationality while avoiding pure subjectivity. He integrates an interpretive
approach with a causal, empirical/analytical approach rather than arguing for one to
the exclusion of the other
Habermas uses four criteria to understand the rationality of communication and ideal
speech: comprehensibility of statements, accuracy of statements, legitimacy of the
3

speaker and the sincerity of the speaker => these elements exist in the background of
all policy discourse, considering them explicitly means making the process by which
communicative action occurs more transparent
Better conditions for discourse emerge from carefully designed planning, and
participatory processes that critically examine legitimacy, encourage sincerity and
enhance accuracy and comprehensibility
Habermas: communicative action is a circumstance in which the social actors
participate in dialogue/action with active and critical consideration of the bases for
validity of the claims that they and others make: participants can arrive at more fully
reasoned conclusions than they can if they follow a narrower model of ends-means
rationality
Communicative planning creates not only programs of action but arenas in which
programs are formulated, including multiple dimensions of knowing, expressing and
judging
Participants rely on many types of information and not primarily on formal analytical
reports or quantitative measures
Greatest misconception that it is simply more participation, it places language as the
core planning activity. It is the working out of claims, the interpretation of knowledge
and values and the sharing of facts and stories, while maintaining a critical self
awareness of the ground rules for communication
Ultimate goal being enhanced capacity for democratic deliberation and decisionmaking. Participants in this form of transportation planning learn about ends and
means and understand the perspectives of other stakeholders. The planning process is
influenced by societal values, public opinion, stakeholders and institutions, but the
process in turn may change societal values, public opinion, stakeholders and
institutions. The process considers ends and means simultaneously in the context of
interpretive meaning and potential for action
Six dimensions of planning discussed regarding communicative rationality: role of the
planner, purpose of planning, planning process, communication, problem framing and
analysis/modeling
Role of the planner: communicative rationality requires that transportation planners
function as communicative and technical experts who design and implement
collaborative transportation planning processes. Main focus is helping decision-makers,
stakeholders and the public learn about the dimensions of transportation problems from
one another and developing plans in a collaborative manner. Planners articulate their
own value positions as participants in the planning process, but disclose the basis for
the claim
Purpose of planning: develop strategies for connecting people and goods with
destinations. However, it is not divorce from larger issues such as development of
human potential, social justice, environmental improvement or aesthetic appreciation.
Purposes broaden from primary task of designing to enhancing capability of decisions
making bodies. Public participation seen as a part of an ongoing learning process, not
an episodic event prior to adaptation of a plan
Planning process: it does not involve a linear progression form ends to means. Instead,
it is an iterative process that transforms the decision environment and the participants
themselves. It encourages a continuous critique about the planning process and its
effects. Processes are designed with attention to the time it takes for decision-makers
and stakeholders to learn and adopt new positions
Communicative practices: communication reveals knowledge, values and preferences,
but also constructs roles for participants, makes appeals to legitimacy and creates new
understandings. Communicative action is at the core of learning and deciding.
Processes of discourse and interpretation create an opportunity to search for
transformations of understanding and points of agreement even when decision-makers
seem to have opposing perspectives. Focus on creating meaning and mutual
understanding to enrich the basis for deciding and acting
4

Communicative transportation planners create awareness about speech, seeking to

help participants understand one another. In designing participatory activities, planners
encourage sincerity of expression and examination of the legitimacy with which claims
are made and in the process, enrich the quality of political claims
Problem-framing: this model frames problems differently than the conventional mode.
Rather than assume that problems can be defined and bounded in a single frame,
communicative planners place greater emphasis on acknowledging different problem
frames and mediating between frames. Communicative rationality provides a basis for
examining and seeking redefinition of problem frames. In doing so, the planning
process becomes more realistic and transparent, albeit potential more complicated
Analysis/Modeling: data analysis and modelling are crucial elements of communicative
planning, but they are in the service of deliberative processes, not ends in themselves.
They serve group processes, not a unitary decision maker. Data analysis and modelling
takes a place along with and in support of other modes of knowing
Language is the way in which numeric results of modelling projects are understood and
made meaningful. Numeric and language dimensions are treated in an integrated
fashion
Flyvbjerg: arguments that the context for rationality is power that turns rationality
into rationalisation
Communicative dimension indeed might seem soft compared to traffic engineers
Communicative distortions are a source of power in an environment where the
planners influence is sometimes outweighed by special interests. Second, distorted
communicative practices may achieve progress in case of mystifying policy language
and practitioners should not manipulate information
Communicative rationality can enhance the quality of deliberation and support
consensus-based decisions. Planners are confined to limited roles if they do not fully
participate in the communicative realm
Transportation planning is a language-based activity, it is based on meaning not
numbers. The planning idea always comes from the linguistic realm, something
imagined, discussed, linked to stories and meanings
Terrain of transportation planning has shifted from engineering problems to travel
behaviour questions beyond the scope of current conditions; from building new
highways to managing behaviour and services. This shift makes language discourse
more important
In communicative environment around most transportation planning, few are willing to
learn something new. Communicative rationality can create a planning process that
rebuilds the quality of discourse and the deliberative capacity of institutions and the
public
Transportation research and practice communities should come together to develop
transportation planning processes that are suited to the problems and context of the
coming decades

