Systemic sustainable development in the transport service sector

Abstract

The concept of sustainability and sustainable development, especially systemic sustainable development, still raises controversy in literature. The article makes an attempt to re-examine these concepts from a systems perspective, seeking foundations and applications in the selected sector. It is becoming increasingly clear that sustainability and sustainable development are aimed at integrated economic, social, cultural, political, and ecological factors. This causes a need for a constructive approach to the issue, taking into account all the actors, areas and dimensions involved in the pursuit of systemic sustainable development. As a result, both local and global dimensions and the way they interact must be explored in amultifacetedmanner in order to offer a perspectivemore effective and useful than other analytical approaches, as the systems view is a way of thinking in terms of connectedness, relationships, and context. The article aims to review selected publications and studies so as to form the general idea of systemic sustainable development and define the systemic development of sustainable transport, including in particular the perspective of the actors of the sector, transport providers (passenger, urban), and transport development program, implemented both by local governments and on the European scale. An attempt was made to identify elements of the systemic sustainable development model, setting it in the reality of the following subcategories: “Society”, “Economy”, and “Environment” in sectoral terms. It is supposed that systemic sustainable development is a conglomerate of public administration entities, companies operating in the sector, individual and corporate customers, acting in certain conditions for economic, social, and environmental well-being, and a number of their initiatives of major or minor significance, grouped in six sub-areas, undertaken to achieve systemic value in the examined sector, with a positive or negative business/economic, social, and environmental impact.