ABSTRACT
The assessment of the results of a certain policy can be carried out in different ways. R. V. Bartlett has distinguished between three general categories in the evaluation of environmental policies: outcomes processes and institutions. This chapter presents the result of an assessment of the real outcome of Danish, Dutch and Swedish transport policies in the period 1987-1997 with special reference to environmental sustainability. The evaluation of Danish, Dutch and Swedish transport policies is based on data that have to be interpreted with great caution. The number of transport policy failures in the perspective of environmental sustainability is, in contrast to the number of successes, impressive. Among economists, the traditional way of explaining the problems of the transport sector is to talk about 'market and government failures'. When environmental sustainability is introduced as a new goal in transport policy, it could be interpreted as a rhetorical statement without any serious intention behind it.
