A Streetcar Named Progress: Systems Analysis of Sustainability Transitions for Low-Carbon Urban Transport

Abstract

Cities represent a promising opportunity for climate change mitigation, however current research suggests that they are not realising their full climate action potential. Research is urgently required that investigates specifically how to generate enduring change around low-carbon urban outcomes, in addition to developing the evidence base around effective and appropriate interventions for decarbonising urban systems. The IPCC and other international organisations have identified transport as an urban system high on the priority list for decarbonisation. Urban transport’s sectoral emissions profile is already significant, and demand for transportation in cities is set to grow as the global trend toward urbanisation continues. Hence, this study focuses on the decarbonisation of urban transport systems, with the medium-sized city of Canberra, ACT, Australia as its case study. To underpin the modelling and analysis in this study, a fuzzy cognitive map (FCM), was developed on the basis of interviews with various city-level actors in Canberra. The FCM itself is an important output of this study. It offers the literature, and policymakers, knowledge about the complex relationships between transport policy interventions and their outcomes, as well as providing a strong basis for further qualitative and quantitative analysis. This study’s FCM identifies a broad range of climate policy interventions for low-carbon transport across four themes – vehicle electrification, transport infrastructures, urban development, and market forces. Moreover, it identifies the triggers, linkages, feedbacks, dynamics, and causal influences on the ‘core transitions engine’ of these interventions. A key finding of this study is that city governments have an unequivocally important role throughout low-carbon transition processes in urban transport systems. Although interventions led by industry bodies may provide city governments with mechanisms for implementing climate policy interventions with less expenditure of their own political and financial capital, leveraging mechanisms that rely primarily on the private sector to progress climate policy interventions is often neither effective nor appropriate. As an example, this study found that prioritising the outcomes of light rail projects to benefit private urban developers risks generating perverse outcomes for low-carbon transport. Notwithstanding the above caveats, this study finds that the private sector does have jurisdiction over certain interventions for low-carbon transport which have the capacity to be both effective and appropriate. The main example identified by this study is the building up of ‘electric car culture’, which supports the mainstreaming of buying an electric car. However, even here, city governments have a role in facilitating the private sector’s transport intervention by providing associated infrastructures (e.g. charging facilities and other planning provisions). Otherwise, the effectiveness of the private sector’s intervention is noticeably reduced. Cities represent a promising opportunity for climate change mitigation, however current research suggests that they are not realising their full climate action potential. Research is urgently required that investigates specifically how to generate enduring change around low-carbon urban outcomes, in addition to developing the evidence base around effective and appropriate interventions for decarbonising urban systems. The IPCC and other international organisations have identified transport as an urban system high on the priority list for decarbonisation. Urban transport’s sectoral emissions profile is already significant, and demand for transportation in cities is set to grow as the global trend toward urbanisation continues. Hence, this study focuses on the decarbonisation of urban transport systems, with the medium-sized city of Canberra, ACT, Australia as its case study. To underpin the modelling and analysis in this study, a fuzzy cognitive map (FCM), was developed on the basis of interviews with various city-level actors in Canberra. The FCM itself is an important output of this study. It offers the literature, and policymakers, knowledge about the complex relationships between transport policy interventions and their outcomes, as well as providing a strong basis for further qualitative and quantitative analysis. This study’s FCM identifies a broad range of climate policy interventions for low-carbon transport across four themes – vehicle electrification, transport infrastructures, urban development, and market forces. Moreover, it identifies the triggers, linkages, feedbacks, dynamics, and causal influences on the ‘core transitions engine’ of these interventions. A key finding of this study is that city governments have an unequivocally important role throughout low-carbon transition processes in urban transport systems. Although interventions led by industry bodies may provide city governments with mechanisms for implementing climate policy interventions with less expenditure of their own political and financial capital, leveraging mechanisms that rely primarily on the private sector to progress climate policy interventions is often neither effective nor appropriate. As an example, this study found that prioritising the outcomes of light rail projects to benefit private urban developers risks generating perverse outcomes for low-carbon transport. Notwithstanding the above caveats, this study finds that the private sector does have jurisdiction over certain interventions for low-carbon transport which have the capacity to be both effective and appropriate. The main example identified by this study is the building up of ‘electric car culture’, which supports the mainstreaming of buying an electric car. However, even here, city governments have a role in facilitating the private sector’s transport intervention by providing associated infrastructures (e.g. charging facilities and other planning provisions). Otherwise, the effectiveness of the private sector’s intervention is noticeably reduced. In terms of practical implications for policymakers, this study identified five key leverage points which represent effective city government –led interventions for low-carbon urban transport, as well as an accompanying discussion regarding their appropriate implementation. These leverage points relate to the intervention themes of vehicle electrification, transport infrastructures, and urban development. This study contributes to the urban climate policy and sustainability transitions literatures, by adding to the evidence base of how to build low-carbon transport systems that promote sustainable urban futures.