[sustran] Sustainable Urban Mobility in Asia (SUMA) News Digest Vol. 6 Issue 7 – 11 September 2009

[Kaye Patdu]

*Sustainable Urban Mobility in Asia (SUMA) News Digest Vol. 6 Issue 7 - 11
September 2009 *

SUMA News Digest is a free monthly e-mail publication that features news,
information, and events related to sustainable urban transportation in Asia.


*** VISIT THE SUMA PAGES: http://www.cleanairnet.org/suma ***

*SUMA PARTNERS ON THE MOVE! *

Fourth City Workshop of CAI-Asia China Network: Advancing Vehicle Emission
Management (VEM): Emission Standards, Fuel Quality and Fuel Efficiency4-5
August 2009, Qingdao, China



The Fourth City Workshop of the CAI-Asia China Network: "Advancing Vehicle
Emission Management (VEM): Emission Standards, Fuel Quality and Fuel
Efficiency" was recently concluded in Qingdao, Shandong Province on 4-5
August 2009 at the Huanghai Hotel Qingdao. It was attended by 11 CAI-Asia
member cities plus Beijing; officials and staff from Qingdao Environmental
Protection Bureau (EPB), Vehicle Emissions Control Center (VECC), Tsinghua
University, Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), Asian Development
Bank (ADB), CAI-Asia Center offices in Manila and Beijing, and the expert
from US Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). The workshop was a great
opportunity for cities to exchange experiences in AQM, provide feedback on
the new AQ and SUT policies and measures planned for implementation, learn
new and innovative ways to address air pollution, and communicate with
CAI-Asia their AQ priorities and needs in the next few years. During the
workshop, CAI-Asia also updated the participants with the activities under
the Air Quality and Transport Programs (SUMA Program).

To read the presentations at the workshop, please visit
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73548.html

Ahmedabad BRTS - The new Janmarg BRT system, in the process of being
completed in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, meets most of the highest standards applied
internationally.  It is already a "best practice" of BRT in South Asia, in
sharp contrast to the bus corridors in operation in Delhi and Pune, which
are off to a good start but still have much room for improvement.

To read more, visit
http://thecityfix.com/ahmedabad%E2%80%99s-janmarg-changing-the-game-for-brt-systems-in-india/

*NEWS REPORTS*

*HEADLINES*
China: Higher polluting vehicles face higher taxes
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-09/08/content_8665303.htm
Singapore: Towards a pedestrian-friendly nation
http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20090909-166610.html
Viet
Nam: HCMC considers Singapore way to get rid of chaos
http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn/Hochiminhcity/2009/9/74062/ Brunei: How
'Green' is Brunei's future?
http://www.brudirect.com/index.php/200908205216/Local-News/how-green-is-bruneis-future.html
Indonesia:
New govt urged to fix public transportation services
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73575.html India: India to
make fuel efficiency mandatory from 2011
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73579.html



*Bangladesh:* Bangladesh Launches Special Drive To Ease Traffic Jam
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73567.html

*Bhutan:* Traffic ethics non-existent
*http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73568.html*

*Philippines:* P3-B ethanol plant is Southeast Asia's 1st
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73582.html
Thailand: Green fuels to make up 20%
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73584.html
Thailand:Thailand to propose B2bn road to Tavoy
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73585.html Viet Nam: City's
traffic situation seen worsening in next 10 years
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/social/2009/09/867839/ Viet Nam: Ha Noi deal
signed for VN's first elevated metro
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73585.html

* * * *
*INTERESTING FINDS/SEMINARS*

*Urban Transport Policy as if People and the Environment Mattered:
Pedestrian Accessibility the First Step***

The rapid growth in motor vehicle ownership and activity in India is causing
a wide range of serious health, environmental, socio-economic, and resource
use impacts, even as it provides mobility to millions, and contributes to
employment and the economy.  The loss of accessibility for pedestrians is
one of the most important of these negative impacts, which remains neglected
by policy.  Urban transport planning is fundamentally about moral and
political choices - about what kind of cities we want for ourselves and our
future generations, whether urban space is primarily for people or motor
vehicles, and what we owe each other.  While motor vehicles play a vitally
important role, as do planning and infrastructure for them, and
technological measures to mitigate their impacts, an urban transport policy
that focuses on these measures to the exclusion of infrastructure for
walking and other non-motorised modes is likely to prove futile, even
counter-productive.  There is, therefore, an urgent need for an integrated
approach that addresses multiple impacts, caters to multiple modes and road
users, and is sensitive to the needs, capabilities and constraints in the
Indian context.

