3 steps for cities to better sustainable transport

`When Mexico City’s first bus rapid transit (BRT) line was in the planning stages a decade ago, the Metrobus represented one of the earliest sustainable transportation projects to follow what has since become a successful formula: avoid-shift-improve. In choosing the Avenida de los Insurgentes — Mexico City’s longest and busiest avenue — as its first corridor, the city ensured growth along the route would be dense and mixed-use, thus avoiding the need for longer trips. By deploying BRT to accommodate transportation growth instead of cars, it successfully shifted 315,000 daily passengers onto public transit. And through replacing 350 polluting buses with 97 new ones equipped with state-of-the-art exhaust systems and running on ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel it could dramatically improve the emissions from those commutes.

Today, it comprises of five lines serving 900,000 passengers daily saving an estimated 137,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. Similar BRT programmes have expanded to cities across Mexico.

First articulated by the German government think-tank GIZ, avoid-shift-improve has become best practice in the field of sustainable transportation planning. The International Energy Agency, which attributes half the world’s oil consumption and a fifth of total energy use to transport, estimates the widespread adoption of such policies will reduce spending on vehicles, fuels and infrastructure by as much as $70trn by 2050. However, that is only if the three approaches are done in unison; studies have shown they are not nearly as effective when done apart.

“Avoid” refers to avoiding motorised travel altogether through high-density urban planning or substituting travel with telecommunication. Belgrade followed the former in drafting its master plan for the city through 2021 and subsequent transport plan, the Smart Plan. City planners realised that sprawling growth patterns had led to a doubling in car ownership and a subsequent fall in public transit ridership (from nearly two-thirds of trips in the late 1980s to less than half in 2000). Left alone, car ownership was projected to double again by 2025. The Smart Plan addressed this by changing land-use policy to discourage sprawl and encouraging denser development, thus avoiding the need for the long trips by car in the future. It also went a step further by integrating public transit into land-use planning, which is part of the next step, “shift”.

Shift policies focus on enabling and encouraging a shift from private motorised travel to more-energy- efficient modes, including public transit, walking and cycling. Paris has made great strides in this area since adopting its Urban Mobility Plan (PDUIF) in 1998, which not only included mass transit, but also parking and traffic management. Later, the plan added dedicated bus lanes; its pioneering bike-sharing programme, Vélib’; and an electric-car-sharing programme, Autolib’. As a result, the amount of driving in Paris fell 24% between 2001 and 2010, while regional rail into the city increased by nearly 30%, Metro trips rose 18% and bus travel increased by 10% over the same period.

The final step is “improve”, which seeks to build on the gains of modal shifts by introducing more-energy-efficient fuel and vehicle policies. Mexico City’s Metrobus is an excellent example of this, combining tried-and-true BRT corridors with cleaner fuels and fuel-efficient buses – some of which are now electric-  to reduce both carbon emissions and local pollution.

Together, these three steps have become the mantra of green mobility programmes. The question now is whether they can add a fourth: “scale”.

This article is published in collaboration with GE Look Ahead. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

To keep up with the Agenda subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Author: Greg Lindsay writes for GE Look Ahead. 

Image: The Maglev train passes by above the traffic in Shanghai. CHINA OUT REUTERS/Stringer