Ecological Indicators 43 (2014) 288–296

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Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Transport sustainability index: Melbourne case study

Marzieh Reisi, Lu Aye ∗ , Abbas Rajabifard, Tuan Ngo
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Group, Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Quantifying the sustainability of urban transport is important as evidenced by a growing number of
Received 4 February 2013 studies to measure sustainability in transportation. This paper reviewed major initiatives reported in
Received in revised form 3 March 2014 the current literature, which dealt with the challenge of measuring transport sustainability using long
Accepted 10 March 2014
lists of indicators. To overcome the issue of using too many indicators for evaluation, this paper develops
a method for obtaining a composite transport sustainability index for Melbourne statistical local areas
Keywords:
(SLAs). Nine sustainability indicators relevant to urban transport which deal with environmental, social
Sustainable urban transport
and economic aspects were selected by assessing and reviewing past research and based on available
Sustainability indicators
Composite index
data for Melbourne. The indicators were integrated to environmental, social, and economic sub-indices
Principle component analysis and then to a composite index, in a way that overcomes the limitations on normalisation, weighting
Factor analysis and aggregation. Indices developed based on the applied method allow comparisons between different
statistical local areas (SLAs) and could help organisations for better understanding of the measures and
activities that influence the sustainability of urban transport, and for identifying appropriate responses
for addressing them in Melbourne.
Crown Copyright © 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction making because of their hard interpretation, integrating different

One-fifth of the carbon dioxide (CO2 ), one third of chlorofluoro-
carbons (CFCs), and half of nitrogen oxides (NOx ) in the atmosphere
related to transport activities (OECD, 2008). Transportation has
significant economic, social and environmental impacts and is an
important factor in sustainability. OECD defined sustainable trans-
port as “transportation that does not endanger public health or
ecosystems and meets the needs for access” (EA, 1999).
Sustainable indicators which was first brought up at the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, are used as important
tools for measuring different aspects of sustainable development
(Dobranskyte-Niskota et al., 2007). Indicators facilitate commu-
nication among scientists, policymakers, and public because they
provide high volume of information in a simple form that are eas-
ier to interpret and understand (Alberti, 1996). They break down
the complex concept into small and manageable units of infor-
mation, so they can easily capture different aspects of transport
sustainability (Castillo and Pitfield, 2010). Current sustainability
studies deal with the challenge of measuring transport sustaina-
bility using long lists of sustainable indicators (Table 1). Since using
too many indicators is inappropriate and complex for decision
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3834 46879; fax: +61 3834 46215.
E-mail address: lua@unimelb.edu.au (L. Aye).
indicators into a single index is useful.
Aggregating individual indicators into a composite index is a
practical approach for sustainability evaluation (Dur et al., 2010).
It measures multi-dimensional aspects of sustainability that can-
not be captured completely by individual indicators alone (Saisana,
2011; Zhou et al., 2007). Despite extensive use of composite
indices, there are two conflicting views about them. The oppo-
nents of composite index believe that composite index is not
reliable because its construction is subjective (Cherchye et al.,
2007). Moreover, no single index can answer all questions and
there is a need for multiple indicators (Jollands et al., 2003). On
the other hand, some researchers believe that composite indices
are valuable communication tools because they limit the number
of presented information and allow for quick and easy comparisons
(Freudenberg, 2003). These two ideas are two sides of the coin and
it can be concluded that indicators aggregation is successful if clear
assumptions and methodology are used and if the index can be
disaggregated to its components (Jollands et al., 2003).
Melbourne is one of the Australian largest cities which has a
considerable amount of atmospheric emissions related to trans-
port (Alford and Whiteman, 2008). It is beneficial to develop a
composite transport sustainability index for Melbourne to com-
pare different planning scenarios. This paper aims to develop an
index for Melbourne which considers environmental, social and
economic performance. Although large numbers of attempts were
made to identify sustainable transport indicators, limited number

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.03.004
1470-160X/Crown Copyright © 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 M. Reisi et al. / Ecological Indicators 43 (2014) 288–296 289

Table 1
Sustainable transport indicators in previous studies.

Aspect Indicators Determinants

GHG emission • Vehicle kilometre travelled by car

• Passenger kilometre travelled by public transport
Environmental • Mode share
Other air pollutants • Vehicle kilometre travelled
• Passenger kilometre travelled by public transport
• Mode share
Energy use • Vehicle kilometre travelled
• Passenger kilometre travelled by public transport
• Mode share
Population exposed to noise • Traffic volume
Land consumption for transport • Land use mix
• Length of railways and main road
• Length of cycling and walking pass

Fatality and injuries of traffic accident • Vehicle ownership

per capita
Social
Accessibility to facilities and public • Railway and main road length
transport • Proportion of residents with public transit services within 500 m
Satisfaction of citizens and variety and • Quality of transport for disadvantaged, disabled, children, non driver
quality of transport options • Quality of pedestrian and bicycle environment
Fatality and injuries resulted from air –
pollution

