Transport, Environment, and Institutions: Why Good Science, Engineering, and Economics Fail?

Abstract

Transport is a derived demand: that is, the use of transport is determined by economic and social forces external to transport. Demand for transport is related to costs, including labor, investment and energy, and to service quality (frequency, speed, reliability). Energy use in transport (the prime determinant of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions) is often only a minor percentage of total costs, so market forces alone often do not act to minimize GHG emissions. In addition, transport has social impacts, including air pollution, energy security, noise, human safety and traffic congestion, inter alia, few of which are effectively controlled by market forces. Finally, major suppliers and consumers of transport services are often publicly owned, which can act to insulate them from the normal incentives for either efficient or socially responsible behavior. Governments have responded to the need for better linkage between transport networks and their social impacts with a mixture of changes of institutional structure, ownership, and regulation. This paper discusses examples in which institutional shortcomings in developing (and sometimes developed) countries have acted to weaken or even defeat the implementation of scientific or engineering advances and outlines some cases in which changes have worked, with emphasis on the need to reach the right balance of science, technology, economics and public policy. The paper concludes that global warming is neither understood nor accepted by a significant portion of the world’s population and that implementation of GHG control programs will be difficult and at best severely hindered because of institutional weaknesses. The paper urges an intensive by scientists to explain GHG issues in terms that ordinary citizens can accept and support.