Strong sustainability appraisal for transport

Sustainability is a key tenet of current transport planning. Appraisal,
which provides formal input for decisions, is increasingly criticised for
its ‘weak’ sustainability approach, assuming that any negative
(typically ecological or social) impact can be compensated by any
positive (typically economic) impacts. The ‘strong’ sustainability
approach, in contrast, asserts that harm on ‘critical’ natural and social
environments cannot be undone by positive impacts elsewhere. The
goal of this project is to 1) assess the ‘strength’ of sustainability in
actual transport planning and 2) develop a method for appraising the
fair distribution of benefits and burdens over space and society. To
this end, the project comprises 1) the review of concepts from
environmental sciences and moral philosophy to assess benefits,
burdens and fairness, 2) a quantitative analysis of guidelines,
completed appraisals and subsequent decisions to understand
sustainability considerations in real-world decisions, 3) an in-depth
analysis of completed and ongoing projects with surveys and
interviews to map the distribution of benefits and burdens and
understand the effect on decisions, and 4) the integration of the
results in a novel method, consisting of guidelines and a calculation
and visualisation method. By offering tools and concepts for
participatory planning, the research will help new ways of
sustainability thinking permeate to other academic fields but also to
real-world policy.