Household expenditure allocated to • Cost of parking

Economic transport Fuel price
• Commute costs
Accident cost –
Transport emission costs • VKT
• Modal split

of studies aggregate different indicators into a single index. Zito 2.1. Melbourne – the study area
and Salvo (2011) and Haghshenas and Vaziri (2012) in develop-
ing transport sustainability index considered environmental, social, The city of Melbourne is located on the southeast coast of
and economic aspects. In these studies, various indicators were Australia, on the northern edge of Port Phillip Bay. The study area
given equal importance, which may not be the case. Moreover, contained 79 statistical local areas (SLAs) identified by the Aus-
these studies use statistical data and survey results for indicator tralian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The topography and climate make
quantifications. There is a lack of studies which develop models Melbourne an area of high air pollution potential (EPA, 2000). As
for indicator quantifications and develop environmental, social, aviation is a small overall contributor to local air quality impacts
economic and composite indices for transport sustainability using (Waitz et al., 2004), therefore it was not considered in this study. In
different weights for various indicators. To fill these knowledge Melbourne, 51 billion kilometres are travelled annually by passen-
gaps and meet the research aim, this study attempts to develop gers, with 75.4% of those are by cars, 9.1% are by public transport,
some models to quantify environmental, social, and economic 13.1% are by walking and 2% are by cycling (Alford and Whiteman,
indicators, and develop transportation environmental index (IE ),
transportation social index (IS ), transportation economic index
(IC ) and finally composite transport sustainability index (ICST ) for
Select prominent transport indicators
Melbourne in 2006 using appropriate normalisation, weighting
and aggregation methods. Selected environmental, social, and eco-
nomic indicators in this study were the final impacts of transport,
which were quantified using transport determinants such as vehi-
Quantify transport indicators
cle kilometre travelled (VKT) and passenger kilometre travelled
(PKT). The most appropriate method was selected for weighting
which overcomes the limitations of the methods used in the previ-
ous sustainability studies. Explanations for choices of each method
Normalise the indicators
used in this study are provided in the following sections.

2. Method
Weight the indicators (using PCA/FA)
Composite indices are very essential for decision making since
they limit the number of presented information and allow for quick
and easy comparisons (Freudenberg, 2003). The process of calculat-
ing the composite index in this study was divided into several parts. Calculate sub-indices
At first, prominent indicators were selected in environmental,
social and economic aspects. Then indicators with different mea-
surement units were normalised. Weighting selected indicators,
relevant indicators were first aggregated into three sub-indices Combine sub-indices into one single index
and finally integrated to a composite transport sustainability index
(Fig. 1). Fig. 1. Procedure for calculating composite transport sustainability index (ICST ).
290 M. Reisi et al. / Ecological Indicators 43 (2014) 288–296

Table 2
Criteria for indicators selection.

Criteria Description Reference

Relevance Each indicator must properly hold the definition of transport Dur et al. (2010)
sustainability.
Maturity The indicator system should contain environmental, social and Dur et al. (2010), Li et al. (2009), Spiekermann and
economic aspects of transport. Wegener (2004), Zito and Salvo (2011)
Data availability Needed data must be available easily and at a reasonable cost. Haghshenas and Vaziri (2012); Zito and Salvo (2011)
Quantifiable Indicators must be quantifiable. Li et al. (2009)
Understandable To facilitate debates among experts and users, simplicity is important. Haghshenas and Vaziri (2012); Zito and Salvo (2011)
Independent Indicators should be independent of each other. Haghshenas and Vaziri (2012); Li et al. (2009)
Sensitivity Indicators should be sensitive to any changes in the system to reflect Haghshenas and Vaziri (2012); Li et al. (2009)
the changes of environmental, social, and economic development.
Predictability As indicators can be used to model future policy impacts, it is essential Dur et al. (2010); Spiekermann and Wegener (2004)
that indicators values can be forecasted for the future.

