predict and provide

7/27/2019 Predict and Provide

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Transport Poliq, Vol. 2, No. I, pp. 4349, 1995Copyright 0 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd

Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved0967-070X/95 $ IO.00 + 0.00From predict and provide topredict and prevent?: pricing and

planning in transport policySusan OwensUnilversity of Cambridge, Department @Geography, Cambridge CB2 3EN, UK

Transport policy in Britain is under the influence of a new realism. This paper explores policyinstruments which are central to the new approach - getting the price right and influencingtravel patterns through land use planning. It suggests that the concept of the right price isproblematic, that land use measures are necessary but not sufficient and that neither pricingnor planning policies are likely, in isolation, to have sufficient effect across the range of environ-mental impacts of transport. A sustainable transport policy means maximising accessibilitywithin environmental constraints and must be achieved by means of a co-ordinated policypackage.Keywords: pricing, planning, sustainability

UK transport policy in the mid-1990s presents a para-dox. On the one hand there is a pervasive sense of crisis,fluidity and change - what Goodwin er al. (1991) havecalled the new realism. On the other hand there is afeeling, amounting sometimes to resignation, that under-lying rigidities, ideologies and interests will make itdifficult, if not impossible, to move from where we arenow to a more sustainable transport future. TheGovernments Strategy for Sustainable Development(Secretary of State for the Environment et al., 1994),looking forward nearly 20 years to the year 2012, identi-fies transport as a major challenge. This concern isstrongly reiterated in the eighteenth report of the RoyalCommission on Environmental Pollution (1994) which,in its call for radical reorientation of prevailing policies,is both a manifestation and a powerful reinforcement ofthe new realism.

This paper explores three possible approaches totransport policy which might take us towards a moreenvironmentally sustainable future: in doing so it raisesquestions about certain aspects of the new realism -particularly those concerned with pricing and land usepolicies - which are themselves rapidly becomingbasic tenets of conventional wisdom. Before outliningthese approaches, it is salutary to look back over thepast 20 years. In the mid 1970s environment and espe-cially resource issues were prominent in the aftermath ofthe first environmental revolution and the 1973/4 oil cri-sis. Though many of the predictions made during the1960s and 1970s (of rapidly escalating oil prices, forexample) have proved false, Buchanans (1963) warning

that deliberate limitation of the volume of motor trafficin our cities would be quite unavoidable was pre-scient. Since then, road traffic in Britain has increasedby more than two and a half times, and such trends havebeen singled out as a major environmental threat.The three routes to the future explored in this paper- for brevity, Predict and Provide, The Price isRight and The Planning Panacea - are neither mutu-ally exclusi ve nor exhaustive of all possible policyapproaches. But all are influential and much debated.The familiar predict and provide strategy has beenseverely criticised. It is included here not only as abenchmark, but because the philosophy of provision toaccommodate demand, though modified at the margin, isstill a powerful force in transport policy. Nevertheless,an important element of the new realism is theacknowledgement that trends can be influenced as wellas predicted. The other two approaches involve differentmeans of exerting such influence. The second - gettingthe price right - has rapidly gained ground in therhetoric of transport policy and is beginning to have animpact in practice. The third - the pursuit of land usepolicies which promote sustainable travel patterns -has risen recently to prominence from a position of rela-tive obscurity.Pricing and land use planning are not of course theonly alternatives to the predict and provide approach;but each has recently been the subject of renewed atten-tion, and each is widely acknowledged to be asignificant component of a sustainable transport policy(Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 1994).

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The underlying assumptions of each approach and thelikely efficacy of policies are important issues fordebate. Furthermore, though the implications of thesestrategies are considered in turn, the extent to which pric-ing and planning policies are mutually interdependent isitself a consideration for research and policy. These threeapproaches, therefore, while necessarily selective, illus-trate a number of important emergent themes in thedevelopment of a sustainable transport policy.