Read more @ http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73551.html and
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73581.html

*Driving and the Built Environment: The Effects of Compact Development on
Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO2 Emissions -- Special Report 298*

TRB *Special Report 298: Driving and the Built Environment: Effects of
Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO2
Emissions*examines the relationship between land development patterns
and vehicle
miles traveled (VMT) in the United States to assess whether petroleum use,
and by extension greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, could be reduced by changes
in the design of development patterns. The report estimates the
contributions that changes in residential and mixed-use development patterns
and transit investments could make in reducing VMT by 2030 and 2050, and the
impact this could have in meeting future transportation-related GHG
reduction goals.

Read Report Summary @
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73586.html

For the full report, please visit http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?topic=294
Policy Research Working Paper 5017-Lock-in Effects of Road Expansion
on CO2Emissions: Results from a Core-Periphery Model of Beijing

In the urban planning literature, it is frequently explicitly asserted or
strongly implied that ongoing urban sprawl and decentralization can lead to
development patterns that are unsustainable in the long run. One
manifestation of such an outcome is that if extensive road investments
occur, urban sprawl and decentralization are advanced and locked-in, making
subsequent investments in public transit less effective in reducing vehicle
kilometers traveled by car, gasoline use and carbon dioxide emissions. Using
a simple core-periphery model of Beijing, the authors numerically assess
this effect. The analysis confirms that improving the transit travel time in
Beijing's core would reduce the city's overall carbon dioxide emissions,
whereas the opposite would be the case if peripheral road capacity were
expanded. This effect is robust to perturbations in the model's calibrated
parameters. In particular, the effect persists for a wide range of
assumptions about how location choice depends on travel time and a wide
range of assumptions about other aspects of consumer preferences.

Read the full paper @
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73587.html

*Cities and Social Equity: Inequality, territory and urban form*

Cities and Social Equity is a report by the Urban Age research team with
commissioned pieces from Ipsos MORI, United Nations Institute for the
Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD), the Centre for
Metropolitan Studies (CEM), Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and the Faculty
of Architecture and Urbanism at the Mackenzie Presbyterian University.  In
2008, the Urban Age undertook and commissioned research on the five largest
cities in South America (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Bogotá and
Lima). With a combined population of nearly 60 million and dramatic growth
in recent decades, these five cities are places of mix, change and extreme
polarization which can be destabilizing, inhumane and wasteful of resources.
Cities and Social Equity assesses the impact of inequality in an urban
context with comparative research and data collection in the five cities
(including innovative mapping of inequality to identify the pockets of
privilege and deprivation in each city). While the research work
commissioned in the report has a specific focus on the problems facing São
Paulo, the region's pre-eminent city, their findings have wider resonance
for cities throughout the world.

Read more @ http://www.urban-age.net//publications/reports/southAmerica/<http://www.urban-age.net/publications/reports/southAmerica/>

* * * *
*MARK YOUR CALENDARS*

5th International Marketing Conference  - Successfully marketing
public transport,  7-9 October 2009, Lisbon, Portugal
http://www.uitp.org/events/2009/lisbon/en/

8th International Conference of EASTS, 19-October, 2009, Surabaya
http://www.easts2009.org/

Accident Prevention: Road Safety Measures 4th IRF Regional Conference
on Road Safety, 23 October 2009, New Delhi, India
http://www.irfnet.org/eventdetail.php?catid=1&id=100&title=4th%20Regi...<http://www.irfnet.org/eventdetail.php?catid=1&id=100&title=4th%20Regional%20IRF%20Conference%20on%20Road%20Safety>

2nd MENA Public Transport Congress and Showcase , 25-27 October 2009, Doha,
Qatar
http://www.uitp.org/events/2009/qatar/en/index.cfm

TRAINING PROGRAMME, 8th Training Programme for Public Transport
Managers, 16-18 November 2009, Belfast
http://www.uitp.org/events/2009/8Training/en/index.cfm

Urban Mobility India - 2009, 3-December 2009, New Delhi
http://www.iutindia.org/urban2009.html

TRB 89th Annual Meeting, 10 January, 2010, Washington DC
http://www.trb.org/AnnualMeeting/default.asp

** * * CONTRIBUTE * * * *

To contribute articles, news items, or event announcements for the next
issue, send an email with the complete details and URL source to
suma-news-owner at googlegroups.com with subject "FOR SUMA NEWS".  Past issues
can be found at http://groups.google.com/group/suma-news

** * * ABOUT SUMA * * * *

The Sustainable Urban Mobility in Asia (SUMA) program is supported by the
Asian Development Bank through a grant from Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency. SUMA is implemented by the Clean Air
Initiative for Asian Cities Center (www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia), in
partnership with EMBARQ - the World Resources Institute Center for
Sustainable Transport (http://embarq.wri.org), GTZ Sustainable Urban
Transport Project ( www.sutp.org), Interface for Cycling Expertise (
www.cycling.nl), Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (
www.itdp.org), and United Nations Center for Regional Development (
www.uncrd.or.jp/est)