2008; DOT, 2007). With motor vehicle as a significant source of air economic). These are regarded as main aspects of sustainability
pollutants (83% of CO, 16% of PM10 , 63% of NOx , 13% of SO2 , 41% of in the field generally, and sustainable transport specifically (Black
VOC, and 97% of lead and compounds are related to motor vehicles et al., 2002; Haghshenas and Vaziri, 2012; Janic, 2006; Jeon and
(Brindle et al., 1999)) in Melbourne, transport sustainability issue Amekudzi, 2005; Levett, 1998; Sahely et al., 2005). Selected spatial
needs a special attention in this area. scale, SLA, for this study restricted the number of evaluated indi-
cators that can be quantified using available data. Some indicators
2.2. Indicators selection such as vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT), passenger kilometres
travelled (PKT), length of railways and main road, proportion
Sustainable indicators are variables which are defined to mea- of residents with public transit services within 500 m were not
sure progress towards sustainability. So indicators selection is the directly considered as an indicator, but rather they were used to
first step in all sustainability studies. This study started by evaluat- quantify selected indicators such as depletion of non-renewable
ing the list of indicators from past studies (Table 1). These indicators resources, emission, and accessibility. Fuel price and household
can be categorised in three main aspects: environmental, social, and expenditure on transport were evaluated as part of car owner-
economic. Indicators have been used to quantify both determinants ship cost indicator. Although energy consumption is one of the
of sustainability and final impacts. However, much of the literature major indicators considered in most of studies, it is highly corre-
does not distinguish between these two. lated with emission. As independency is an important criterion for
Selecting a set of indicators that provides a holistic picture of indicators selection, depletion of non-renewable resource is con-
the considered system is challenging (Castillo and Pitfield, 2010). sidered as an indicator instead of energy consumption. There was
Choosing indicators often involves tradeoffs. While using a smaller not enough data to quantify some indicators such as satisfaction of
set of indicators is more convenient, it may overlook the important citizens, variety and quality of transport options, quality of trans-
impacts. On the other hand, a large set of indicators is comprehen- port for disadvantaged, disabled, population exposed to noise, and
sive but its collection and analyses costs are extensive. So some cost of parking. So these indicators were excluded from evalua-
criteria are needed for indicators selection. Some selection criteria tion. Selected indicators for this study not only met the selection
were used to identify a list of indicators that can be used to quantify criteria, but also were a combination of environmental, social, and
transport sustainability in Melbourne (Table 2). economic aspects.
Screening by the selection criteria, only a small number of indi- It is worth mentioning that some of the selected environmen-
cators were found to be suitable for the study area (Table 3). As tal indicators are not the final outcomes of the transport system
the objective of sustainable urban transport changes with the con- and they are intermediate ones. For example, GHG emissions and
text, locality, time, and specific knowledge (Castillo and Pitfield, other air pollutants cause climate change, not only in national, but
2010), the selected set of indicators were flexible enough to repre- also in international scale. Climate change causes different dam-
sent Melbourne trend towards transport sustainability and covered ages such as changes in precipitation pattern, forest fires, flooding,
all aspects of sustainable development (environmental, social and drought events, sea level rise, and storms. These damages con-
tribute to people’s deaths and costs. So the final indicator might be
costs associated with pollutions and its social impacts. As quantify-
Table 3 ing these costs is impractical in this study, air pollutants emissions
Selected sustainable transport indicators for Melbourne. were selected as indicators.
Selected indicators for the study Unit
2.3. Indicators quantification
Transportation environmental indicators
Depletion of non-renewable resources Litres of crude oil per
After selecting indicators, values must be assigned to differ-
household annually
GHG emissions (CO2-e ) kg per household annually
ent indicators, so indicators must be quantified. For this study, the
Other air pollutants (CO, NO2 , PM10 ) kg per household annually databases applied were 2006 ABS database and Victorian Integrated
Land consumption for transport m2 per household Survey of Travel and Activity 2007 (VISTA07). Using these databases
Transportation social indicators selected transport indicators were quantified. As mentioned before,
Accessibility Score between 0 and 1 unlike other transport sustainability studies, this study attempt to
Fatalities and injuries related to traffic accidents Persons per household develop models for indicators quantification rather than directly
annually observed or measured indicators.
Mortality effects of air pollutants Persons per household
annually
2.3.1. Transport environmental indicators
Transportation economical indicators This group of indicators is about transportation resource
Car ownership costs $ per household annually depletion, transport related emissions, and land consumption for
Vehicle and general costs of accidents $ per household annually transport.
 M. Reisi et al. / Ecological Indicators 43 (2014) 288–296
Table 4
Emission factors for public and private transport (NPI, 2002, 2008).
Pollutant Emission factor for Emission factor for
public transport private transport
CO 5.060 × 10−3 kg/VKT 4.440 × 10−3 kg/VKT
PM10 0.569 × 10−3 kg/VKT 8.030 × 10−6 kg/VKT
NOx 10 × 10−3 kg/VKT 0.800 × 10−3 kg/VKT
• Transport fuel depletion: Transport fossil fuel usage is not sustain-
able in terms of depletion of a non-renewable resources and the
pollutions caused by combustion of fossil fuels (OECD, 1996).
In this study, litres of crude oil were used as a determinant
of resource depletion. To calculate the crude oil consumption,
first transport energy consumption was calculated using vehicle
kilometre travelled for private transports, passenger kilometre
travelled for public transport, and energy factor for private and
