Review of Approaches to Enhancing the Effectiveness of Transport Infrastructure and Services: A Focus on Asia

Abstract

A dominance of private vehicles in cities around the world has led to unsustainable levels of congestion, pollution, and human harm, which stand to be exacerbated by future growth. This paper briefly outlines the implications of rapid urbanization based on private vehicles and then provides an overview of the benefits associated with Integrated Shared Transit (IST) services. IST can provide a number of benefits such as improved public health outcomes, reduced congestion, and reduced land use from car parking, along with economic development and job creation Opportunities. A recent study suggested this approach presents strong local economic multipliers with every US$1 invested in shared transit creating as much as US$4 in economic returns. The paper then provides a review of four important areas, namely: the shift to electro-mobility, the creation of transit activated corridors (TACs), advanced freight telematics exchange, and the use of disruptive technologies including artificial intelligence and distributed ledgers. The paper then concludes with the recommendation to shift focus from a model of private vehicle dominance to a system of integrated shared transit that is supported by private modes.