Predict and provideThe philosophy which has dominated transport policyhas been one in which demands are projected, equatedwith need and met by infrastructure provision at least inas far as the public purse will allow; this philosophy hasunderpinned the process of traffic forecasting and hasprovided its main rationale. Trend projection and itsimplications have been extensively analysed elsewhere,and it is not the purpose of this paper to consider yetagain official forecasts of vehicle ownership and trafficand their likely social, economic and environmentalimpacts (for full discussion, see Adams, 1981; Banisterand Button, 1992; Goodwin, 1991; RAC Foundation,1992; Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution,1994; Transnet, 1990; Tyme, 1978). The focus here ison the acceptability of the predict and provideapproach, the questions which it raises about freedom ofchoice, and the degree of mutability of the trends onwhich it seems to be based.

In projecting environmental impacts, allowance mustbe made for various technical changes, for example invehicle emissions or fuel efficiency, either alreadyrequired by legislation or likely to be achieved within therelevant time horizon. Many commentators agree, how-ever, that impact reductions through technical fixes arelikely to be outweighed by traffic growth and by factorssuch as a preference for larger and more powerful cars(Martin and Shock, 1989; Secretary of State for theEnvironment et al., 1994; Transnet, 1990). Specifically,in the UKs Strategy for- limate Change, it is acknowl-edged that strong [traffic] growth trends will continue toput pressure on the ability of the UK to curb levels ofCO, emissions (Secretary of State for the Environmentet al., 1994, p 69). The Royal Commission (1994) ismore forthright: it believes that a substantial t-eductionin emissions from the transport sector is an essential ele-ment if stabilisation of carbon dioxide concentrations inthe atmosphere is to be achieved in the longer term (p44, emphasis added). Its proposal to reduce emissionsfrom surface transport to no more than 80% of their 1990levels by 2020 will, in the light of forecast traffic growth,require radical measures (p 44). An equally importantpoint is that pollution is only one (albeit highly signific-ant) way in which transport damages the environmentand the quality of life. In the absence of other policies,congestion, social impacts, landscape and habitatdegradation and the sheer tyranny of traffic in manyurban and rural areas will remain largely unaffected evenif individual vehicles become cleaner and more efficient.

For these reasons, the vision of the future as a contin-uation of current trends, even mitigated by pollutionabatement and other palliative measures, has becomeindigestible. While the critique of policy is not new,transport has reached that point of controversy wherelocal and generic issues reinforce each other in a power-ful challenge to the foundations of policy as well asresistance to its implementation: energy policy experi-enced a similar upheaval during the 1980s (Peake andHope, 1991; Owens, 1985). Indications of crisis includemounting criticism of policy from diverse groups, grow-ing concern about the links between traffic pollution andhealth, complaints about noise and dissatisfaction withthe extent to which traffic dominates townscapes andpeoples daily lives (for example, Birmingham CityCouncil, 1993; Vidal, 1994). Traffic projections and theroads programme have become a focus for this discon-tent, reflected in the existence of more than 200 protestgroups opposing new road schemes in the UK (Ghazi,1994). Media images of a Britain covered by super-highways (for example, Ghazi, 1993 and Vidal, 1993)which will still not solve the problem of congestion,contribute to the sense that the predict and provide strat-egy has become untenable. Significantly, the oppositionspans a broad political spectrum. In short, as the RoyalCommission (1994, p 4) points out, [tlhere has been aconvergence towards a recognition that current trendsare not sustainable.Given this apparently widespread dissatisfaction, itseems paradoxical that trends are often represented as anexpression of freedom of choice, with which politiciansinterfere at their peril. The assertion that there is nooption but to build more roads unless we change ouraspirations (Parkinson, 1990, emphasis added) is typi-cal of the way in which this view has been promoted inministerial statements, but a sense of immutability alsopermeates the literature on transport, land use and theenvironment. So, for example, Gossop and Webb (1993,p 111) claim that effective policies to restrain road traf-fic growth may prove electorally unpopular andBreheny and Rookwood (1993, p 15 1) assert morecategorically that the major trends . . . currently deter-mining patterns of urban change . . . are so powerful thatpolicies that aim to reverse them are doomed to failure.In transport, it seems, we have a situation where bothcurrent trends and the policies needed to change themare politically unacceptable.One explanation lies in the very nature of transporttrends as the aggregate of a myriad of individual deci-sions. Parfit (1984) cites travel decisions (in this case,for commuting) as a classic case of a many-personprisoners dilemma: in such circumstances, becauseRobin Grove-White used this phrase in the context of energy policyin the 198Os, arguing that whatever the merits of policy options, in ademocracy they have to be digestible (Grove-White, personal com-munication, 1994). The analogy is pertinent, since it sometimes seemsthat transport has inherited from nuclear power a prime position in thedemonology of the environmental movement.2Again, these are reminiscent of alarming maps of planned nuclearinstallations in the 1980s.

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costs are extemalised and we act in ignorance of whatothers will do, our rational choices as consumers do notproduce the outcome we would choose as citizens(Sagoff, 1988). For other reasons too, travel patterns area poor advertisement for the invisible hand of the mar-ket: perceptions of even the internal costs of travel arenotoriously inaccurate (Dix and Goodwin, 1982;Metcalf, 1978), and some of the forces influencing beha-viour, such as provision of company cars, investmentcriteria for infrastructure, and certain locational trendsare clearly attributable to policy. It is important to rec-ognise that choice, even for those mobile enough toenjoy it, is influenced in many visible and less visibleways, and it is increasingly apparent that in transport,individuals exercising choice constrain their own futurechoices, the choices of others and the choices of futuregenerations. It is interesting, therefore, to observe a dis-cernible shift from deployment of the freedom ofchoice argument in defence of individual mobility to anew rhetoric of choice across all transport modes. Wenow find the Assistant Director of the British RoadsFederation, for example, advocating a policy that cov-ers public transport, cycling and walking as well asroads so we can provide people with more choice(Everitt, quoted in Ghazi 1994). Similar language per-meates the Governments sustainability strategy andother recent transport statements.There can be little doubt that the established approachto transport policy in Britain is under sustained attack.To the long-standing critique of other groups has nowbeen added the influential voice of the scientific estab-lishment in the form of the Royal Commission onEnvironmental Pollution (1994). What remains to beseen is whether the underlying premises of transportpolicy will be demolished, or whether they will survivewith the policy modified only to take account of physi-cal and political impossibilities. Some modification atleast seems inevitable, and one widely accepted meansof achieving this is to attempt, through fiscal measures,to intemalise some of the social and environmental costsof transport. This approach - getting the price right- is considered in the following section.

The price is rightThe notion that transport users should pay their fullsocial costs now permeates the discourse on transportpolicy, whether this emanates from official sources orfrom their most vigorous critics. The EuropeanCommission (CEC, 1992 para 95) refers to the truecosts of transport and the necessity of intemalisingexternal costs; the UK Government wants to ensurethat users pay the full social and environmental costs oftheir transport decisions (Secretary of State for theEnvironment et al., 1994); and environmentalists haveconsistently argued that transport is underpriced in thisrespect.Whether any increase will cover external costs is,however, very much open to question. Economic analy-sis tells us that environmental costs could be intemalised

by setting a tax on pollution (or whatever) equal to themarginal damage cost at the socially optimum level ofpollution: this is the level at which the costs imposed bythe next unit of pollution are equal to the costs of itsabatement. Increasing transport costs is thus representedas a way of achieving the optimum level of pollution:this logic lies behind the notion that the benefits oftransport should be weighed against its full socialcosts. The concept of intemalising the latter implies theprior determination of the true value of the environ-ment and its subsequent weighing against the benefits oftransport in the formulation of policy objectives. Thereare a number of problems, however. One, widelyacknowledged, is that environmental costs are typicallydifficult, sometimes impossible, to anticipate, recognise,quantify and evaluate (see, for an overview, RoyalCommission on Environmental Pollution, 1994). Afterextensive debate about the methodology and underlyingphilosophy of evaluation, the issues are far fromresolved (for different perspectives see Bowers, 1993;Cropper and Oates, 1992; Kelman, 1990; Pearce et al.,1989; Price, 1993; Sagoff, 1988).Most fundamentally, cost-benefit analysis is con-sidered by some critics to be an inappropriateframework for the formulation of policies with profoundenvironmental implications (see, for example, Kelman,1990; Sagoff, 1988). The Royal Commission (1994,p 102) acknowledges that putting money values on irre-versible loss of habitat, degradation of landscape ordestruction of cultural assets may be objectionable ongrounds of principle as well as practicality and othershave argued that for reasons of uncertainty, risk, obliga-tions to future generations or respect for the intrinsicvalue of nature, we may wish to withdraw some aspectsof the environment from the arena of trade off (Owens,forthcoming; Jacobs, 1994). The need to protect criticalnatural capital, those aspects of the environment con-sidered non-substitutable and effectively deemedinviolable, implies that a sustainable transport policywould involve environmental capacity constraints(Hatton, 1992; Jacobs, 1994). On this reasoning what-ever the current benefits of a transport system whichmight cause irreversible damage to the atmosphere, orconsume sites of great natural or cultural significance, itwould be wrong to pursue it.To recognise these problems is not to deny a role forthe price mechanism: it clearly has potential as a policyinstrument. But to use pricing as a means to politicallychosen ends is not the same as determining what theenvironment is worth in order to decide what thoseends ought to be. This important distinction is acceptedexplicitly by the Royal Commission on EnvironmentalPollution (1994) in its treatment of the relationshipbetween cost-benefit analysis, environmental targetsand economic instruments. The challenging objectivesthat it sets stem from a recognition that the present andprospective use of transport is creating environmentaldamage which is in the long term unacceptable (p 106).While the targets are not defined in terms of costs andbenefits, the Commission accepts that economic instru-

