[sustran] Clean Vehicles and Sustainable Transportation

[Eric Britton]

Dear Colleagues,

 

I have the job next week of chairing two sessions at EVS21 - the 21st
Worldwide International Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle
Symposium which this year that are to address the announced theme for 2005:
"Act now for sustainable mobility". My job in both the "Ministerial Round
Table: How Can We Promote Sustainable Mobility In Our Towns? And the session
on "Best Practices In Cities" is to do my best to act as an honest broker
between two rather different visions of how you go about making more
sustainable cities and transportation. (See http://evs21.org/ for details.)

 

To this end, I have prepared a short statement for the various speakers in
which I attempt to set out the changing ground rules in a few short
paragraphs, as follows.  My goal is to give the clean vehicle folks a fair
shot at getting on board the New Mobility Agenda, but also to sound a
warning that things may be a bit different in the future.

 

I share this with you for your information and eventual comments. 

 

Eric Britton

 

 

Opening statement of moderator:

 

Clean Vehicles and Sustainable Transportation Planning and Policy

 

In the past most EV (electric vehicle) and other clean vehicle deployments
in cities have been carried out as limited pilot or demonstration projects,
with the main sources of support in most cases coming from national and
other energy agencies. Behind these programs is a process of reasoning which
is opens with the understanding that we need badly to reduce CO2 and other
greenhouse gas emissions from our city transport systems; that clean (or
cleaner) technologies do exist to do the job; but that the technologies
behind cleaner vehicles are still too early in their development and costly
to make their way unassisted in the marketplace.

 

Based on these premises, it is concluded that these technologies need to be
supported by publicly funded demonstration projects with the justification
that they can (a) bring some immediate environmental relief to the city; (b)
help all involved better understand and benefit both from their potential
contributions, as well as (c) improve our understanding of what else is
needed in order to bring these technologies to the market place in more
competitive ways.

 

That said, these vehicles and the projects behind them have thus far not
been fully integrated into a larger and more complete framework of
integrated sustainable transportation strategies at the level of the city
in most places -- not least because in most parts of the world such
strategies and planning structures simply do not yet exist in fully mature
and operational forms.  

 

Indeed to now instead of an integrated overall strategy as is clearly
needed, what we can see in those places where sustainability is at least an
announced goal, is a two step process:  The first step in this process opens
with more or less ambitious goal setting, most often stated in general and
qualitative terms, rather than strictly quantitative and targeted with
specific and explicit tests for success or failure.  These are then rounded
out by more or less long lists of projects, measures and tools, each of
which with its own stated environmental justifications and which are to be
brought on when possible. 

 

But a list is, of course, not quite a strategy, or at least an integrated
testable strategy.

 

As more integrated, sophisticated and effective approaches to sustainable
transport policy and practice take hold, this is going to bring with it a
whole new series of performance and cost-effectiveness criteria, which is
going to provide the new framework for clean vehicle projects in the future.
A rather different future which it will be best to start to take into
consideration now.

 

 

 

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