Sustainable Urban Mobility in Asia (SUMA) News Digest Vol. 6 Issue 7 – 11 September 2009

[Kaye]

Sustainable Urban Mobility in Asia (SUMA) News Digest Vol. 6 Issue 7 -
11 September 2009

SUMA News Digest is a free monthly e-mail publication that features
news, information, and events related to sustainable urban
transportation in Asia.

*** VISIT THE SUMA PAGES: http://www.cleanairnet.org/suma ***

SUMA PARTNERS ON THE MOVE!

Fourth City Workshop of CAI-Asia China Network: Advancing Vehicle
Emission Management (VEM): Emission Standards, Fuel Quality and Fuel
Efficiency4-5 August 2009, Qingdao, China

The Fourth City Workshop of the CAI-Asia China Network: "Advancing
Vehicle Emission Management (VEM): Emission Standards, Fuel Quality
and Fuel Efficiency" was recently concluded in Qingdao, Shandong
Province on 4-5 August 2009 at the Huanghai Hotel Qingdao. It was
attended by 11 CAI-Asia member cities plus Beijing; officials and
staff from Qingdao Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB), Vehicle
Emissions Control Center (VECC), Tsinghua University, Ministry of
Environmental Protection (MEP), Asian Development Bank (ADB), CAI-Asia
Center offices in Manila and Beijing, and the expert from US
Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). The workshop was a great
opportunity for cities to exchange experiences in AQM, provide
feedback on the new AQ and SUT policies and measures planned for
implementation, learn new and innovative ways to address air
pollution, and communicate with CAI-Asia their AQ priorities and needs
in the next few years. During the workshop, CAI-Asia also updated the
participants with the activities under the Air Quality and Transport
Programs (SUMA Program).

To read the presentations at the workshop, please visit
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73548.html

Ahmedabad BRTS - The new Janmarg BRT system, in the process of being
completed in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, meets most of the highest standards
applied internationally. It is already a "best practice" of BRT in
South Asia, in sharp contrast to the bus corridors in operation in
Delhi and Pune, which are off to a good start but still have much room
for improvement.

To read more, visit http://thecityfix.com/ahmedabad%E2%80%99s-janmarg-changing-the-game-for-brt-systems-in-india/

NEWS REPORTS

HEADLINES

China: Higher polluting vehicles face higher taxes
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-09/08/content_8665303.htm

Singapore: Towards a pedestrian-friendly nation
http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20090909-166610.html

Viet Nam: HCMC considers Singapore way to get rid of chaos
http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn/Hochiminhcity/2009/9/74062/

Brunei: How 'Green' is Brunei's future?
http://www.brudirect.com/index.php/200908205216/Local-News/how-green-is-bruneis-future.html

Indonesia: New govt urged to fix public transportation services
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73575.html

India: India to make fuel efficiency mandatory from 2011
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73579.html

Bangladesh: Bangladesh Launches Special Drive To Ease Traffic Jam
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73567.html

Bhutan: Traffic ethics non-existent
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73568.html

Philippines: P3-B ethanol plant is Southeast Asia's 1st
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73582.html

Thailand: Green fuels to make up 20%
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73584.html

Thailand: Thailand to propose B2bn road to Tavoy
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73585.html

Viet Nam: City's traffic situation seen worsening in next 10 years
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/social/2009/09/867839/

Viet Nam: Ha Noi deal signed for VN's first elevated metro
http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73585.html

* * * *
INTERESTING FINDS/SEMINARS

Urban Transport Policy as if People and the Environment Mattered:
Pedestrian Accessibility the First Step

The rapid growth in motor vehicle ownership and activity in India is
causing a wide range of serious health, environmental, socio-economic,
and resource use impacts, even as it provides mobility to millions,
and contributes to employment and the economy. The loss of
accessibility for pedestrians is one of the most important of these
negative impacts, which remains neglected by policy. Urban transport
planning is fundamentally about moral and political choices - about
what kind of cities we want for ourselves and our future generations,
whether urban space is primarily for people or motor vehicles, and
what we owe each other. While motor vehicles play a vitally important
role, as do planning and infrastructure for them, and technological
measures to mitigate their impacts, an urban transport policy that
focuses on these measures to the exclusion of infrastructure for
walking and other non-motorised modes is likely to prove futile, even
counter-productive. There is, therefore, an urgent need for an
integrated approach that addresses multiple impacts, caters to
multiple modes and road users, and is sensitive to the needs,
capabilities and constraints in the Indian context.

