Towards a More Sustainable Mobility

Abstract

The transport sector is the second most important source of emissions in the EU. It is paramount to act now towards the decarbonisation of our transport system to mitigate climate change effects. Waiting for future technological advancements to minimise the existing anthropogenic emissions and dramatically boost its sustainability is risky for human survival. The current chapter highlights how the path towards a sustainable transport system is a whole stakeholders’ effort involving the mass deployment of available technology, changing user behaviours, data-driven legislation, and researching and developing future disruptive technologies. The author analyses and classifies the available data on various transport modals and assesses the impact of the technologies and policy measures in terms of potential reduction of carbon emissions, challenges, and opportunities. It also exemplifies outstanding test settings across the world on how already available technologies have contributed to the development of a lower-carbon transport setting. The chapter considers developing countries’ economic and infrastructural challenges in upgrading to a low-carbon transport system and the lack of data-driven decisions and stakeholders’ engagement measures in addressing the sector sustainability challenges. It also emphasised how a sustainable transport system should lay the foundation on data harmonisation and interoperability to accelerate innovation and promote a fast route for deploying new and more effective policies.