This is a repository copy of Sustainability analysis of Chinese transport policy. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/2010/ Article: Mao, B. and Chen, H. (2001) Sustainability analysis of Chinese transport policy. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, 8 (4). pp. 323-336. ISSN 1745-1604 Reuse See Attached Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ White Rose Research Online http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Institute of Transport Studies University of Leeds This is an author produced version of a paper published in the International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include final publisher proof-corrections or journal pagination. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/2010/ Published paper Mao B.; Chen, H. (2001) Sustainability Analysis of Chinese Transport Policy. International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, 8(4), pp.323-336. White Rose Consortium ePrints Repository [email protected] Sustainability analysis of Chinese transport policy Baohua Mao School of Traffic and Transportation, Northern Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, P. R. China Haibo Chen* Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Headline title: Chinese Transport Keywords: Chinese transport, sustainability, transport policy, energy consumption, and environment protection. *Corresponding author: Dr Haibo Chen, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Tel: (+44) 0113 2335341, Fax: (+44) 0113 2335334 SUMMARY: Whilst the world economy is developed, the life and development of human beings have been threatened by the imbalance among environmental and ecological aspects. Thus sustainability is becoming increasingly the focus of various social fields. For most developing countries, a strategy with good sustainability for social development is of long-term significance to keep the economy in expansion. This paper first reviews the conceptual framework and up-to-date development of sustainability. Second, it reviews the current transport situation of China and its future demands. Third, the paper analyses transport policy from the viewpoints of energy consumption and environment pollution caused by transportation. It finally summarises suggestions for transport policy that China should consider in the future. INTRODUCTION Since the 1980s, many issues on environmental and economical fields have arisen with the expansion of world population and the development of the world economy, as it is important to maintain the quality of human life in social ecological and environmental aspects. Sustainability has certainly played an important role in decision making at national and even international levels (Masser et al, 1993; Ono, 1993; OECD/ECMT, 1995; Mao, 1996). The Brundtland Commission (WECD, 1987) in Our Common Future defined sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. The European Conference of Ministers of Transport pointed out in 1995 that road construction may make more people travel by car but with very limited improvement on the relaxation of peak-hour traffic congestion (OECD/ECMT, 1995). Transport is in nature an unsustainable activity for the following two reasons (Buchanan et al., 1997). First, the infrastructure and many factors (such as land, architecture materials and petroleum) dealing with transport operations use non-renewable resources. Second, the transport process is responsible for great pollution, damages irreplaceable resources and also leads to long-term environmental change. It is believed that sustainability policy is far from being achieved, especially in developing countries. In most of these countries, sustainability has not been considered as an important issue either in transport or in transports planning (Mao, 1996). A sustainable transport policy may be achieved only when economic development and long-term environmental and ecological considerations have been combined in the transport decisions. As the basis of global sustainable development, an agenda towards the twenty-first 2 century was set up at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in June 1992, with the agreement of 150 countries. The overall objective for sustainable development was defined as ‘improving the social, economic and environmental quality of human beings as well as the living and work environments of all people’. Obviously sustainability has been a world-wide problem. We will analyse the characteristics of transport sustainability, with a focus on Chinese transport and discuss possible policies to improve transport sustainability. Our main interest in this paper is to carry out a case study of China. Our conclusions on Chinese transport sustainability are given, together with suggestions for transport policy that China should take in the future. ANALYSIS OF TRANSPORT SUSTAINABILITY Traffic congestion Traffic congestion is the most important target of all transport decisions to balance the relationship between the demand and supply in a transport system so as to relax the traffic congestion. Vehicle speed in the central urban areas of many Chinese cities has been decreased greatly over the past decades (Mao et al., 1999). For example, the average speed of public vehicles fell to 12.9 km/h in Guangzhou in 1999. In many other big cities, vehicle speed is lower than 10 km/h during peak hours. Air pollution NOx produced in combustion is harmful to human health and possibly leads to smog and acid rain. The World Health Organisation (1987) gave a density value of about 0.04 to 0.06 ppm for daily NO2 in urban areas. However, this standard is not yet maintained in most Chinese cities. Statistics show that, in Beijing, the CO2 emission from vehicles was over 50% of the total CO2 emission in the 1980s (CTI, 1998). This figure continues to increase with the expansion of transport demand. Traffic noise Many populations near railway lines and trunk roads are exposed to an environment of worse than third level, with more than 65 decibels of noise in China (GBEPC, 1999). Much of the noise is generated by transport, including the tremors caused by heavy-loaded cars as well as loading and unloading operations at night. Road safety Currently, about 75 000 people die and more than 174 000 people are injured each year in traffic accidents in China. In the 15 EC countries, the annual deaths are 44 3 000, although the accident rates per car kilometre are high in Portugal and Greece. Urban space and scenery The construction of new transport infrastructure inevitably occupies urban space and also damages urban sightseeing. For future development, urban space has been a key problem as population density is increasing and space is reducing. Land use Land use has greatly changed car ownership and travelling patterns. At present, the motorization of China is not so high. However, the land available for each urban resident makes it more difficult to construct transport facilities such as roads and parking once car ownership increases. Global warming CO2 is a very important and a contributing source to global warming. It is estimated that 25% of CO2 in the world is produced by transport (Prades et al., 1996). Many developed countries have been searching for management strategies to control the transport emissions. However, the situations in some developing and rapidly-motorising countries are not optimistic. Data in 1994 showed that the CO2 emitted in China was 13.4% of the total emissions, whereas the number of vehicles in China accounted for only 1.7% of the total vehicles in the world (CTI, 1998). Energy consumption Energy consumption by industry has been reduced since the first petroleum crisis. However, energy consumed by transport has become greater with the development of highway transportation. For example, transport energy consumption is 30% of the total consumption among EC countries. Even though the oil crisis seems to have been relaxed since the second oil crisis in 1978, the demand of road transport from developing countries will increase the conflict between energy production and supply. Urban deconcentration The development of motorised transport has led to the expansion of travel distance and journey time that deconcentrates residents as well as their travel demands. Urban deconcentration reversibly increases the dependence of people on private cars and limits the development of public transport. Experts have pointed that rail transit systems have better characteristics on energy consumption and pollution emissions (Gercek and Tekin, 1996). The efforts to 4 improve transport sustainability may include these three aspects, namely technology, policy and city planning and landuse, as described below. Technology Transport sustainability can be improved by (1) reducing the environmental emissions of vehicles and (2) improving the efficiency on energy utility and transmission. China has speeded up the studies of substituent fuels for vehicles since 1990. One achievement of these studies was that a few thousand natural gas-fuelled public vehicles were manufactured