全球智库信息集成服务系统

Asian cities have witnessed rapid urbanization and an unprecedented rate of motorization in the last decade. Because of this, negative externalities of urban transport such as congestion and environmental impacts have become serious concerns. A number of past studies in this field have shown that health risks are high in key Asian cities, especially from particulate matters and other pollutants for which urban transport is gradually becoming the dominant source. In this context, this paper presents an overview of the environmental implications of urban transport in Asian cities and what is behind them. It also discusses the emerging policy issues and the commonalties and differences in these cities, including discussions of successes and failures and what have been the underlying reasons. Since mitigation of greenhouse gases has become an international concern in recent years, issues and opportunities for mitigation from the Asian urban transport sector are presented. Finally, this paper discusses ASIF (activity, structure, energy intensity, fuel factors), a holistic transport policy framework for cities, and further proposes a broader framework that adds new dimensions to the ASIF framework. This paper shows that such a framework not only provides guidelines to policymakers on where to start on the transport-environment puzzle but also provides a framework to evaluate the implications of various policies on environment and associated factors.