Brommelstoet & Bertolini, 2011

-

Transport issues in daily urban planning practice face several transitions: from classical
predict and provide, later predict and prevent to a more balanced view on mobility and
accessibility, from focusing on transport as a single issue to a more holistic view of
mobility, from searching for means for a given goal to being one of the subjects in the
goal-seeking process and from a relatively simple institutional context to a complex one
with multiple participating stakeholders, with multiple values and multiple conflicting
goals
Many state-of-the-art applications that have been developed in academia or by
consultants do not fit the changing characteristics of daily planning practice
Learning for strategy-making happens during the process of making, rather than using
transport-related models
5

Pelzer, Geertman, Heijden & Rouwette, 2014

-

PSS: geo-information technology-based instruments that incorporate a suite of

components that collectively support some specific parts of a unique professional
planning task
The communicative or collaborative turn in planning emphasises social aspects like
social interaction, participation and group dynamics, which has also been picked up in
the PSS debate
The framework of PSS functions on three levels: individual, group and outcome
PSS at the individual level is learning; about the object of planning and about the
perspective of other stakeholders in planning
Four values can be discerned at group level: communication, collaboration, consensus
and efficiency
Measuring added value at outcome level is complicated, unknown if outcome would be
different without PSS
Attention must be paid to PSS that explicitly facilitate group processes, since
traditionally PSS often build on the single-user desktop computer paradigm when
aiming at supporting group work also hampers usability
Constructive atmosphere and open dialogue seems to increase the changes of
achieving a consensus. Because stakeholders are more involved in the planning issue,
they are more likely to agree on assumptions, problem statements and possible
solutions
Better informed decisions can only be made if learning occurs at the individual level
and when communication at the group level functions adequately
Added value at the group level is perceived to be central in the perception of
practitioners. This confirms the notion that collaboration and communication have
become critical components in the role of planning support

Jones, 2011
-

A report provided evidence that many disadvantaged people experienced problems in

accessing goods and services due to a wide variety of tempo-spatial related factors,
especially when using public transport services
Seven main types of accessibility-related social exclusion: spatial, temporal, personal,
financial, environmental, infrastructural and institutional
Key barriers to delivering coordinated accessibility planning were identified:
deregulated public transport system, limited public transport access to local jobs,
safety issues, uncoordinated planning across sectors, silo-working and too target driven
Participants in residents focus groups had a great deal of first-hand experience of
accessibility problems which they faced in their daily lives, but the challenge lays in
helping them to articulate this knowledge in a systematic way which could be
documented and codified for further analysis and action

Acker, Wee & Witlox, 2010

-

Key variables in empirical travel studies refer: spatial characteristics, socio-economic

characteristics and socio-psychological characteristics
Utility maximisation does not totally encompass the motivation of human behaviour.
Establishing a more comprehensive framework would involve combining and linking
theories stemming from not only microeconomics, but also from transport geography
and social psychology
Activity behaviour which refers to spatial and temporal characteristics of the performed
activities must be studied in order to understand travel behaviour
Space-time prism: only a particular set of locations in space and time is available, it is
determined by the location and duration of activities, individual budget and travel
velocities
6

