Towards truly sustainable mobility

Abstract

Although sustainability is an important goal in transport policies, the focus is often on environmental sustainability, mostly ignoring economic and social aspects of sustainability. However, transport has important impacts on various sustainability elements. In this commentary, I first give an overview of how transport is related with four pillars of sustainability. Second, I describe how transport can be made more sustainable (in the broad sense of the word) by means of (i) technology and (ii) planning and policy. Third, I discuss the uncertain and potentially undesired effects of these new technologies and policy measures on sustainability. Finally, future research on how to make transport more sustainable is discussed.