ABSTRACT
China has long been recognised as a vast country with huge geographical variations that has significant discrepancies even among her cities in terms of economic development, income distribution, transport system and many other aspects. These discrepancies have led to a complex situation for understanding, not to mention shaping, the country’s prospective sustainable transport transition. Within the time frame from now to 2030, the unsustainable transport challenges of China are great and the transition to comprehensive sustainability is no less difficult or complicated than that facing the developed countries. However, where will most of the unsustainable transport challenges come from, and where will the most serious transport problems in dire need of attention be? The answer is probably the cities because most of the environmental, economic and social challenges associated in unsustainable transport are likely to aggravate substantially in cities with more constraints of space and higher population density.
In Chapter 5, the focus is narrowed down from the national to the city level. Based on our analysis in Chapter 3, cities will represent the major platforms where the challenges of unsustainable transport and opportunities for sustainable transport are interwoven in a most complex manner. Based on the United Nations’ dataset, the 100 largest Chinese cities (in terms of population size) were selected for further analysis. In pursuance for the ultimate goal of sustainable transport, ten key drivers are identified. They relate closely to a place’s economic power, population, existing infrastructure and the society. These ten key drivers of mobility, together with the specific variables under each of the ten key drivers, are discussed in this chapter.