Hagerstrand focuses on constraints that influence time-space paths and prisms:

capability, coupling and authority
Opportunities refer to the availability of facilities and services, as well as the quality of
those facilities and services
Long term changes only occur if short-term adjustments do not sufficiently reduce the
imbalance between activity opportunities and needs. Longer term changes are not
frequently made, but are well-reasoned and determine the context in which daily
activity behaviour is performed. They have a considerable influence on everyday
activity and travel behaviour
Short-term and medium-term locations decisions are made by the individual to satisfy
his lifestyle decision. In this, lifestyle also influences daily travel behaviour
The social burden to behave uniformly disappeared because of increasing
individualisation and decreasing social control
Weber: behaviour cannot be explained by social class exclusively. He added the
concept of status, which refers to a group of people that share the same prestige and
obtain a similar lifestyle
Bourdieu: capital not only refers to economic capital such as money and real estates,
but to cultural capital as well
Time budget and income can be measured objectively, whereas cognitive skills and
status consideration are rather subjective
No hierarchy can be found based on stage of life. Nevertheless, stage in life influences
behaviour and preferences. Lifestyles are internal to the individual and are
unobservable. A lifestyle manifests itself in observable patterns of behaviour
Lifestyle refers to the individuals opinions and orientations toward general themes
such as family orientation, work orientation and leisure
Perceptions refer to the way various aspects of the built environment, activities and
travel are considered by an individual, whereas attitudes include an evaluation of these
characteristics
Combining insights from social psychology and transport geography seems auspicious.
Moreover, certain theories in social psychology argue that behaviour is not always wellreasoned through perceptions, attitudes and preferences
Triandis states that three aspects of attitudes consist: cognitive aspect involving
perceptions and knowledge of the stimuli, affective aspect involving feelings/emotions
and behavioural aspect involving acting in response to two other aspects
Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) behaviour is considered as the result of rational
choice. People are considered as rational human beings
Ronis: Theory of Repeated Behaviour (TRB), once the behaviour is repeated it becomes
a habit and decision-making is no longer based on attitudes and other well-reasoned
influences. This is mainly influences by habits rather than attitudes
Social cognitive theory considers reciprocal relationships between behaviour, personal
characteristics and the environment
Intrapersonal processes such as perception indicate that behaviour is not only
influences by objective characteristics of the environment, but by the subjective
evaluation of these characteristics
Nested data structure is bet analysed using a multilevel analysis. This can be combined
with a SEM so that both kinds of interdependencies are accounted for and the
complexity of travel behaviour is better understood
Daily travel behaviour is embedded in a decision hierarchy and these behavioural
decisions are the result of an assessment of reasoned and unreasoned influences.
Individual decision-making and behaviour should be considered within a social
environment and spatial environment

Naess & Strand, 2012

Due to context-dependency of each particular planning situation, it is also hardly

possible to make exact, quantitative predictions about the impact of implementing a
specific infrastructure project, compared to doing nothing
Forecasts are produced using mathematical transport models designed to calculate
traffic implications of changes in the transportation system
Traffic modelling belongs to the market-oriented group of methods for needs analysis,
distinct from normative methods and group-based methods
Traffic model forecasts play a key role in cost-benefit analyses
Brems: distinguishes strategic, tactical and operational traffic models
Strategic: long-term and have low geographical resolution, Tactical models cover a long
or medium-term time span and have a level of detail reflecting the aim of assessing
significant effects of proposed projects and Operational models confined to much
smaller geographical areas and are very detailed
System closed if two conditions are met: no qualitative change influencing the
mechanisms operating within the system must take place and no change in the
relations between the mechanisms internal to the system and those operating outside
it must occur
Critical realism recognizes the existence of pseudo-closed systems, where degree of
openness or closure referred to is real and not illusory
The emergence of causal relationships on a higher ontological stratum presupposes the
existence of this kind of event regularity at a lower stratum
Event regularity: relatively stable tendency, but not an invariant regularity resulting in
constant hourly or daily amount of rainfall
The aggregate-level mechanism of induced travel resulting from better-flowing traffic
depends on the continual existence of some importance attached to the rationale of
travel time minimization, giving rise to a certain pattern of decisions resulting in certain
patterns of travel behavior under certain conditions
The future traffic in a new transport corridor is not only influence by the construction of
new or expanded infrastructure. Overall macro-level trends in mobility also matter a
good deal
The system in which the general, background level of mobility in a given society
develops must be characterized as a predominantly open one, with low degrees of
conjuncttural regularity between the mechanisms and low even regularity among
phenomena causing the aggregate result
Transport planning relies heavily on the possibility of predicting the consequences of
alternative solutions with at least some degree of precision
Trying to predict how the sum of all these global trends and political decisions at
national and local level will influence general, long-term traffic growth rates can be
nothing other than a more or less qualified guess
Since a number of parameters influencing traffic development have changed over time,
we cannot be sure that an effect of infrastructure development found twenty years ago
will be the same today, let alone in the future situation to which the forecasts refer
Apart from being extremely data-hungry and slow to operate, disaggregated models
have also very high degrees of stochastic uncertainty. In practice this stochastic
uncertainty tends to increase the number of difficult-to-quantify factors that are
included in the model
Patomaki: scenarios informed by social science should be based on assumptions that
can be publicly criticized and debated, starting with an analysis of relevant existing
structures and processes and their inherent possibilities, combined with the basic
assumption that futures remain open until a particular possibility is actualized
It is preferable to construct a limited number of explorative scenarios for future traffic
volumes envisaging trajectories of high, medium, low and negative traffic growth
8

