STRATEGIC LAND-USE TRANSPORT PLANNING TO REALISE LOW-CARBON SYSTEMS FOR ASIAN DEVELOPING CITIES

In Asian developing countries, low-carbon transport systems need to be decoupled with economic growth to avoid rapid growth in CO2 emission. This requires developing cities to introduce new transport systems as much as developed cities in a leapfrog manner. However, their existing transport policies have hardly taken such new systems into account, but many of them have been engaged with a palliative approach by constructing roads to reduce traffic congestion against growing motorization. Accordingly, it is important to know what should be done for desirable transport systems there so as to realize Asian low-carbon society in 2050. This study is aimed at identifying the desirable combination of low-carbon strategies for urban passenger transport to achieve the target of CO2 mitigation in Asian developing cities in 2050 with a backcasting approach. First, measures of land-use transport planning suitable for Asian developing cities are classified to their strategies as options to design their low-carbon transport systems. The classification is made with the CUTE matrix for strategies to reduce travel demand (AVOID), to shift travel to lower-carbon modes (SHIFT) and to improve intensity of transport-oriented emission (IMPROVE). Then, the potential effects of measures by transport strategy on CO2 mitigation from intra-city car trips is estimated by modelling motorisation according to economic growth, transport infrastructure development and technology advancement in Asian developing cities. To model leapfrog changes in systems and behaviour in Asian developing cities, hypothesised future changes are modelled by referring to the experience of Japanese cities. Finally, by applying the model to Beijing, Shanghai and Delhi, this analysis examines the required levels of contributions of low-carbon strategies to achieving the target of CO2 mitigation for Asian developing cities. The results suggest that policy packages among transport strategies need to generate drastic changes in urban land-use transport systems, including technologies, to achieve the challenging target of CO2 mitigation.