Paper Details

TRB 89th Annual Meeting (January 10-14, 2010)

Event Number:	441
Event Title:	Transportation, Climate Change, and Sustainability
Event Date:	Jan 12 2010 9:30AM- 12:00PM
Event Location:	Hilton, International Center
Event Description:
Event Agenda:

Critique of Policy Document Smarter Travel--A Sustainable Transport Future: New Transport Policy for Ireland 2009-2020 (10-3925)

Ireland’s transport sector depends entirely on imported oil and produces a large share of Ireland’s CO2 emissions. To attempt to grapple with these issues, Ireland recently presented a new transport policy, involving many targets designed to bring Ireland closer to a sustainable transport system. This paper reviews critical transport issues in Ireland, and carefully examines the new transport policy. While the policy holds promise to point Ireland in the right direction towards a sustainable transport system, by promoting non-motorized travel, increased vehicle efficiency, and more thoughtful land use planning. Yet, it has several major shortcomings. The most important of these is that the policy does not set any particular CO2 emissions reduction target. The policy also lacks either a detailed timeline or practical stipulations that authorities can be held accountable to. The authors suggest several additional measures that would improve the policy, including the formation of a centralized National Transport Authority to enforce the policy in alliance with current agencies, and a review by 2014 of the implementation of the policy. This analysis pertains most directly to Ireland, but has important ramifications for countries around the world with a similar transport system as Ireland.

Authors
     Jennings, Mark Gerard, Stanford University
     Schipper, Lee , University of California, Berkeley