Transportation Practices and Strategies for Sustainable Development

The transportation as a system is an important component of social and economy \nsustainable development. Sustainable development of transportation requires consideration, \nnot only its own economic results, but also positive and negative effects of transportation. On \none hand, the transportation has promoted the economic development and the progress of the \nsociety while on the other hand it has also brought a lot of negative effects. The existing \nproblems in the respects of resources consuming (the land, energy), air pollution, noise, traffic \njam, traffic accident, etc. are the key to realize the sustainable development of the \ntransportation. In order to effectively reduce the adverse impact of existing transportation \nsystems new development patterns must be adopted. Overall, the concept of transportation \nsustainability should be defined through three major factors: social equity, economic \nefficiency and environmental responsibility. Strategies for transportation sustainability \ninclude demand management, operation management, improvements of vehicle technology, \npricing policy and integrated land use and transportation planning. This paper deals with \nimportance of transportation for sustainable development and presents some sustainable \ntransportation practices and strategies in the United States and Europe.