Transport at the turn of the century displays several unsustainable trends. The OECD's project on Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) was undertaken to help respond to these trends and make transport sustainable. Teams from several countries developed EST scenarios consistent with the criteria and also "business-as-usual" (BAU) projections for 2030. Both the BAU and EST scenarios were characterised by high levels of access to people, goods and services in comparison to 1990. In the case of the EST scenario, providing for this high level of access was accomplished with less overall travel volume, especially with regard to freight transport. The EST scenario involved more use of public transport and new mobility services and less travel by cars and aircraft for passenger transport. For freight transport, the EST scenarios indicate improved supply chain management and more movement of freight by rail than by road. The EST scenarios were assessed in relation to the BAU projections to determine how the most stringent EST criterion - an 80% reduction in total carbon dioxide emissions from transport - was to be achieved. The assessment suggested that about half of the reduction would result from improvements in technology and half would result from changes in transport activity. The overall impacts of moving towards EST would appear to be positive: economies would remain robust, society's costs would be lower, and there could be social advantages. The most important challenges for the attainment of EST concern well-tuned phasing of implementation strategies and their component policies and instruments as well as the involvement of stakeholders from government, industry, non-governmental organisations and the public.
Abstract