SUSTAINABILITY OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEMS IN WORLD CITIES

Objectives

  • To develop a framework for assessing the sustainability of urban public transport systems in cities
  • To benchmark selected cities using the framework to assess their relative performance and areas for improvement
  • To explore relationships between public transport sustainability, land use and regulatory structures for public transport.

Method

  • Development of framework containing 15 indicators covering four sustainability dimensions: environmental, social, economic and system effectiveness
  • Benchmarking of public transport sustainability in 97 world cities
  • Correlation analysis of public transport sustainability with land use indicators and regulatory structures operating in each city.

Key results

Prague, Dakar and Tokyo have the highest levels of public transport sustainability.

Fig. 1 Normalised scores by sustainability dimension

  • At a world region level, Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America achieve the highest levels of public transport sustainability (in that order); Western Europe, North America and Oceania have better performance on environmental and social sustainability but poorer performance on other aspects
  • At a city level, Prague (Czech Republic), Dakar (Senegal) and Tokyo (Japan) have the highest levels of public transport sustainability, while Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Shizuoka (Japan) and Denver (United States) have the lowest performance
  • Population and job density are positively correlated with public transport sustainability; about a third of overall public transport sustainability performance in cities is explained by land use
  • Cities with publicly operated systems perform worse in terms of economic sustainability but better in terms of social sustainability; the converse is found for privately operated systems.

City rankings of public transport sustainability

1. Prague
2. Dakar
3. Tokyo
4. Manila
5. Osaka
6. Harare
7. Beijing
8. Mumbai
9. Moscow
10. Abu Dhabi
11. Jerusalem
12. Chennai
13. Bogota
14. Hong Kong
15. Budapest
16. Dusseldorf
17. Berne
18. Vienna
19. Santiago
20. Cracow
21. Stuttgart
22. Amsterdam
23. Bangkok
24. Shanghai
25. London
26. Mexico City
27. Graz
28. Singapore
29. Geneva
30. Copenhagen
31. Zurich
32. Munich
33. Taipei
34. Sapporo
35. Rio de Janeiro
36. Helsinki
37. Hamburg
38. Stockholm
39. Frankfurt
40. Ruhr
41. Lyon
42. Madrid
43. Berlin
44. Abidjan
45. Nantes
46. Seoul
47. Marseille
48. Oslo
49. Newcastle
50. Rome
51. Brasilia
52. Salvador
53. Milan
54. Brussels
55. Bologna
56. Tunis
57. Sao Paulo
58. Ho Chi Minh City
59. Barcelona
60. Delhi
61. Perth
62. Glasgow
63. Jakarta
64. Calgary
65. Paris
66. Athens
67. Cairo
68. Tehran
69. Vancouver
70. Curitiba
71. Manchester
72. New York
73. Montreal
74. Toronto
75. Washington
76. Chicago
77. Houston
78. Wellington
79. San Francisco
80. Melbourne
81. Brisbane
82. Sydney
83. Atlanta
84. Riyadh
85. Tel Aviv
86. Phoenix
87. Guangzhou
88. Ottawa
89. Cape Town
90. Casablanca
91. Los Angeles
92. San Diego
93. Kuala Lumpur
94. Johannesburg
95. Denver
96. Shizuoka
97. Dubai

Source: Currie & De Gruyter (2017)

Research Papers

De Gruyter, C., Currie, G., Rose, G. (2017) Sustainability Measures of Urban Public Transport in Cities: A World Review and Focus on the Asia/Middle East Region. Sustainability, Vol. 9, No. 1, 43.

Currie, G. & De Gruyter, C. (2017) Exploring links between the sustainability performance of urban public transport and land use in international cities. Presented at the 2017 World Symposium on Transport and Land Use Research (WSTLUR). Brisbane, Australia.

Currie, G., Truong, L.T. & De Gruyter, C. (2017) Regulatory Structures and their Impact on the Sustainability Performance of Public Transport in World Cities. Presented at the Thredbo 15 Conference on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport. Stockholm, Sweden.