Sustainable Urban Transport in Asia: Making the Vision a Reality

This report summarizes the main findings from the Partnership for Sustainable Urban Transport in Asia (PSUTA). The objective of the PSUTA is to work with stakeholders in Asian cities – specifically, Hanoi (Vietnam), Pune (India), and Xi’an (China) – to identify indicators of sustainable transport for use in the policy making process. It is a response to the extraordinary – and largely uncontrolled – growth of motorized transport through most of Asia.

After presenting the strategic framework, a broad theory of indicators of sustainable transport is developed. This is followed by a description of some of the indicators as they were developed by the three partner cities. Their assignment was to develop indicators, noting the gaps in information and suggesting ways of bridging those gaps in the future. Noting some of the shortcomings of each city’s findings, some general lessons are drawn, particularly the sustainability of transport in each PSUTA city. Recommendations are included for supporting the key aspects of filling the gaps.

A key theme that runs throughout the report is that the goal of the PSUTA is not wide data collection, rather identification of what data and indicators are necessary for each city’s leaders to make good decisions on sustainable transport.