public transport (Eq. (1)) (Rickwood, 2009).
Energy = VKTc EnFc + PKTp EnFp
where EnFc , energy factor for private car (4.6 MJ/VKT); EnFp ,
energy factor for public transport (1.4 MJ/PKT).
To convert MJ of energy consumption in transport to litres of
crude oil, petroleum refinery efficiency must be calculated. In
this study, petroleum refinery efficiency was estimated using
Eq. (2) (Wang, 2008) and volumes and energy contents of
petroleum refinery inputs and products in Melbourne (Australian
Government, 2010; BREE, 2010):
Energy content of all petroleum products
Petroleum refinary efficiency =
Energy content of crude oil inputs
By knowing transport energy consumption and petroleum
refinery efficiency in Melbourne (estimated to be 88%), crude oil
consumptions (litres) can be calculated.
• GHG emissions: This indicator was included because motor vehi-
cles produce about one-fifth of man-made carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere. This indicator was calculated using emission factors
for private car and passenger transport (Eq. (3)) (Rickwood, 2009).
GHG emissions = VKTc EFc + PKTp EFp
where EFc , emission factor for private car (0.260 kg CO2-e /VKT);
EFp , emission factor for public transport (0.095 kg CO2-e /PKT).
It is worth mentioning that higher emission factor for Mel-
bourne compared to other countries in 2006 is that emissions
from passenger vehicles in Australia are 45% higher than the
Europe (Beissmann, 2012).
• Other air pollutants: This indicator was also calculated using emis-
sions factors (Table 4) of selected air pollutants. Using 2002
emission factors for this study is justifiable because we cannot
expect extensive technological improvement to reduce air emis-
sions in public transport between 2002 and 2006. Moreover, the
number of vehicle fleet replacement in four years time is gener-
ally small.
• Land consumption by transport: Areas of land which are devoted to
transport infrastructures were estimated using Melbourne land
use map.
2.3.2. Transport social indicators
This group includes accessibility, as well as all fatalities and
injuries related to road transport.
• Accessibility: This indicator was added to consider the level of
walking and public transport accessibility in the city. Accessibil-
ity, as the main goal of transport, is the ability to reach desired
goods, services, activities, and destinations. The most commonly
used accessibility measures in transport planning studies are
291
Table 5
Appropriate travel distance to facilities (minimum and maximum values) (Pitot
et al., 2006).
Facilities Appropriate Appropriate
distances for distances for
accessibility by accessibility by
walking public transport
Business centres 800–1600 m 20–50 min
Health centres 600–1200 m 20–40 min
Education centres 600–1200 m 20–40 min
Parks 500–1500 m 20–40 min
300–1000 for bus –
Public transport stations
600–1200 for train
gravity (all facilities divided by distance), travel cost (average dis-
tance between origins and all facilities), minimum distance (the
distance from origins to the nearest facility), and coverage (the
(1) number of facilities within specified distance) (Apparicio et al.,
2008; Lotfi and Koohsari, 2009). For example, Pitot et al. (2006)
used both minimum distance and coverage to access accessibility
by both walking and public transport to different range of facili-
ties, while Wachs and Kumagai (1973) used coverage measures to
estimate accessibility to employment by automobile. There is no
single best approach for accessibility quantification because dif-
ferent situations and purposes need different approaches (Geurs
and Wee, 2004). As the objective of accessibility index in this
study is to describe the proximity of SLAs to a series of facili-
ties, distance measure and coverage were selected to quantify
(2)
accessibility. Four types of distance can be used to calculate
the measure of accessibility: Euclidian distance (straight-line),
Manhattan distance (distance along two sides of a right-angled
triangle), shortest network distance, and shortest network time.
Network distance is a more accurate approximation of the travel
distance from an origin to a destination (Apparicio and Seguin,
2006) and so it is selected for the purpose of this study.
To quantify accessibility by walking in this study, points
of origin were Melbourne SLAs’ centres and points of des-
(3) tination included parks, education facilities, health services,
business zones, and public transport stations. In order to esti-
mate accessibility, shortest network distance between origins
and destinations were calculated, using ArcGIS 9.2 Network Ana-
lyst Extension, Melbourne’s land use map, and Melbourne’s roads
network. Network Analyst finds distance (m) between origin
and destination. Then SLAs (points of origin) were weighted for
the level of accessibility according to the calculated distance,
using fuzzy linear function. The fuzzy linear function applies a
linear function between the user-specified minimum and max-
imum values. Anything below the minimum is assigned 0 and
anything above the maximum is assigned 1 (ESRI, 1999). This
minimum and maximum values show appropriate and inappro-
priate distance to facilities. For example, it was assumed that
places with less than 500 m from parks are appropriated (full
fuzzy) and places with more than 1500 m from parks are inap-
propriate (fuzzy-less) and fuzzy linear function was assigned
fuzziness between 500 m and 1500 m. Appropriate travel dis-
tance to facilities are shown in Table 5. To quantify accessibility
by public transport, first public transport stops (PTx ) within a
specific walking distance (Table 5) from each destination were
selected. Then public transport stops (PTy ) on the rail network
that are within a given travel time from PTx were selected. Then
SLAs were weighted for the level of accessibility based on walking
distance to PTy , using fuzzy linear function.
Therefore, each SLA is scored between 0 and 1 based on
its distance to different facilities. After that, the final score of
accessibility for each SLA was obtained by using sum scores of
292 M. Reisi et al. / Ecological Indicators 43 (2014) 288–296
accessibility to different facilities by walking and public trans-
port.
• Fatalities and injuries related to traffic accidents: A sustainable
transport system should be designed and operated in a way
to minimise the number, severity, and risk of traffic accidents
(Castillo and Pitfield, 2010). Based on ATSB statistics, number of
deaths and injuries due to accidents is 0.8 and 14.8 per 100 mil-
