1. Encouraging Modal Shift in
Urban Transportation
How can we make transport sustainable in our cities?

2. Environmental Impacts of Car Use
 Environmental toxins
 Carbon monoxide (CO)
 Particulate matter (PM10)
 Sulphur dioxide (SO2)
 Nitrous oxides (NOx)
 Methane (CH4)
 Non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs)
 Health effects of these in humans is similar to passive
smoking

3. Economics and Politics of Oil
 Oil supply has been declining in some regions of the
world since 1970
 Peak in global oil supply almost certainly before 2020
 Many authorities believe that peak oil has already
happened
 With a peak in global supply in 2011 (at 89 million
barrels per day), and decline of 3% p.a.
thereafter, supply will be just 40% of demand by 2030
 Projected demand 115-118 million barrels/day
 Projected supply 45-60 million barrels/day

4. Economics and Politics of Oil
 Possible nightmare scenarios
 Increased use of unconventional sources, with significant
increase in GHG emissions
 Global depression
 More wars over oil
 Deployment of WMDs
 Business as usual will kill most of the world’s people
within a generation
 We need to change how we use oil NOW

5. Sustainable Alternatives
 More efficient cars are NOT the only (or even the best)
answer, because they encourage most people to travel
further
 Walking and cycling
 Ridesharing (car-pooling)
 Car-sharing (shared ownership through car clubs)

6. Sustainable Alternatives
 Public transport
 The average 40-seat diesel bus uses approximately half the
fuel per seat-km of a private car, and takes up only a third
of the road space
 Diesel-electric hybrid buses use 20%-35% less
 Fuel-cell buses have been in experimental stage since 2000
 Battery-electric buses are improving
 Bus rapid transit
 Uses quality buses, either in mixed traffic, semi-exclusive or
fully exclusive busways, to provide a more reliable and
faster service
 Adequate for small to medium-sized cities where the capital
cost of rail is not justified

7. Sustainable Alternatives
 Rail-based “mass transit”
 Higher capital cost, justified in larger cities
 High capacity, generally preferred by travelling public
 Very efficient, especially when electrified
 High-speed rail
 Can be faster than flying, but has lower energy use and
emissions
 Typical speeds 200-320 km/h
 Maglev trains up to 500 km/h

8. Sustainability: Points to Watch For
 Electric modes of transport have low environmental
impacts onsite, but their overall footprint is dependent
on the form of generation
 There is a difference between renewable energy and
sustainable energy
 Not all biofuels are sustainable: land use effects of biofuels
feedstock production can push up food costs
 Some non-renewables are much more economically
sustainable than petroleum (e.g. natural gas) BUT economic
and environmental sustainability are two different things

9. Changing Behaviour
 Economic incentives: increasing the cost of car
ownership
 Vehicle licensing cost
 Travel demand management (TDM)
 Road pricing
 Congestion pricing
 Parking management
 Commercial areas
 Residential areas
 Using the cross-elasticities of demand between private
car use and more sustainable modes

10. Price Elasticity of Demand
 A measure of the effect of price on how much of an
economic good or service is demanded (consumed)
 An elasticity of -0.3 means that for every 1% change in
price, there will be a -0.3% change in demand (and for
every doubling of price, there will be a 30% decrease in
demand)
 Price elasticity of demand is usually negative (i.e. an
inverse relationship)

11. Cross-Elasticities of Demand
 Cross-elasticities between competing goods or services
can be calculated using changes in relative prices (e.g.
between car use and bus patronage)
 Making car use more expensive encourages modal shift
to sustainable modes, although the price effect is weak
 A weaker price effect means road pricing and other TDM
measures must be courageous in order to work
effectively

12. Travel Plans
 Transport planners approach major attractors to
negotiate more sustainable ways for people to travel
 Workplaces
 Major educational institutions
 Universities & polytechs
 High schools

13. Reducing the Need for Travel
 Telework centres
 Office facilities near where people live, shared by multiple
workplaces
 Better utilization of information & communications
technology
 Teleconferencing facilities
 The usual way our world is organized, where everybody
travels to a centralized location to share in a given
experience or activity, is outdated and unsustainable
 Is being there REALLY everything? Or is it just a
fetish that we must outgrow?

14. Visioning the Future
 Connect Infrastructure Services Ltd
 Urban transportation management at the global level
 Led by a team of international experts
 Aiming for 60% reduction in global oil use compared to
projections for 2030
 Has been in the works since 2008, in response to 9/11 and the
Iraq war
 Starting with the largest cities
 Populations over 10 million from 2015
 Populations 5-10 million from 2020
 Populations 1-5 million from 2025
 Populations 300,000 to 1 million from 2030
 https://www.facebook.com/groups/ConnectISL.vision

15. Why Transport Matters
 Transportation isn’t just the concern of engineers
 Public transportation isn’t just another business
FIXING OUR TRANSPORT SYSTEM IS PART
OF WHAT WILL MAKE LIFE POSSIBLE