A Global High Shift Scenario: Impacts and Potential for More Public Transport, Walking, and Cycling With Lower Car Use

By Michael A. Replogle, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and Lewis M. Fulton, University of California, Davis - Publication, September 2016

This report is the first study to examine how major changes in urban transport investments worldwide would affect urban passenger transport emissions as well as mobility by different income groups. It starts with the most recent United Nations urban population forecasts and the most recent model framework and forecasts used by the International Energy Agency (IEA) for global mobility modeling. The study extends these with new research on the extent of various urban passenger transport systems in cities across the world, as well as new estimates of the extent of mobility by non-motorized transport and low power e-bikes.

The study considers two main future scenarios: a baseline urban scenario calibrated to the IEA 2012 Energy Technology Perspectives 4° Scenario and a newly developed alternative scenario called “High Shift” (HS), with far greater urban passenger travel by clean public transport and non-motorized modes than in the Baseline and a decrease in the rates of road construction, parking garages and other ways in which car ownership is encouraged.

The study concludes that this High Shift scenario could save over $100 trillion in public and private capital and operating costs of urban transportation between now and 2050 and eliminate about 1.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) annually – a 40 percent reduction of urban passenger transport emissions -- by 2050. This suggests one of the more afford-able ways to cut global warming pollution is to design cities to give people clean options for using public transportation, walking and cycling. In recent years transportation, driven by rapid growth in car use, has been the fastest growing source of CO₂ in the world.

Transportation in urban areas accounted for about 2.3 gigatons of CO₂ in 2010, almost one quarter of carbon emissions from all parts of the transportation sector. Rapid urbanization—especially in fast developing countries like China and India—will cause these emissions to nearly double worldwide by 2050 without changes in policy and investments.

Read the report (PDF).

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s. Nor do(es) the author(s) necessarily endorse the positions of the IWW.