lion VKT respectively (ATSB, 2007). To our knowledge, there is no
available published data for crash fatalities and injuries disaggre-
gated for Melbourne. Therefore the Australian average data was
used in this study.
• Mortality effects of air pollutants: Health is linked to social, eco-
nomic and environmental aspects of life and so is a major factor
for sustainable development (Barton, 2009). To quantify the
health effects of air pollutants, three components must be esti-
mated: level of exposure to the air pollutant, exposure/response
function (relative risk of considered air pollutant), and frequency
of the health outcome (Coffey, 2003). Transport related air pollut-
ant is a mixture of many substances and many air pollutants are
highly correlated in the ambient air due to their common sources.
The usual approach in air pollutant epidemiological studies is
that at least one specific pollutant is measured as an indicator
of the complex mixture. Most available studies use PM10 as a
useful indicator of the health risk related to transport. Although
PM10 may be a good indicator of air pollution, there is clear evi-
dence that other pollutants which poorly correlated with PM10
may have independent health effects. One such example is Ozone
as an indicator of oxidant pollution (Kunzli et al., 1999). Moreover,
according to the State of the Environment Report (2001), partic-
ulate and Ozone concentrations remain a concern in Melbourne
with no clear downward trend (Coffey, 2003). So using relative
risk of death for PM10 , 1.0009 and Ozone, 1.0023 (EPA, 2000), the
expected number of deaths due to air pollution was estimated
(Eq. (4)) (Ostro, 2004):
E = AF B P (4)
where E, the expected number of deaths due to air pollution; AF,
the impact fraction of the health effect for exposed population; B,
the population incident of mortality (i.e. death per 1000 people);
P, the relevant exposed population for the effect.
The population attributable risk to air pollutants is expressed
as a percentage of the total risk in the population. This is known
as the impact fraction of health effect for the exposed population.
For example if AF is 0.09% for PM10 , this means that, 0.09% of air
pollution related deaths in the population can be attributed to
PM10 .
RR − 1
AF = (5)
RR
where RR, relative risk of air pollutant.
2.3.3. Transport economic indicators
• Car ownership costs: Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV)
provides car ownership cost for 2010, 2011, 2012. The cost
includes standing costs (depreciation, interest on loan, registra-
tion, licence) and running costs (fuel, tires, and service/repairs
Assuming the same growth trend in the past, average car owner-
ship cost is estimated to be 72.18 cents per km in 2006 in
Melbourne. It should be noted that fuel cost in Melbourne is about
15% of the total cost of car ownership (RACQ, 2012).
• Cost of accidents fatalities and injuries: According to BTE (2000),
road crash costs in Australia include human cost, vehicle cost,
and general cost. Cost components of human losses are med-
ical, ambulance and rehabilitation, long-term care, labour in
workplace, labour in the household, quality of life, legal, correc-
tional services, workplace disruption and replacement, funeral
and coroner costs. According to BITRE (2009), estimated human
losses are approximately $2.4 million per fatality and $214,000
per injury (BTE, 2000). Vehicle costs and general costs related
to accidents which contain vehicle repairs, unavailability of
vehicles, towing, travel delay, insurance administration, police,
non-vehicle property damage, fire and emergency services costs,
are 49.02% and 29.64% of human costs respectively. As the num-
ber of fatalities and injuries related to transport was quantified
as a social indicator, to avoid double counting, accidents’ costs
which were quantified in this study just contained vehicle and
general costs related to transport accidents and human cost was
excluded.
Before integrating selected indicators into an index, they must
go through normalisation and weighting process.
2.4. Indicators normalisation
Transport indicators contain different types of information so
there might be some inconsistency in units among indicators.
Therefore, before indicators aggregation, it is necessary to trans-
form them to numbers without any dimension. This process is
called normalisation (Nardo et al., 2005). Indicators whose increas-
ing values have positive impact on sustainability were normalised
using Eq. (6a) and indicators whose increasing values have negative
impact on sustainability were normalised using Eq. (6b) (Krajnc and
Glavič, 2005):
+
I + − Imin
IN+ = + + (6a)
Imax − Imin
−
Imax − I−
IN− = − − (6b)
Imax − Imin
where IN , normalised indicator I; “+”, for indicator whose increas-
ing value has positive impact on sustainability; “−”, for indicator
whose increasing value has negative impact on sustainability; min,
minimum value of indicator; max, maximum value of indicator.
2.5. Weighting and combining indicators
This section compares different weighting methods to find the
most appropriate technique for weighting in this study.
2.5.1. Weighting methods comparison
Variables which are aggregated into a composite index have first
to be weighted using equal or different weights. Available weight-
ing methods can be classified in three categories, equal weighting,
weighting based on opinions and weighting based on statistical
models (Saisana, 2011). In many composite indicators, all vari-
ables are given the same weight largely for reasons of simplicity
(Dobranskyte-Niskota et al., 2007; Jeon et al., 2010; Lee and Huang,
2007). This implies that all indicators in the composite have equal
importance, which may not be the case. With the equal weighting
approach, there is a risk that certain aspects are double counted.
This is because two or more indicators may be measuring the same
behaviour (Freudenberg, 2003).
The most common method of weighting based on opinions
is the analytical hierarchy processes (AHP). It is a widely used
technique for multi-attribute decision-making (Alexander, 2012;
Lafleur, 2011; Tseng et al., 2008). It disaggregates a problem into
a hierarchical structure in which both qualitative and quantitative
aspects of a problem are evaluated using pair-wise comparisons.
Pair-wise comparisons are made between pairs of indicators, asking
experts which of the two indicators is more important, and by how
much. The preference is expressed on a scale of 1–9, with 1 indicates
