What Are the Potential Challenges for Planning Sustainable Transportation

What are the Potential Challenges for Planning Sustainable Transportation?

It is the development of transportation that allows us to enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables in winter and receive packages from anywhere. Transportation plays a significant role in reinforcing connectivity between different areas. It also brings enormous benefit, and it has promoted the globalization of the world economy. On the other hand, it without a doubt contributes to the destruction of our environment and waste of energy. Consequently, transportation sustainability which aims to reach a proper balance among environment, society, and economy has received increasing attention worldwide. In order to implement transportation sustainability, several potential challenges should be taken into consideration, such as climate changes, limited oil resources, urban sprawl, traffic congestion and environmental problem.

Climate change is considered to be one of the significant challenges facing designers over the next several decades. Although few studies have ever examined the effects of climate change on the design of transportation before, now many experts are realizing that climate change can cause significant impacts on transportation facilities. For instance, the structure of concrete pavement can be damaged by high temperatures because of the emergence of rutting and subsidence and intense precipitation can cause unexpected flood (Meyer & Weige 2011). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that global temperatures will increase 1.8-4 Celsius degree by the end of the century (Anforth, Barrett, Denton & Revill 2009). Such temperature rise will affect the climate system and lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather such as sea level rise, which has adverse effects on the transportation systems. If the sea-level rises, water may inundate low-lying transportation facilities such as coastal highways,

railways and ports. The Indonesian tsunami in...