Sustainable Transportation Systems Engineering


Book Description

Engineer and implement sustainable transportation solutions Featuring in-depth coverage of passenger and freight transportation, this comprehensive resource discusses contemporary transportation systems and options for improving their sustainability. The book addresses vehicle and infrastructure design, economics, environmental concerns, energy security, and alternative energy sources and platforms. Worked-out examples, case studies, illustrations, equations, and end-of-chapter problems are also included in this practical guide. Sustainable Transportation Systems Engineering covers: Background on energy security and climate change Systems analysis tools and techniques Individual choices and transportation demand Transportation systems and vehicle design Physical design of transportation infrastructure Congestion mitigation in urban passenger transportation Role of intelligent transportation systems Public transportation and multimodal solutions Personal mobility and accessibility Intercity passenger transportation Freight transportation function and current trends Freight modal and supply chain management approaches Spatial and geographic aspects of freight transportation Alternative fuels and platforms Electricity and hydrogen as alternative fuels Bioenergy resources and systems Transportation security and planning for extreme weather events PRAISE FOR SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS ENGINEERING: "This book addresses one of the great challenges of the 21st century--how to transform our resource-intensive passenger and freight transportation system into a set of low-carbon, economically efficient, and socially equitable set of services." -- Dan Sperling, Professor and Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, author of Two Billion Cars: Driving toward Sustainability "...provides a rich tool kit for students of sustainable transportation, embracing a systems approach. The authors aptly blend engineering, economics, and environmental impact analysis approaches." -- Susan Shaheen, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Co-Director, Transportation Sustainability Research Center, University of California, Berkeley




An Introduction to Sustainable Transportation


Book Description

Transportation plays a substantial role in the modern world; it provides tremendous benefits to society, but it also imposes significant economic, social and environmental costs. Sustainable transport planning requires integrating environmental, social, and economic factors in order to develop optimal solutions to our many pressing issues, especially carbon emissions and climate change. This essential multi-authored work reflects a new sustainable transportation planning paradigm. It explores the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable transportation, describes practical techniques for comprehensive evaluation, provides tools for multi-modal transport planning, and presents innovative mobility management solutions to transportation problems. This text reflects a fundamental change in transportation decision making. It focuses on accessibility rather than mobility, emphasizes the need to expand the range of options and impacts considered in analysis, and provides practical tools to allow planners, policy makers and the general public to determine the best solution to the transportation problems facing a community. Featuring extensive international examples and case-studies, textboxes, graphics, recommended reading and end of chapter questions, the authors draw on considerable teaching and researching experience to present an essential, ground-breaking and authoritative text on sustainable transport. Students of various disciplines, planners, policymakers and concerned citizens will find many of its provocative ideas and approaches of considerable value as they engage in the processes of understanding and changing transportation towards greater sustainability.







Intercity Transport and Climate Change


Book Description

While intercity passenger transport counts for about 2% of the total passenger transport volume the share of the total passenger kilometers traveled is estimated more than one third. In many countries the major part of intercity transport is performed by car and air and as a result, the contribution to the carbon footprint is substantially higher than the share of overall passenger transport performance. This creates a challenge to develop a sustainable organization of intercity transport which requires a true joint effort of policy makers, industry sectors and households. This presupposes that all options for reducing the carbon footprint of the transport modes – car, air and rail – are fully exploited through modern propulsion technology, use of regenerative energy and efficient organization of transport processes. Basic conditions for meeting this requirement are an incentive compatible public framework of regulation, taxation, charging and education, the private willingness to adjust to new behavioral patterns and a consequent push of technological progress towards energy and CO2 savings. This book begins with an international comparison of intercity transport and the current state of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of this transport segment. A focus is given to comparing the situation in the EU, the US and Japan while describing the more recent development of intercity transport in China, followed by an analysis of intercity transport policies and their contribution to meet the global climate change issues. This book will be of interest to researchers in transportation economics and policy, as well as civil engineering and planning.




Building a Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure for Long-Term Economic Growth


Book Description

Long-term economic growth and increasing vehicle congestion is creating a greater demand for efficient and safe transportation. The high cost of maintaining and fixing pre-existing infrastructure is leading the industry to realize that sustainable long-term transportation planning is needed to keep pace with the growing economy. Building a Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure for Long-Term Economic Growth examines contemporary transportation issues through the lens of various modes of transportation while also focusing on the importance of sustainability, urban planning, and funding. The book covers the topics of sustainability and climate change, public management and planning, financing of transportation infrastructure, and revenue and spending issues facing modern transportation infrastructure. It is ideally designed for engineers, planners, government officials, transportation specialists, legislators, researchers, academicians, students, and industry professionals seeking current research on sustainable transport systems.