equal importance between two indicators, while 9 indicates that
one indicator is nine times more important than another. People’s
 M. Reisi et al. / Ecological Indicators 43 (2014) 288–296
opinions are not always consistent. This method is recommended
for combining indicators less than 10, and is not transferable from
one area to another (Saisana, 2011). Weightings based on opinions
are subjective and arbitrary according to experts’ judgments (OECD,
2008; Saisana, 2011). So statistical models are more appropriate for
weighting.
Data envelopment analysis (DEA), benefit of doubt (BoD), and
principle component analysis/factor analysis (PCA/FA) are the
major statistical methods used for weighting. Using mathematical
programming techniques, DEA evaluates the efficiency of indi-
vidual decision-making units (DMU) that use multiple inputs to
produce multiple outputs (Cherchye et al., 2007; Saisana, 2011).
DEA allows DMUs to select weights that are the most advantageous
for them in calculating their efficiency scores (Kao and Hung, 2005).
In other words, DEA will allow the DMU to assign very high weights
to factors for which the DMU is particularly efficient and very low
weights to all the other factors. As a result, the relative efficiency
of a DMU may not really reflect its performance on the inputs and
outputs taken as a whole (Chaparro et al., 1997). Another limitation
of this method is that it classifies all DMUs into two groups, efficient
and inefficient, while in most cases ranking efficient and inefficient
DMUs are essential. The third limitation of this method is that, an
inefficient DMU with a smaller efficiency score does not necessarily
mean poorer performance than one with a larger efficiency score
because only the units under the same frontier facet are compa-
rable (Kao and Hung, 2005). The application of DEA to the field of
composite indices is known as BoD. In this method, there is a need
for a benchmark to weight indicators. A composite index of an area
is not given by a weighted sum of its sub-indicators, but rather by
the ratio of this sum to sum of the benchmark sub-indicators. This
method has the same limitation as DEA. Moreover, this method of
weighing deters the comparison among DMUs on a common base
because the benchmark is endogenous and it may differ from one
DMU to another (Cherchye et al., 2007; Kao and Hung, 2005).
Principal Component Analysis/Factor analysis (PCA/FA) is a pop-
ular means for making comparisons between different indicators
on several aspects. The method relies solely on the variation and
covariation of the data matrix to construct weights in the indexes
(Zhang et al., 2011). So it is not based on experts’ opinions and
subjectivity problem of weighting would be solved by using this
method. PCA is a better method than other statistical model, as
DEA or BoD just identified efficient and non-efficient DMUs (Kao
and Hung, 2005), while as discuss further, PCA/FA has the ability to
rank efficient and non-efficient DMUs based on their sustainability.
Moreover, for creating useful index for decision makers, compar-
ison between different DMUs are essential which do not exist in
BoD and DEA (Cherchye et al., 2007; Kao and Hung, 2005).
2.5.2. PCA/FA principles
PCA/FA considers correlation among indicators to form a com-
posite index that captures the information of individual indicators
as much as possible. Each factor or component reveals the set of
indicators with which it has the strongest association (OECD, 2008).
Before applying PCA/FA, it must be checked that the correlation is
not due to redundancy of the information. To test whether PCA/FA
could be applied, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure (KMO), which is
a measure of sampling adequacy, is used. Reasonably large val-
ues (between 0.6 and 1.0) are needed for a good combined PCA/FA
(Saisana, 2011). The first step in PCA/FA is to check the correlation
between indicators, so indicators correlation matrix is prepared
first. The second step is the identification of a certain number of
latent factors (fewer than the number of individual indicators) rep-
resenting the data. Each factor depends on a set of coefficients
(loadings), each coefficient measures the correlation between
the individual indicator and the latent factor. Principal compo-
nents analysis is usually used to extract factors. PCA considers ‘p’
293
indicators, X1 , X2 ,. . ., Xp and find linear combinations of these to
produce principle components (or factors) Z1 , Z2 , Z3 ,. . ., Zp that are
uncorrelated (Saisana and Tarantola, 2002).
Factor extraction using PCA requires two sets of values. Eigen-
vector which is simply a column or row of numbers in a correlation
matrix, and eigenvalue which is the sum of squares of factor
loadings of each factor which reflects the proportion of variance
explained by each factor. The eigenvectors and eigenvalues are
derived by an iterative method. A vector is tried out and tested
against an indicator set of values. To the extent that it differs
from the indicator, the first trial vector is modified to produce
a second vector and so on until the solution converges, i.e. until
additional iterations produce virtually identical results. In the iter-
ative approach eigenvectors are obtained one at a time. Once the
iterative solution has converged, the eigenvalue can be calculated
from the vector and the same iterative method is then used to
search for successive vectors (Kline, 1994). How this is actually
done was described in Kline (1994) in details. Usually, a few com-
ponents (factors) will account for most of the variation, and these
components can be used to replace the original variables. Suitable
number of components is determined using eigenvalues. Normally
components that have eigenvalue larger than one are selected. The
simplest justification for this rule is that it does not make sense
to add a component that explains less variance than is contained
in one individual indicator (OECD, 2008). SPSS software was used
to carry out PCA/FA analysis in this study. As mentioned before,
prior to PCA/FA analysis, indicators were separated to environmen-
tal, social, and economic aspects and PCA/FA analyses were run for
each aspect independently.
2.5.3. Determination of weighting factors
Once principle components or factors are extracted, for weights
calculation, it is needed to calculate the intermediate sustainability
indicators (ISIj ), corresponding to each of the principle component
j. This is done by calculating a weighted aggregation of indicators
(Gomez-Limon and Riesgo, 2008):