Read more @ http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73551.html
and http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73581.html

Driving and the Built Environment: The Effects of Compact Development
on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO2 Emissions -- Special Report
298

TRB Special Report 298: Driving and the Built Environment: Effects of
Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO2 Emissions
examines the relationship between land development patterns and
vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the United States to assess whether
petroleum use, and by extension greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, could
be reduced by changes in the design of development patterns. The
report estimates the contributions that changes in residential and
mixed-use development patterns and transit investments could make in
reducing VMT by 2030 and 2050, and the impact this could have in
meeting future transportation-related GHG reduction goals.

Read Report Summary @ http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73586.html

For the full report, please visit http://www.nap.edu/topics.php?topic=294

Policy Research Working Paper 5017-Lock-in Effects of Road Expansion
on CO2 Emissions: Results from a Core-Periphery Model of Beijing

In the urban planning literature, it is frequently explicitly asserted
or strongly implied that ongoing urban sprawl and decentralization can
lead to development patterns that are unsustainable in the long run.
One manifestation of such an outcome is that if extensive road
investments occur, urban sprawl and decentralization are advanced and
locked-in, making subsequent investments in public transit less
effective in reducing vehicle kilometers traveled by car, gasoline use
and carbon dioxide emissions. Using a simple core-periphery model of
Beijing, the authors numerically assess this effect. The analysis
confirms that improving the transit travel time in Beijing's core
would reduce the city's overall carbon dioxide emissions, whereas the
opposite would be the case if peripheral road capacity were expanded.
This effect is robust to perturbations in the model's calibrated
parameters. In particular, the effect persists for a wide range of
assumptions about how location choice depends on travel time and a
wide range of assumptions about other aspects of consumer
preferences.

Read the full paper @ http://www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-73587.html

Cities and Social Equity: Inequality, Territory and Urban Form

Cities and Social Equity is a report by the Urban Age research team
with commissioned pieces from Ipsos MORI, United Nations Institute for
the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD), the
Centre for Metropolitan Studies (CEM), Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV)
and the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the Mackenzie
Presbyterian University. In 2008, the Urban Age undertook and
commissioned research on the five largest cities in South America (São
Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Bogotá and Lima). With a combined
population of nearly 60 million and dramatic growth in recent decades,
these five cities are places of mix, change and extreme polarization
which can be destabilizing, inhumane and wasteful of resources. Cities
and Social Equity assesses the impact of inequality in an urban
context with comparative research and data collection in the five
cities (including innovative mapping of inequality to identify the
pockets of privilege and deprivation in each city). While the research
work commissioned in the report has a specific focus on the problems
facing São Paulo, the region's pre-eminent city, their findings have
wider resonance for cities throughout the world.

Read more @ http://www.urban-age.net//publications/reports/southAmerica/

* * * *
MARK YOUR CALENDARS

5th International Marketing Conference - Successfully marketing
public transport, 7-9 October 2009, Lisbon, Portugal
http://www.uitp.org/events/2009/lisbon/en/

8th International Conference of EASTS, 19-October, 2009, Surabaya
http://www.easts2009.org/

Accident Prevention: Road Safety Measures 4th IRF Regional Conference
on Road Safety, 23 October 2009, New Delhi, India
http://www.irfnet.org/eventdetail.php?catid=1&id=100&title=4th%20Regi...

2nd MENA Public Transport Congress and Showcase , 25-27 October 2009,
Doha, Qatar
http://www.uitp.org/events/2009/qatar/en/index.cfm

TRAINING PROGRAMME, 8th Training Programme for Public Transport
Managers, 16-18 November 2009, Belfast
http://www.uitp.org/events/2009/8Training/en/index.cfm

Urban Mobility India - 2009, 3-December 2009, New Delhi
http://www.iutindia.org/urban2009.html

TRB 89th Annual Meeting, 10 January, 2010, Washington DC
http://www.trb.org/AnnualMeeting/default.asp

* * * CONTRIBUTE * * *

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* * * ABOUT SUMA * * *

The Sustainable Urban Mobility in Asia (SUMA) program is supported by
the Asian Development Bank through a grant from Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency. SUMA is implemented by the Clean Air
Initiative for Asian Cities Center (www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia), in
partnership with EMBARQ - the World Resources Institute Center for
Sustainable Transport (http://embarq.wri.org), GTZ Sustainable Urban
Transport Project ( www.sutp.org), Interface for Cycling Expertise
(www.cycling.nl), Institute for Transportation and Development Policy
(www.itdp.org), and United Nations Center for Regional Development
(www.uncrd.or.jp/est)