The former World Bank economist Herman Daly in 1990 defined general operational principles for 'physically sustainable' societies. In a sustainable society, the rates of use of renewable resources do not exceed the rates of regeneration; the rates of use of non-renewable resources do not exceed the rate at which substitutes are developed; the rates of pollution do not exceed the assimilative capacity of the environment. Under these stringent criteria, hardly any human activity, and especially not the current transport sector, is environmentally sustainable. Energy use in transport currently is based upon non-renewable sources; the development of alternatives is not yet taken very seriously. Although basically the need for a more sustainable energy system is not questioned from any side, we are far away from such a chance. Pragmatically one has to accept that economic criteria rank very high in all countries; these criteria have to be integrated into any concept of ST, as social criteria have to be integrated. A ST system should provide access to goods, resources and services, while reducing the need to travel, so that economic, environmental and social needs can be met efficiently and in an integrated manner, also ensure that users pay the full social and environmental cost of their transport decisions, without making industry uncompetitive or preventing those on low incomes from meeting their transport needs. Neither with technology improvements alone, nor with organizational changes of demand structures the transport system can become sustainable. Integrated strategies have to be developed, aiming on the one side at pushing Advanced Technologies (AT) into the market, and on the other side at initiating structural and behavioral changes. Both supply-side and demand-side strategies are needed. A global per-capita level of resource consumption of US or Europe today cannot sustain. This is the concern of the wealthy, highly industrialized countries when discussing the need for a more sustainable transport system. But from the perspective of developing countries, there is a need for a manifold increase in motorized transport to achieve social and economic progress. There will be no solution for this dilemma without people in wealthy countries changing ther perception of a 'good life', i.e. without reducing their specific resource consumption to allow development of the poor without compromising global sustainability.
Requirements for future sustainable transport
2002
3 Seiten
Conference paper
English
Airline requirements for future civil transport aircraft
AIAA | 1983
|Comments on Future Military Air Transport Requirements
NTIS | 1955
|'Sustainable Transport' - Cause or effect of a sustainable future?
Online Contents | 1998
|Propulsion Requirements for the Future STOL Transport
SAE Technical Papers | 1969
|Cycling towards a more sustainable transport future
Taylor & Francis Verlag | 2017
|