Progress in assessing the sustainability of transport strategies

There is great concern about the long-term ‘sustainability’ of the transport sector both nationally and globally. Much work has focussed on the development of indicator sets to monitor changes in the sustainability of transport over time (Litman, 2005). However, in reviewing indicators for sustainability in 2003 Gudmundsson (p.200) concluded that “Even a perfect indicator system for sustainable mobility may be of little relevance if it has no bearing on actual decisions taken”. The research described in this paper attempts to answer these concerns by bringing together modelling tools to try and forecast the impacts of a range of transport strategies across the three pillars of sustainability (economy, environment and social).