Sustainable Transport and Reflexive Mobility –

Definitely economically feasible and always socially acceptable

A contribution to the ECMT Seminar on

“Managing the Fundamental Drivers of Transport Demand”

Despite industries and governments embracing the common vision of sustainable transport, legal and regulatory measures aiming to improve both transport and the environment are turned down because it is said that such measures are neither socially accepted nor economically feasible. “Zero acceptability” or “beyond feasibility”, however, often appear as mere constructions – as “empty phrases” – used to counteract policies that will challenge current power structures within the transport system. Dominant transport actors frequently evoke such phrases and question the acceptability and feasibility of sustainable transport policies in order to protect their vested interests, rather than to recall their social responsibility. This general ignorance can be among the biggest obstacles to creating environmentally sustainable transport, as a recent OECD-report on “Policy Instruments for achieving Environmentally Sustainable Transport” has concluded.

In order to contrast the dubious use of “feasibility” and “acceptability” as means to hide environmental ignorance, T&E argues that sustainable policies aiming at internalising transportation’s external costs are definitely economically feasible. In general, it makes little sense to claim that internalising the external costs of transport is economically unfeasible, or even worse, bad for the economy. In fact, the opposite is the case: less transport can be good for the economy! Why? Because a reduction of transport will increase both economic efficiency and productivity. It will stimulate a more efficient use of scarce resources, such as energy, land or clean air, and it will increase the economic productivity in those regions that have suffered from an unbalanced distribution of wealth due to spatial concentration and centralisation processes.

Moreover, the social acceptability of sustainable transport policies that are of benefit to both current and future generations is per se high. The fact that certain social groups may find their privileges threatened should not have an influence on whether the very policy in question counts as socially acceptable or not. Making transport more sustainable qualifies as such a policy because it offers mid-term benefits as well as instant gratification for future and current generations.

Any move towards a more sustainable transport system relies essentially on a changing world-outlook within the relevant industries and of current political decision-makers. The promotion of another “mobility view” amongst those actors is necessary. A key characteristic of such reformed mobility views is the degree of reflexivity of an organisation or institution active in the field of transport. In other words, there is a necessity to look upon our own doings in a more self-critical fashion and measure the validity of our actions against the negative impacts they have on other social subsystems, such as the economy or the environment.

We then propose to improve the reflexivity of crucial transport actors such as global corporations, European administrations and national governments. We argue that in order for sustainability to work these institutions have to change their outlook on transport and mobility. We claim that sustainable transport policy starts within the organisations that are making transport policies. In fact, it begins in the mind of the desk officer, engineers or planners, who provide their input into this policy process. All of these individuals and organisations need to come up with a more “reflexive mobility view”, in order to develop the political will to implement sustainable transport policies. In other words, making transport more sustainable is not possible without making relevant organisations more reflexive. This need for more self-critical action within the transport sector may be captured under the leitmotif of “reflexive mobility”.

By introducing the notion of “reflexive mobility” to a debate on “the fundamental drivers of transport demand”, T&E seeks to go beyond a mere management of these drivers. Rather then managing social, economic or technological drivers, we need to change them! In light of this, reflexivity appears as an instrument to transform the public and private organisations that are reproducing these drivers of transport demand. Reflexivity, then, aims at implementing an often-cited “global responsibility” within transnational organisations like the aviation industry or the European Commission. The claim is that managing the fundamental drivers of transport demand requires, first and foremost, a different (and more reflexive) mobility view within these organisations – it requires changing the way people and organisations conceptualise transport and mobility.

To conclude, we propose the following policy recommendations:

§ In order to ensure the economic feasibility of sustainable transport it is now time for immediate and consistent political action. The way forward is to set targets such as those in the Kyoto Protocol and ensure that the transport sector will meet them. Instead of continuing the debates on finding the exact price to cover the social marginal costs, political decision makers at EU level should finally adopt the long-awaited Framework Directive on Infrastructure Charging and start working on relevant Daughter Directives for all modes of transport.

§ Social acceptability of measures to promote sustainable transport expands exponentially whenever their success is tangible and direct personal benefits are experienced. This sort of instant gratification is most strongly appreciated, where transport problems are most severe, such as in Europe’s urban areas. Therefore, European legislation on urban transport is most needed. The European Commission ought to expand its activities in this field and move from promoting Best Practice to implementing binding targets and legislation.

§ An initial step on an EU-level towards more reflexive mobility politics would comprise the establishment of a sustainability impact assessment, as requested by the Gothenburg Council in June 2001. Any transport-related policy, plan or project ought to be subject to an assessment that scrutinises their impacts on all three dimensions of sustainability. In addition to subjecting transport programmes to an SEA and transport projects to an EIA, European policies in areas like taxation, technology, competition etc. ought to be subject to this assessment. The sustainability impact assessment should then clearly show what the positive and negative feedbacks are for the overarching goal of achieving sustainable transport and reflexive mobility. It should provide the yardstick by which to measure the reflexivity of transport-related policies in the EU.

December 2002

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