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- Report n°6: Urban Public Transport
Report n°6: Urban Public Transport
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Table of contents
- Introduction
Introduction
The contribution of public transport to sustainable urban development is no longer in question in theory, but it remains to be measured. It can be summed up as three major functions:
- an offer of mobility for urban residents with no individual means of transport, also referred to as "the captives";
- an alternative to private cars when, for a variety of reasons, environmental in particular, their use is restricted;
- a means of transport with a view to making public urban space more "socially integrating", which appears to be essential for the cohesion of society, as is becoming increasingly clear.
The first two of these functions appear more often than not to be substitutes which city dwellers resort to, from necessity rather than choice, because use of private vehicles is regulated or too expensive. As for the third function, it is generally ignored, or simply mentioned in passing, because it is difficult to evaluate and therefore to provide evidence for.
In industrialised countries, one of the major challenges of sustainable urban development is that it must be sufficiently effective for city dwellers to select public transport for its attractiveness and not simply because there is no alternative. It is a known fact, recorded by many sources, that users always prefer the statu quo so that the degree of improvement derived from a change must be very significant and above all, perceived to be so. In other words, as regards urban mobility, the level of performance of the alternative must be extremely high if one aims to improve the level of quality of what could be called default use and above all contribute to establish sustainable selective use, recruiting users from the group of non-captives.
The expertise acquired through pioneering or experimental projects should be mobilised to develop a professional culture, without which the value of such innovative projects is simply that they attract media attention. Such is the aim of this contribution which offers a review, with no claim to be all-inclusive, of projects to enhance the performance of public transport. The meaning of performance must therefore be extended to include the capacity of public transport to attract an urban population in a context dominated by private cars, and not just a suitably high economic return on investment.