Instead of using sophisticated models to calculate precisely wrong, transport planners

should aim to be approximately right, using theory-informed adaptations of state-ofthe-art knowledge about induced traffic to the planning context at hand
Current tendency among transport model developers of trying to integrate strategic,
tactical as well as operational assessment into the same huge micro-simulation model
appears to be a futile endeavour

Jones & Lucas, 2012

-

In many western countries the main rationale for continued investment in transport is
to promote economic growth and second to contribute to meeting CO2 reduction
targets. The social dimension appears to be the poor relation in transport research,
policy and practice, due to limited recognition and poor articulation
The historical oversight of the social impacts and distributional effects of transport
decision-making is fundamentally undermining quality of life and the social well-being
of citizens in our towns, cities and rural settlements
It would be more useful to define impacts and then recognise that each potentially has
an economic, environmental and a social dimension, all of which might have
distributional consequences
Distributional impacts may take three forms: spatial, temporal and socio-demographic
Impacts in UK have to be grouped in five broad objectives: Environment, Safety,
Economy, Accessibility and Integration
Examine literature on social outcomes under five main headings: accessibility,
movement and activities, health-related, finance-related and community-related
impacts
Accessibility provides measures of the degree to which people can reach the goods and
services that society considers are necessary for them to live their daily lives, but with
an emphasis on potential/capability rather than actual behaviour
Strategic accessibility is concerned with the degree to which the land use pattern and
associated modal transport networks over a substantial area facilitate travel from one
local area to another, in order to participate in a particular kind of desired activity
It is not always evident in which direction a benefit or disbenefit lives
Health-related: road casualties and injuries, air quality, noise, physical activity and
intrinsic value
Two types of autotelic travel: unnecessary trips and necessary trips with unnecessary
activities
Finance-related: poor people pay higher public transport fares as they cannot afford to
purchase discounted tickets in advance, because of the high up-front costs
Community-related: community debates recognise and embrace both communities of
place/space and communities of identity/interest and demonstrate that there are
important interactions between the two
In the field of sociology due to transportation and telecommunication advances, society
has evolved from door-to-door relationships to place-to-place interactions towards a
networked individualism
The more negative community effects are often concentrated within particular
geographical locations, particularly within areas of deprivation on the fringes of cities
As income grows the satisfaction derived from an additional unit of consumption
declines, it notes that a doubling of consumption halves the marginal value of
consumption
Successful policy interventions are likely to require solutions that involve the combined
intervention of several of the policy and commercial sectors