n
ISIj = wkj Ik (7)
k=1
where ISI, intermediate sustainability indicator; w, weight of indi-
cator; I, normalised indicator; j, number of principle component; k,
number of indicator.
The weights wkj are obtained from the factor loading:
2
(factor loadingkj )
wkj = (8)
eigenvaluej
Finally sub-indices were calculated as a weighted aggregation
of the intermediate sustainability indicators:

m
I= ˛j ISIj (9)
j=1
where I, the value of sub-index; j, number of principle components;
ISI, intermediate sustainability indicator; ˛ is the weight applied to
the intermediate sustainability indicator. This weight is calculated
as follows:
eigenvaluej
˛j = m (10)
eigenvaluej
j=1
In order to compare different Melbourne SLAs in terms of trans-
port sustainability, it is necessary to build a composite index
to cover all environmental, social, and economic aspects. So
294 M. Reisi et al. / Ecological Indicators 43 (2014) 288–296

Table 6
Weights of indicators based on combined PCA/FA.

Aspect Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Indicators Weights on factor 1 Weights on factor 2

measure

0.709 Depletion of non-renewable resources 0.3119 0.0272

GHG emissions (CO2-e ) 0.3119 0.0272
Environmental
Other air pollutants (CO, NO2 , PM10 ) 0.3113 0.0280
Land Consumption for transport 0.0076 1.1232

0.620 Accessibility 0.2946 0.2062

Social Fatalities and injuries related to traffic accidents 0.4924 0.0011
Mortality effects of air pollutants 0.0124 1.2355

0.500 Car ownership costs 0.5000 –

Economic
Vehicle and general costs of accidents 0.5000 –

0.669 IE 0.3465 0.2244

Final index Is 0.0440 1.8220
Ic 0.3573 0.1769

sustainability sub-indices were combined into a composite trans-
port sustainability index (ICST ) (Gomez-Limon and Riesgo, 2008):

n
ISIj = wkj Ik
k=1
where ISI, intermediate sustainability sub-index; w, weight of sub-
index; I, sub-index value; j, number of principle components; k,
number of sub-indices.
The weights wkj are obtained from the factor loading:
2
(factor loadingkj )
wkj =
eigenvaluej
Finally composite transport sustainability index (ICST ) was calcu-
lated as a weighted aggregation of the intermediate sustainability
sub-indices:

