ABSTRACT
In recent years there has been heightened concern among transportation researchers, policy analysts and environmentalists over the issue of sustainable transportation. In many respects this discussion has flowed from an earlier interest in assessing the environmental problems of transportation and their relation to urban form, especially the burdens created by an excessive dependence upon automobiles for personal transport (Gakenheimer, 1978; Stringer and Wenzel, 1976; Newman and Kenworthy, 1989). As with many other facets of sustainability discussions, sustainable transportation appears to be easier to describe than to define. Common threads in this discussion emphasize that sustainable transportation, in regard to passenger transport, should:
• meet basic access and mobility needs in ways that do not degrade the environment; • not deplete the resource base upon which it is dependent; • serve multiple economic and environmental goals; • maximize efficiency in overall resource utilization; • improve or maintain access to employment, goods and services while shortening
trip lengths and/or reducing the need to travel; and • enhance the liveability and human qualities of urban regions.
