A traffic with system

Especially in the field of transport, the guiding principle applies: "You can't manage something that can't be measured". Transport experts always revolve around the question of which sustainability criteria and indicators could include the entire transport sector?

Finding a consensus on the "right" indicators is a major challenge in these times, given premises such as individual transport, globally coordinated supply chains, population density and, finally, transport laws that need to be revised.

"You can't manage something that can't be measured."

Various research projects - such as the National Research Programme "Transport and Environment: Interactions Switzerland - Europe" (NRP 41) - can be seen as a knowledge platform for sustainable transport policy.

How can different disciplines and solution contributions be used for efficient, environmentally and socially compatible demands of mobility needs? Which improvements and solutions will boost transport policy and reality in the future?

Transport development is increasingly coming up against limits in terms of environmental and health impact, energy consumption, capacities and costs. How could a socially desirable and long-term sustainable mobility be achieved in a changing society? The National Research Programme (NRP) "Transport and Environment" provides answers and measures.

Indicators under traffic-critical aspects
Indicators were identified in subgroups of the NRP research project. Here, facilities for daily needs played just as much a role as access to leisure facilities for appropriate sections of the population and, finally, protection against traffic accidents.

Under such perspectives and partial surveys, the NRP 41 research team defined 13 criteria to address the most traffic-critical aspects. In a further step, measurable indicators were assigned to these "criteria".

In the so-called module syntheses, attention was paid to the following main points:

Before setting the course in terms of transport systems, Swiss scientists observe and measure our movement patterns.

• Environment and sustainability The criteria must have a clear link to sustainability.
• Statistics/ Clarity The system should be clear and not duplicate all the traffic statistics.
• Indicators for quality objectives The indicators should be suitable for setting meaningful quality objectives, if possible in quantitative form.
• Indicators of transport performance An indicator for transport performance was not included because the reduction of transport performance is not the actual objective of sustainability.

Accordingly, the criterion "employment", for example, was discarded, since it does not make economic sense to postulate the highest possible employment in transport. However, when assessing an individual project, its importance for a booming economy can certainly be an important criterion. The level of measures to achieve a sustainable transport system (response level) was also excluded.

Better data basis given
In the ecological field, researchers can nowadays rely on a better data basis; accordingly, the criteria and indicators set are mostly known quantities.

The economic and social indicators are particularly innovative: In the case of the "true costs" criterion, the external damage costs (i.e. those not borne by the polluter) and the degree of coverage of the economic costs each form an indicator.

This makes it clear that comprehensive cost truth is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sustainability.

Production factor "parcel transport
The NRP 41 research group introduced the price of a package of defined transport services as a significant economic indicator. From an economic point of view, the price of the "production factor transport" should be kept as low as possible, because this is conducive to value creation and economic growth.

According to the authors of the study Urs Brodmann and Werner Spillmann (source: "Verkehr und Umwelt: Wechselwirkungen Schweiz - Europa"; NFP41-Synthese, published in 2001), however, the prices must correctly reflect the economic efficiency of transport and, for example, no costs must be passed on to the general public ("externalised").

Accordingly, the research team has proposed a corrected ("true-cost") price indicator in which normal taxes are subtracted and external costs are added.

Main indicator: Path to the regional centre
Transport researchers agree that transport must always be understood regionally. Under this consideration, two indicators in particular are concretized:

• Public services i.e. the deficit compensation paid in advance by the public authorities for transport services ordered.
• Expenditure of the population for public transport i.e. the services used by the population for public transport.

Accordingly, transport experts always take into account the time it takes commuters to get to a regional centre.

Incidentally, the latter two indicators serve the federal government's goal of "ensuring access to people, goods, and services nationwide and at the lowest possible cost."

Need for action - today and tomorrow?
As far as the scientific, economic and political bases allowed, the NRP 41 research team determined target values for the individual indicators and showed where the most urgent need for action exists today. CO2 emissions from transport are considered particularly critical; here a reduction of 60 to 80 percent is considered necessary in the long term. The researchers also see a need for action with regard to air pollutants, energy consumption and true costs. Current NRP projects (see results at www.nfp71.ch) repeatedly raise fundamental questions. For example, the economic

"The transportation system is changing."

The research on the economic and social criteria and indicators is still incomplete due to the novelty of the topic of "networked mobility" and would have to be supplemented and deepened in further research work.

According to the NFP researchers, the question also arises as to how far meaningful target values can be defined for a single sector such as transport. For example, what contribution should transport in general or air transport in particular make to reducing CO2 emissions? This opens up a central field for further research, but above all for an intensive political discourse.

Against the backdrop of global networking and further development of transport technologies, the growth process is accelerating even further and the transport system is undergoing fundamental change. "As distances, frequencies and speeds in traffic increase, so do the loads," emphasizes Dr. Merja Hoppe (see "Communicating transport systems" , p. XY).

"New ICT applications can help to ensure that mobility continues and at the same time is sustainable," continues the ZHAW researcher, "ICT offers opportunities to combine modes of transport.

There is great potential in technologies that link modes of transport, for example by providing real-time information on the entire transport offer."