Banister, Anderton, Bonilla, Givoni & Schwanen, 2011

9

Transport system is the blood system of society and one that has metaphorically
contracted the planet
Transport enables people to travel; to access employment opportunities and services
including healthcare, shopping and leisure, and to maintain spatially extended social
networks
Climate models suggest that emissions in 2050 should be 50%-85% lower than in 1990
to limit changes in global temperature to 2-2,4 degrees
Growth in transport needs to be decoupled from economic growth to avoid further
increases in transports environmental impacts
Technology has speeded up travel, which means shorter travel times for undertaking
the same range of activities or increasing the range of activities that could be
undertaken within a specific travel time budget
Centre of gravity of the global economy and trade has moved to Asia because of
greater offshore manufacturing capacity and freight transport activity. CO2 emissions
will become dominated by BRIC and the OECD countries will become the main
importing region
Increasing income, as well as growing participation of women in the labour force and
the decrease in household size, acts to increase car ownership, which in turn
contributes to increased personal mobility
Increase in the size of cities resulted in a disproportionate increase in the demand for
transport as various activities became more spatially separated and segregated
Governance of transport systems has also had an important influence on the volume of
travel. Main result of this change in governance is a reduction in the real costs of travel
through more efficient operations, including the emergence of low-cost airlines
Deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation designed to correct market failures in
transport have probably contributed to raising its environmentally unsustainable
character
Response to congestion has often been an increase in the supply of infrastructure
Life cycle assessment has demonstrated the full range of transport activities associated
with the entire supply chain of products. Even if these are included in the costs of
transport, they have little effect on transport volumes, as demand elasticities for travel
are low and because rising income levels reduce the effectiveness of higher prices
Congestion problems are considered much more important to address in transport
planning through demand management, with environmental considerations seen as
desirable but not essential
Two main reasons for the differences between megacities (over 10 million inhabitants)
in the developed and developing countries are the endemic congestion and the state of
the vehicle fleet
Transport is expected to continue to increase at least until 2050 and probably beyond
Leapfrogging to a low-Co2 transport system would provide significant cobenefits as well
as less dependency on imported oil
The personal vehicle has impeded the decarbonisation of world transport activity
because of the increase in vehicles size and because of carbon lock-in
Freight transport faces four challenges to decarbonise the transport sector of OECD
economies: reduce off-shore manufacturing and CO2 leakage to regions outside EU and
USA, allocate emission reductions equitably, reduce consumption of key CO2 intensive
products and introduce policies to support innovation
High energy prices or taxes can enhance the monetary savings conferred by the
technology chosen
Policy approaches must rely on multiple strategies to decarbonise transport, as a single
approach is not likely to produce the CO2 savings desired
Three key factors in transport policies for decarbonisation are the policy framework, its
underlying philosophy and its impacts. The current public policy framework for
10

decarbonisation is highly reliant on rational decision theory and on expected utility

theory
The assumption of rational economic agents leads to the concept of cost-effectiveness:
which is feasible under high learning rates and technological change
Other policies include fuel pricing and information, which are at the heart of the rational
decision maker, but other perspectives offer alternative policy options by
acknowledging the irrational behaviour of consumers and of policy actors
Apart from costs, other mechanisms are need to induce changes in individual, collective
and corporate behaviour. Nudges and cognitive processes can help to shift behaviour
toward cost-effective policy options
The decarbonisation of transport needs to be linked to wider policy goals, such as
health, trade, macroeconomic stability, energy efficiency and security
Transport governance needs to be understood in context of automobile-based transport
system as a sociotechnical system: such systems reproduce themselves through
positive feedback loops and increasing returns. Transport governance is seen as the
outcome of interactions between multiple stakeholders and is a crucial aspect of the
sociotechnical regime
Three ideal approaches to overcome fossil fuel dependency: end-of-pipe measures
(leave the system intact but treat externalities), continuity measures (incremental or
intrasystem innovations that maintain the overall system architecture and maximise
similarities) and discontinuity measures (radical, intersystem innovations or transitions
resulting in complete abandonment of existing system)
Discontinuity approaches are radical innovations for some actors, but can be
understood and reappropriated by others as having a symbiotic, continuous
relationship with existing systems
Discourses that came into existence when the key challenge facing transport planning
was to accommodate the growing demand for transport continue to structure thinking
by researchers, policy makers and lobby organisations about how transport can be
decarbonised in many ways
Governance of transport systems remains in many instances a technocratic exercise
that is strongly driven by technical expertise, exclusionary in that only a subset of
stakeholders is involved and organised in a top-down manner
The predisposition toward Fordist specialisation and compartmentalisation is so wired
into transport governances rules that the ideals of coordination and holism are difficult
to carry through into real-world planning practice
When considering the global context and increasing internationalisation of our transport
infrastructures, better coordination in and among countries is required, yet the complex
tapestry of varying routines and institutional arrangements actually makes
fragmentation worse and integration more difficult
Means, resources and strategies for reshaping processes at landscape level will need to
vary from place to place and according to the type and scale of transport
It is not always clear where transport-related emissions should be reduced. The debate
is already highly complex and contested and the global distribution of GHG reduction
responsibilities is complicated further by the rapid growth of international aviation and
maritime transport
Given transports major economic and societal benefits, policy makers and other
stakeholders often hesitate to actually act to reduce or limit transport demand.
Frequently, policy makers seem to prefer to maintain and even increase transport
volumes to facilitate economic growth albeit at lower environmental cost by promoting
model shift and technology-oriented interventions, like cleaner fuels and tighter fuel
economy standards
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There is a real risk that overall emissions will grow because of increased total transport
volumes. This growth in emissions will be smaller than if CO2-intensive forms of
transport are promoted
A radical holism is required that moves beyond the progressive interventions already
undertaken in countries as the Netherlands. This radically holistic approach would not
focus primarily on passenger surface transport but would also set out to enact step
changes in the freight sector and the international transport of people and goods