m
ICST = ˛j ISIj
j=1
where ICST , composite sustainable transport index; j, number of
principle components; ISI, intermediate sustainability sub-indices;
˛ is the weight applied to the intermediate sustainability sub-
indices. This weight was calculated as follows:
eigenvaluej
˛j = m
j=1
eigenvaluej
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Results
The results of index development and relationship between land
use and transport sustainability index are considered in this sec-
tion. In this study indicators in environmental, social and economic
aspects were weighted separately using PCA/FA (Table 6). Accord-
ing to Table 6, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure is high for all
aspects. Consequently PCA/FA can be used for weighting indica-
tors in this study. In economic aspect, there was just one factor
with eigenvalue more than 1, so weights of indicators in this aspect
were calculated just for the first factor. While in environmental and
social aspect, there were two factors with eigenvalue greater than
one and weights of indicators were calculated for both factors.
After assigning weights, indicators in each dimension were
aggregated into three sub-indices. In the later stage, these sub-
indices were weighted and aggregated into ICST (Fig. 2). The values
indices are between zero and one which show transport sustaina-
bility of each SLA compare to others. The value of ICST in each
SLA would be high if the average of its individual sustainability
sub-indices was high. IE , IS , IC , ICST are 0.75, 0.55, 0.49, and 0.61
respectively for Melbourne. The ICST value was the highest (0.93)
for Inner Melbourne, as one of inner SLAs and the lowest (0.16)
(11) for Nimbulk-Bal, as one of the outer SLAs. Totally, sustainability in
inner SLAs is higher compared to other SLAs. The main reason is
that inner SLAs with highest population density, and better access
to facilities by walking and public transport, have lower VKT and
higher PKT compared to outer SLAs, which causes less transport
energy consumption and pollutions and its related social, and eco-
nomic impacts.
(12)
3.2. Discussion
This study aims to consider indicators affecting transport sus-
tainability. Although the number of indicators considered in this
study is limited compared to other transport sustainability stud-
ies (Haghshenas and Vaziri, 2012; Kane, 2010; Spiekermann and
(13)
Wegener, 2004), it is a unique transport sustainability study in SLA
level in Melbourne or even in Australia, which tries to develop sus-
tainable index for transport. So it would be beneficial for urban
planning in Melbourne. Considering previous studies, this study
tried to differentiate between transport sustainability indicators
and transport sustainability determinants. Set of indicators in this
study, which were selected from previous studies using selection
(14) criteria, are final indicators. Regardless of their limited numbers,
they covered different aspects of sustainability, so they are appro-
priate to track transport sustainability in the study area.
This study is also different from other sustainability studies
because in other studies, the quantities of indicators were directly
observed or measured (Haghshenas and Vaziri, 2012; Zito and
Salvo, 2011), while in this study the indicators were modelled based
on databases. VKT and PKT were obtained from the available statis-
tics as determinants of transport sustainability. These were used
to quantify transport resource depletion, GHG emissions, other air
pollutants emission, and their related social and economic indica-
tors as final transport sustainability indicators.
Indicators in three aspects of sustainability were combined
into environmental, social and economic sub-indices using weights
extracted by PCA/FA for each individual indicators. Conversely to
the weighting approach proposed in the literature using analyt-
ical hierarchy process (AHP) (Castillo and Pitfield, 2010; Krajnc
and Glavič, 2005) or similar weighting method (Haghshenas and
Vaziri, 2012; Ronchi et al., 2002), weighting approach in this study
is based on PCA/FA. The main reason of the choice is that PCA/FA
considers correlation among indicators and eliminates the risk of
double counting the effects. Moreover, the defined weights are
based on statistical methods and are not subjective. However, the
possible disadvantage of PCA/FA may be interpretation of indicators
 M. Reisi et al. / Ecological Indicators 43 (2014) 288–296
Fig. 2. Composite transport sustainability index for Melbourne, 2006.
weights. Weights of different indicators calculated by PCA/FA can-
not be compared with each other because the weights are not a
measure of theoretical importance of the indicators and they are
only used to correct overlapping information between correlated
indicators.
In the final step of the analysis the sub-indices were merged
into composite transport sustainability index. The outcome of this
study, an index value, may be used by planning agencies and
councils to diagnose the problem of SLAs with poor transport sus-
tainability performances and to generate specific land use planning
for solving these problems. For example, the results suggested that
inner SLAs with high population density, mixed land use, and short
distance to public transport and the CBD have higher sustainability
index. So, increasing population density and providing mixed land
use and an efficient public transport would result in more sus-
tainable transport and consequently lower adverse environmental,
social and economic impacts. These results are consistent with Zito
and Salvo (2011) study which claimed that sprawl cities have lower
transport sustainability.
As this paper investigated limited basic indicators for sustain-
able transport, there is a need for further research to consider wider
range of indicators in all three aspects for Melbourne in order to
reflect sustainability better. Considering other spatial levels (such
as local government area (LGA) or census collector district (CCD)),
and other weighting methods (such as AHP) is also recommended
for future studies. Another major limitation of this study is in the
quantification of the accessibility indicator. In the index developed
in this study centres of SLAs were considered as point of origins.
One point of origin may not be enough for considering accessibility
all around one SLA, and there is a need an index that considers more
origin points in each SLA.
295
4. Conclusions
Transport sustainability (environmental, social, and economic)
has became a central concern of urban design in the past decade.
This study provided a comparative analysis of different Melbourne
SLAs in terms of transport sustainability in environmental, social,
and economic aspects. Three sub-indices were integrated into a
single composite index. Aggregating indicators into a single index
in this study is a simplified and quantified expression of over-
all transport sustainability in Melbourne. The index is derived by
applying normalisation, weighting and aggregation methods. Using
PCA/FA for weighting indicators provides a proper way to resolve
co-linearity issue and consequently avoids double counting among
indicators and provides an unbiased measure of the transport sus-
tainability.
This study is the first attempt to quantify transport sustaina-
bility in SLA level for Melbourne which provides information about
current situation of urban transport in different parts of the city.
The transport sustainability index can be used by policy makers to
evaluate the effect of their policies on transport sustainability in dif-
ferent aspects. For example, evaluating a policy using the proposed
model can show whether the policy is expected to limit emissions
and resource consumption; or it is expected to provide access for
people, and enhance human health; or it is expected to help reduce
economic costs to society.
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