EcoDesign and Sustainability II


Book Description

This book highlights cutting-edge ecodesign research, covering product and service design, smart manufacturing, and social perspectives in ecodesign. Featuring selected papers presented at EcoDesign 2019: 11th International Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design and Inverse Manufacturing, it also includes diverse, interdisciplinary approaches to foster ecodesign research and activities. In the context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it addresses the need for the manufacturing industry to design innovations for sustainable value creation, taking into account technological developments, legislation, and consumer lifestyles. Further, the book discusses the concept of circular economy, which originated in Europe and aims to increase resource efficiency by shifting away from the linear economy. Focusing on product life cycle design and management, smart manufacturing, circular economy, and business strategies, and providing useful approaches and solutions to these emerging concepts, this book is intended for both researchers and practitioners working in the broad field of ecodesign and sustainability.




High-Speed Rail and Sustainability


Book Description

High speed rail (HSR) is being touted as a strategic investment for connecting people across regions, while also fostering prosperity and smart urban growth. However, as its popularity increases, its implementation has become contentious with various parties contesting the validity of socioeconomic and environmental objectives put forward as justification for investment. High Speed Rail and Sustainability explores the environmental, economic and social effects of developing a HSR system, presenting new evaluations of the proposed system in California in the US as well as lessons from international experience. Drawing upon the accumulated experience from past HSR system development around the world, leading experts present a diverse set of perspectives as well as diverse contexts of implementation. Assessments of the California case as well as cases from Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, China, and the UK show how governments and stakeholders have bridged the gap between the vision and the realities of connecting metropolitan regions through HSR. This is a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy-makers in the areas of urban planning, civil engineering, transportation and environmental design.




An Introduction to Sustainable Transportation


Book Description

Cities around the globe struggle to create better and more equitable access to important destinations and services, all the while reducing the energy consumption and environmental impacts of mobility. An Introduction to Sustainable Transportation illustrates a new planning paradigm for sustainable transportation through case studies from around the world with hundreds of valuable resources and references, color photos, graphics and tables. The second edition builds and expands upon the highly acclaimed first edition, with new chapters on urban design and urban, regional and intercity public transportation, as well as expanded chapters on automobile dependence and equity issues; automobile cities and the car culture; the history of sustainable and unsustainable transportation; the interrelatedness of technologies, infrastructure energy and functionalities; and public policy and public participation and exemplary places, people and programs around the globe. Among the many valuable additions are discussions of autonomous vehicles (AVs), electric vehicles (EVs), airport cities, urban fabrics, urban heat island effects and mobility as a service (MaaS). New case studies show global exemplars of sustainable transportation, including several from Asia, a case study of participative and deliberative public involvement, as well as one describing life in the Vauban ecologically planned community of Freiburg, Germany. Students in affiliated sustainability disciplines, planners, policymakers and concerned citizens will find many provides practical techniques to innovate and transform transportation.




Introduction to Sustainable Transports


Book Description

Transport systems have to meet the mobility needs of people and commodities on all scales, from the local to the global level. Concerns about the energy, fumes and sound emissions produced, and about the safety, service quality, intelligence and lifecycle of the systems, etc. can all be included in a systemic approach. This approach can contribute to the development of sustainable solutions, for individual vehicles as well as for transport systems. Derived from an approach combining the social and physical sciences, these solutions result from the integration of physical objects, services and organizational processes, which involve several actors. Their harmonious organization contributes to the development of more virtuous transport systems for the future of urban and inter-urban mobility.




Planning Sustainable Cities


Book Description

Planning Sustainable Cities: An infrastructure-based approach provides an analytical framework for urban sustainability, focusing on the services and performance of infrastructure systems. The book approaches infrastructure as a series of systems that function in synergy and are directly linked with urban planning. This method streamlines and guides the planning process, while still highlighting detail, each infrastructure system is decoded in four "system levels". The levels organize the processes, highlight connections between entities and decode the high-level planning and decision making process affecting infrastructure. For each system level strategic objectives of planning are determined. The objectives correspond to the five focus areas of the Zofnass program: Quality of life, Natural World, Climate and Risk, Resource Allocation, Leadership. Developed through the Zofnass Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, this approach integrates the key infrastructure systems of Energy, Landscape, Transportation, Waste, Water, Information and Food and explores their synergies through land use planning, engineering, economics and policy. The size and complexity of infrastructure systems means that multiple stakeholders facing their own challenges and agendas are involved in planning; this book creates a common, collaborative platform between public authorities, planners, and engineers. It is an essential resource for those seeking Envision Sustainability Professionals accreditation.