Mackie & Preston, 1998

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Message is that appraisal cannot be a black box, critical judgement is required to probe
the strength of every link in the chain of logic
Road flows easily measured, origins and destinations complicated, data on bus and rail
usage are commercially confidential, surveys taken on a typical day and households
used that undertake a lot of traven
Most transport forecasts are in turn dependent on forecast of external factors
Substantial errors in forecasts of the impact of transport investments: specification
errors (global averages), lack of transferability (not transferable), aggregation error
(wrongly calibrated) and scale factor problem
It is often argued that road projects depend excessively on the quantified Cost-Benefit
analyses
Possibility that certain impacts may be included twice or possible three times in an
appraisal
Suggest three antidotes: within-organisations, groups who function it is to own the
appraisal regime rather than the projects, and to ensure that the appraisal is honest,
expose projects to open scrutiny at public inquiries and spend more on ex-post
evaluation than is currently done

Van Wee, 2009

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Often incorrect scenarios for the future, using different scenarios as described in
analysis and some Cost Benefit Analysis only use one scenario to estimate the project
effects
Most important substantive problem cluster is problems with the estimation of the nonmonetised project effects

Beukers, Bertolini & Brommelstroet, 2011

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The biggest challenge lies in decreasing the level of mistrust and communication
deficits revealed between plan owners and CBA calculators and their respective frames
of thinking when assessing complex integrated land use and transportation plans
The incorporation of stakeholders in the CBA process could be difficult, because the
CBA is based on welfare theory and compensation criteria, whereas each stakeholder
has its own set of costs and benefits
Trustworthiness (credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability) and
authenticity are important to achieving worthwhile qualitative studies
Plan makers, advisors, CBA makers, funding applicants and lobbyists worry about the
matter of inclusion of soft effects into the CBA
Strategic behaviour can be reduced by independently testing CBAs
Whereas on the one hand the CBA gives too much information, on the other it shows a
deficit of information related to what was mentioned ad political sensitivities
Finally, plan makers, advisors, CBA makers and academics found it problematic that
contemporary decision-making processes for infrastructure projects demand
unrealistically clear and unambiguous information
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The experience of an imbalance in the attention given to soft and hard effects in CBA
relates to the experience of CBA as a black box and the notion that the instrument is
used rigidly
According to some interviewees, the focus is too much on creating certainties about the
assessed plans, so that the decision can be based on scientific proof like in CBA, even
tough this proof may not be as accurate as expected by its users
Other expressed the opinion that monetising soft effects should not be done at all,
since this will create false certainty
Not every analysis which claims to be a CBA is a real CBA. Participants may act
strategically by just fulfilling the formal requirements and trying to adjust the CBA input
in such a way that it will score well in CBA terms
Academics state that the CBA is applied too late in the planning process, when plans
are already designed and political positions entrenched
It is not surprising that assessing a planners plan through an economic method of
appraisal causes friction
Appraisal methods which are aimed to support the old goals do not automatically fit the
demands of the changing planning paradigm
Awareness of process-related issues and dilemmas is crucial if we want to improve the
use of CBAs to assess integrated land use and transportation plans. The level of trust
should be increased so that effective communication and cooperation between
participants in the process could be improved

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