Mobility has an important societal function. It can be seen as the motor of our society. However, mobility and its growth have external effects on welfare as well, such as, depletion of natural resources, air pollution, noise and smell nuisance, traffic un-safety, and congestion. The car has both positive and negative effects on mobility and therefore an important influence on welfare. This study strives to gain an insight into the possibilities to improve positive effects and at the same time minimise negative effects of car mobility. In order to have a reference, the concept of ‘sustainable development’ is applied to mobility. Sustainability’ includes economic, social, and environmental aspects. A translation of this concept to mobility resulted in five pillars on which sustainable mobility rests: i) accessibility representing the economic conditions, ii) transport equity, iii) traffic safety, and iv) liveability representing the social conditions and v) nature and environment representing the environmental conditions. In addition, targets were linked to these sustainable mobility pillars. These targets are ‘zero lost vehicle hours’, ‘no rise of pro rata household expenditures on mobility, ‘zero traffic casualties’, ‘no road traffic noise nuisance’ and ‘zero emissions from cars’. ‘Development’ is the other angle of the concept. The objective of this study is to find realistic combinations of measures and technical possibilities for 2050 that might lead to the sustainable target values of car mobility referred to above. Improvements that approach these target figures are considered an important contribution to developing sustainable car mobility, since both approachability and achievability are considered important for decision-making. Instead of forecasting, the extrapolation of current trends, the back-casting approach is used. This method describes desirable futures that focus on solving societal problems. In addition, it analyses consequences and conditions to arrive at these futures. In this study the WLO scenario ‘Global Economy (GE)’, a scenario with strong growing economy, was used as a reference to address the maximum required effort for achieving the sustainable mobility targets. Comparing the GE scenario in 2050 with the sustainable mobility targets, illustrates a policy discrepancy. According to the GE scenario and in comparison with the current situation, the lost vehicle hours will double, the number of fatalities in traffic remains equal, the area with noise nuisance shows a little increase and CO2 emissions almost double. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting