Development of a novel framework for the design of transport policies to achieve environmental targets

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

10-2009

Abstract

The formulation of policies requires the selection and configuration of effective and acceptable courses of action to reach explicit goals. A one-size-fits-all policy is unlikely to achieve the desired goals; as a result, the identification of a suite of alternative policies, together with clear indications of their trade-offs, is crucial to accommodate the diversity of stakeholders' preferences. At present, the formulation of transport policies is done manually; this fact, together with the size of the space of possible policies, results in a large part of that space being left unexplored. A six-step framework to explore the space of alternative transport policies in order to achieve environmental targets is proposed. The process starts with a user-defined set of specific policy measures, using them as building blocks in the generation of alternative policy packages, clusters and future images according to the user's preferences and goals. The analysis framework is based on the visioning and backcasting approach used in the VIBAT report [Banister, D., & Hickman, R. (2006a). Visioning and backcasting for UK transport policy (VIBAT) project. Department for Transport's Horizons Research Programme 2004/06. The Bartlett school of planning and Halcrow Group Ltd. Retrieved 1/18/2008 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/∼ucft696/vibat2.html]. The framework is being implemented as a prototype decision support system around a case study: the formulation and analysis of policies required to achieve CO emission targets for the transport sector in the UK. Important insights on how to develop the framework have also been elicited from engineering design. The goal is to accelerate the task of policy-making and improve the effectiveness of the resulting policies. The proposed method and computer implementation is fundamentally different from the tools commonly used in the transport sector and is intended to assist (not replace) transport policy makers, and complement (not substitute nor compete with) existing mathematical modelling tools. This research constitutes the first step towards the development of a general family of computer-based systems that support the design of policies to achieve environmental targets-not only for transport, but also for other sectors such as energy and water. Crown Copyright © 2009.

Keywords

Conceptual design, Decision support systems, Emission reduction, Policy design, Process design, Transportation

Discipline

Political Science | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

Research Areas

Political Science

Publication

Computers and Chemical Engineering

Volume

33

Issue

10

First Page

1531

Last Page

1545

ISSN

0098-1354

Identifier

10.1016/j.compchemeng.2009.01.010

Publisher

Elsevier

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compchemeng.2009.01.010

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