Quantifiable decision support for sustainable infrastructure planning

Most strategies to reduce climate emissions from traffic are based upon decoupling emissions from increased traffic due to economic growth and urbanization, through improving fuel efficiency and changing fuels.Although such strategies might enable reaching climate goals in due time, they lead to recurring conflicts of objectives between other sustainability goals and rebound effects created by induced traffic, urban sprawl, and the erosion of shared and active transport.Increasing evidence indicates an urgent need for a transformation of the transport system towards a car-independent, transport efficient, society, realizing considerable effects on both climate emissions and other sustainability goals.The transformation requires disruptive and implementable policy packages, combining measures for reducing car traffic with complementary measures towards increased shared and active transport.Current decision-support used in regular planning is not suited to system transformation.

Pilot decision-support indicators and tools for policy packaging, that can handle challenges requiring more disruptive solutions, have been developed for specific purposes.The project will develop an Excel-based decision support tool enabling planners, policymakers, and other stakeholders at all levels to calculate and design policy packages that simultaneously reduce climate emissions and enable accessibility and sustainability goals regarding traffic congestion, noise, health, and ecosystem services.