COST356 - EST - Towards the definition of a measurable environmentally-sustainable transport
Overview
Background & policy context:
Most of the present strategic environmental assessments do not take into account properly the variety of the environmental impacts, or are using markers, indices and more generally tools which do not represent the impacts. A correct representation of the whole range of impacts is necessary to ensure that sustainability takes into account environmental issues to a satisfactory degree. This is especially important for the transport sector where the concerns and the stakes are important.
Objectives:
The main objective of the action is to design harmonised methods to build better environmental indicators by using existing European indices, and to build methods to be applied to the decision making process of the transport sector in the different European countries, in order to contribute to a systemic approach to environmental and transportation issues.
Besides and beyond the previous COST 350 activity more focussed on the user's point of view, this action deals with the scientific analysis and design of tools for environmental impact assessment, focussing on the representativeness of the methods, either for evaluating sub-impacts such as health impacts, or for aggregating by a multi-criteria analysis the different sub-impact indices. The output will be valuable for policy analysts (forecasting or back-casting), transport planners, decision-makers, etc.
Finally the objectives of the action are:
- To analyse the methods applied and the results obtained
- To make a synthesis of the available data and to develop appropriate tools
- To co-ordinate research
The objectives and the initial work programme of COST 356 are described in detail in a so-called Memorandum of Understanding or MoU.
Methodology:
The structure (as the MoU) organises the work in 3 parts: An initial methodological part (network building, methodological building), the core of the scientific work (indicators as measurement tools, integration in the decision making), and a final part (research needs, synthesis, dissemination).
The core of the scientific work is organised in one WG (WG2) working from the environmental or natural science point of view, discussing what impacts are important and relevant, and how they could and should be described and measured within an indicator system, while the other WG (WG3) starts from the planning and decision making point of view, discussing indicator requirements from that point of view, and then discusses this related to options and methods used today. Even if the work is split in two WGs, an important part of the work is to be found in the room between the agendas of the groups. What is the gap between the WG views on indicator requirements etc., how can it be closed or reduced? For that, both approaches must be described in detail and analysed before being compared in task 3.3 and 4.2.
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