Citation

Himanen V, Lee-Gosselin M, Perrels A. J. Transp. Geogr. 2005; 13(1): 23-28.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2004.11.006

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Transportation causes various external effects with respect to environmental functions, spatial organisation, public health, and safety and security. Furthermore, congestion is an external effect within the transport system. Starting from the assumption that transport systems should fulfil sustainability criteria, the aforementioned external effects become key target areas in a sustainable transport policy. However, each of these target areas cannot be addressed in isolation, since there is significant interaction between them. So, any considered measure should be assessed with respect to its implications across the various target areas. It appears that, up to now, many relationships have been understood over-simplistically, be it with respect to urban form and mobility, the regulation of urban logistics, or alleged trade-offs between fuel efficiency and safety. While on the one hand various interactions still need more research before more adequate policies can be designed, other interactions are already understood well enough to provide guidelines for at least the kind of elements that a particular policy package should contain, and what should not be done. Sustainable transport policy should somehow address internalising of external effects in pricing, but it should also acknowledge the long term steering role of spatial structure and dynamics. Issues such as safety and security, as well as public health in a larger sense, merit to be better integrated in transportation planning and operation. It is not deniable, however, that the acceptability of policies is perhaps the hardest nut to be cracked.