Nearly 9 months ago Dr Wu Hongyang of the Ministry of Transportation gave a presentation entitled Benchmarking Efficiency of Sustainable Urban Transport in China that lists what he views as 7 key challenges going forward:
- Capacity Building to Adapt to Socio-Economic Needs
- How to relieve the transport congestion and improve transport efficiency？
- While the needs of the reasonable private car can be meet, how to minimize its negative impacts?
- How to support the economic development by improving the reliability and service quality of the public transport？
- How to reduce transport pollution and emissions( including air pollution and noise) and improve the energy efficiency to achieve the clean and healthy transport systems？
- How to improve the social equity by providing multi transport services (including bicycles, walking, buses, and rural buses)？
- How to provide safer urban road and transport systems to promote the increasing of the city’s competence？
To these though, I would add the following:
- Begin classifying and considering trade transport as part of this picture
- Continue funding development of alternative fuel based modes of transportation
- Development of urban planning policies that reduce the reliance on/ need for automobiles
For more on this, I would also highly suggest the Environmental Defense Fund document Non-Motorized Vehicles in Asia: Lessons for Sustainable Transport Planning and Policy and the Asia Development Bank’s Transport Planning and Traffic Management for Better Air Quality