Integration of land use and transport to reach sustainable development goals: Will radical scenarios actually get us there?

Abstract

The United Nations have developed Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to guide countries’ development in the next decades. In this paper, we first propose a set of measurable indicators that define the degree of achievement of SDG. Secondly, we use a microscopic integrated land use and transportation model to define future scenarios and measure SDG in the future with radical policies. The model is implemented in Munich and Kagawa. The results are not uniform across policies: while the core cities scenario limits urban sprawl and consumption of greenfield land, traffic conditions and GHG emissions worsened. Furthermore, the scenarios also show the relevance of testing policies in different study areas: the core city scenario and the draconic resettlement scenario showed some impact on vehicle-kilometers traveled in Munich, while the impact in the Kagawa region was almost negligible. In general, only strong (and perhaps implausible) relocation policies result in overall significant changes in the SDG indicators.