Multi-criteria analysis procedure for sustainable mobility evaluation in urban areas

Journal of Advanced Transportation, Winter, 2009 by Vania Barcellos Gouvea Campos, Rui Antonio Rodrigues Ramos, Denise Silva Correia de Miranda

This paper proposes a procedure to evaluate sustainable mobility in urban areas. A set of indicators according to three dimensions of sustainability, i.e., environment, economics, and social aspects, are proposed to evaluate mobility in urban areas. The sustainable mobility evaluation is based on an Index calculated through a weighted multi-criteria combination procedure. A group of specialists in Brazil was involved in the development of the Index by defining the weights for the criteria. An application of the methodology in the city of Belo Horizonte, capital of the State of Minas Gerais, with 2.24 million inhabitants, is presented to validate the methodology.

Introduction

To evaluate sustainability in urban areas the interaction between all the activities developed in the city and their relevant impact in the environment, in the society and in the urban economy must be taken into account. At first, the main objective is to reduce environmental impacts, but, it is important to observe if the implementation of some measures that minimise those problems simultaneously motivates a regression in a few urban economy indicators and decreases the population life conditions. Therefore, the main difficulty in urban areas is the implementation of measures that can reduce environmental problems and at the same time maintain a practical development in the urban economy. Concerning this aspect, the efficiency of urban transport systems is very important in the maintenance of the urban economy, nevertheless some systems can produce several environmentally negative impacts. Thus, it is important to evaluate the urban transport system in order to adequate it to urban mobility system for a real sustainable urban development.

The sustainable development is usually evaluated in three main dimensions: Environment, Society and Economy, and each dimension must not be analysed independently. For each one of these three dimensions some important impacts can be associated with the urban transports systems:

* in the environment context: air pollution, noise, water contamination and natural resources consumption;

* in the social context: health, equality and justness of opportunities;

* in the economic context: regional and urban economy, transports cost, competitiveness and subsidies.

Sustainable mobility is one of the crucial components for a city sustainable development and it can be achieved through measures that ease the population displacement in order to improve the quality of life and to promote an efficient consumption of natural resources. In order to evaluate sustainable mobility, it is necessary to design an evaluation procedure based on transport and land usage indicators related to the urban development and to the sustainable dimensions. Hence, this paper presents a research contribute to identify some relevant indicators that evaluate sustainable mobility in urban areas and formulate an Index based on a multi-criteria analysis process. This process, made by a group of specialists in urban and transport planning, evaluates the weight of each indicator.

Sustainable Mobility

An integrated urban planning and transports system can develop the implementation of structures in which ecological, social and economic sustainability can be reached. The procedures integration in land use planning and transports system can contribute to a more sustainable urban development to maintain an efficient sustainable mobility. Erl & Feber (2000) consider that sustainable mobility can be achieved if the following chain of goals/actions is taken into account:

* Improvement of accessibility and the use of space;

* Increase of the contribution of environment-friendly modes (public transport, cycling, walking);

* Traffic congestion reduction;

* Safety improvement;

* Air pollution, noise, and visual nuisance reduction; while:

* a wealthy and healthy urban economy is developed and maintained;

* social equity and transport opportunities for all community sectors are ensured.

In the development of this work it was considered that sustainable mobility is achieved by promoting equality of possibilities in transport, with access to all the activities in the urban area, and by reducing energy consumption with a more efficient transportation system. Consequently, sustainable mobility promotes the reduction of environmental pollution and the improvement of more efficient usage of natural resources in transport infrastructures and modes. This is, in a general way, a promotion to reduce the private vehicle use, adopting measures that facilitate and increase the access of the population to public transportation, walking and cycling.

To measure the sustainable mobility of a region it is proposed, first and foremost, a set of indicators (criteria) related to urban transport, land use occupation and urban sustainability and, secondly, these indicators are associated to obtain a Sustainable Mobility Index (SMI).

3. Proposal of Sustainable Mobility Indicators

The indicators to evaluate sustainable mobility should combine the characteristics of the urban structure that motivates walking and cycling to satisfy daily activities of population trips in a residential area, and the use of the public transports network when these trips could not be done within a certain limit to use these modes, and so, reducing the amount of trips done by private cars.