Transport, development and climate change mitigation: towards an integrated approach

Transport and infrastructure development enables economic and social development, but is often detrimental to sustainable development due to congestion, accidents, air pollution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Various policy frameworks have been created to connect transport with development, development with climate change and climate change mitigation with the transport sector. However, so far no consistent framework exists that addresses these three areas in an integrated manner.This article demonstrates that sustainable development of the transport sector is not viable on the longer term in the absence of such a three-way framework. First, current perspectives and practices on transport and (sustainable) development are reviewed, demonstrating that outcomes and policies are not consistently positive on all three dimensions. The article then re-evaluates the Avoid–Shift–Improve (ASI) approach, initially developed to address climate change mitigation and other environmental issues in the transport sector, adding two perspectives on sustainable development that are not generally taken into account when discussing ASI: transition theory and sustainable lifestyles. Together with attention to the development function of transport by incorporating Access into ASI, this could enable a more long-term sustainability-oriented view on transport, development and climate mitigation.