Development of a tool to assess urban transport sustainability: The case of Swedish cities

ABSTRACT

This article presents a framework and a tool to assess transport sustainability in Swedish cities that was developed for and together with some cities in Sweden in strong cooperation with the researchers. The tool, called the Transport Sustainability Barometer (TSB), includes a set of hierarchical indicators to measure sustainability in respect to efficiency, accessibility, safety, liveability, emissions, and resource use. The novelty of the TSB is that it proposes the use of both objectively and subjectively measurable indicators, i.e., how the population perceives sustainability of transport, their satisfaction with the transport system, and its effects on the economy, the environment, and social issues. This article also presents the application of the tool in a city in Sweden.

KEYWORDS:

• Monitoring sustainability
• objective indicators
• subjective indicators
• sustainablity of urban transport

Acknowledgment

The authors thank Aliaksei Laureshyn for his programming work on the Transport Sustainability Barometer.

Funding

The authors acknowledge funding of this project from the Swedish Transport Administration, VINNOVA—the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions.