Sustainable Transportation

In the process of development of human society, the limited resource is a main factor which restricts the development. Due to the sustainable development guideline, people realize that we have wasted much resource in the past. In recent decades, there are many changes in transportation. The number of vehicles increases sharply in the world.

For the first question---what is sustainable transport? The answer is that it does not use or rely on dwindling natural resources (Michael Evans, 2011). Instead it relies on renewable or regenerated energy rather than fossil fuels that have a finite life expectancy. For this reason it is said to have a low or a negative effect on the environment since it makes use of energy sources that are sustainable.

Moreover, vehicles are useful tools which can help people do many things. In addition, the transportation is also an economic basis of a country. Because of these reasons, it is important to develop a sustainable transportation system. In this blog, it will illustrate what is sustainable transport. And the advantages of sustainable transportation also will be talked about.

After we know the definition of sustainable transportation, it is necessary to know how to meet this target. There is a figure show the traffic forecasts in the future.

Figure 2. Global ground passenger and freight traffic forecasts 2005-2050

Source: International Energy Agency: Transport, Energy and CO2, 2009

It is clear that the transportation plays a more and more important role in our daily life. It means that transportation will have huge impact on the society and environment. Because of this situation, there are some ways to make the transportation become sustainable.

Figure 3

Firstly, policy makers should set several rules to encourage people and company to accept sustainable transportation. Secondly, service provide is also important. It can guide people to learn how to use the sustainable transportation and even can help them to change their own cars or motorbikes to be sustainable. Thirdly, the most important part is the energy supply. In this part, energy companies should develop their technologies to provide much more sustainable energy, such like biofuel, solar power and hydrogen. These kinds of energy are friendly to environment and renewable.

There is an example in NSW about developing sustainable transportation.

In this plan, the government concerns about climate, energy, policy and the ability of transport. Although this plan is still on the process, I believe that this plan will work well and benefit for whole society and the local environment.

In conclusion, the concept of sustainable transportation will be a tendency in the future. There are many advantages of sustainable transportation such as environment friendly and effectively. However, this is still a plan in many cities. The government should do more efforts to make it become true. 

Reference:

[1] FYI. Sustainable building case study: key tower base remodel. City ofSeattle/D epartment of Design, Construction & Land Use, http://www.cityofseattle.net/civiccenter/Images/ktbase_Key-Tower-SECTION-B.pdf; 2000.

[2] Ken Yeang. The green skyscraper, the basics for designing sustainable intensive buildings. Munich, London, New York: Prestel Verlag; 1999.