Sustainable urban transportation strategies: Searching for synergies

Sustainable urban transport is a straightforward concept in theory but still remains unresolved in practice. While there is overall consensus among researchers and institutions about the need for integrated transport strategies (May et al., 2006; Zhang et al., 2006; Justen et al., 2014), there is still a lack of knowledge as to the policy measures required. This article is intended to contribute to an understanding of the way different measures interact when implemented together in terms of their synergies and complementarities. The methodological approach is a step-by-step process where measures are analysed first in isolation and then in combination, with the aim of providing a quantitative and comprehensive analysis of the effects and possible synergies between them. Each measure considers different geographical scales of implementation. The results are based on a transport model. The results highlight the need for policy packages that ensure higher success rates and cancel out the negative impacts of individual measures. They also show how measures can interact in different manners–from neutralizing negative impacts of another measure to reinforcing each other its positive effects.