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Prediction, pricing und planning: S Owensments should make it possible to minimise the cost tothe community of achieving a particular target (p 106).

Even so, important questions arise about the effec-tiveness of pricing as a means of reducing theenvironmental impacts of transport. A back of theenvelope calculation may serve to illustrate the point.While all the details can be questioned, the overallimplications are interesting.

Some estimates suggest that motorists bear only asmall proportion of the more obvious costs that theyimpose: the figure of 27% is often quoted (for example,Whitelegg, 1993). This includes congestion and acci-dents as well as estimates of some, but by no means all,of the environmental costs of road travel. Ignoring thiscomplication for the moment, we might argue that if thecosts of motoring were quadrupled, this would go someway towards intemalising external costs and towardsachieving the socially optimum level of movement. Itmight further be assumed that the cost increase would beeffected entirely by fuel taxation, often regarded as themost efficient and direct way to influence travel behavi-our.3 To predict the effects of such an increase is noeasy matter. Since there has not been a prolonged periodof sustained increase in real fuel prices, empirical evid-ence is in short supply. Timescales are also significant,because short- and long-term demand elasticitiesdiverge significantly (Goodwin, 1992; Oum et al.,1992). However, analysis using a Department ofTransport econometric model may give some indicationof potential impact (Virley, 1993).4 This suggests that inorder to stabilise carbon dioxide emissions at 1990levels, an approximate doubling of fuel prices in realterms by the year 2000 and an increase of a factor offour to five by 2025 (on top of increases assumed inNational Road Traffic Forecasts) would be needed.Interestingly, the Royal Commission (1994) recom-mends steady increases in fuel duty so as to double theprice of fuel, relative to prices of other goods, by 2005,when it proposes that the case for further increasesshould be reviewed.The effects of these price increases on carbon dioxideand other emissions are not insignificant, though manyin the climate change scientific community would regardstabilisation as an inadequate and interim objective. Thepredicted effect on traffic is modest, however. In theDepartments model, price increases of the order con-sidered lead to reductions, compared with base casetraffic projections, of 7-12% by the year 2000 and20-30% by 2025. This still implies an absolute increasein traffic. Although the long-term demand elasticitiesused are relatively high, consistent with those of recentestimates in the literature, it is assumed that travel beha-The Royal Commission (1994) maintain that fuel duty has a numberof advantages as an economic instrument for influencing decisionsabout additional journeys. Some authors have taken a different view(see, for example, Pearce et 01.. 1993).4Also, Instone, Department of Transport. personal communication,1993.% suggests. however. that the Department of Transport may underesti-mate the scope for longer term adjustment.

viour will continue to be more responsive to GDP thanto fuel price. The more significant impact on pollutionoccurs because of changes in vehicle characteristics.(Put simply, people tend to choose more efficient carsbut maintain their mobility.) The impact on the roadsprogramme, in the absence of other policy changes,would be negligible.If the assumptions are correct, quadrupling pricesmay stabilise or reduce vehicle emissions but wouldhave little or no effect on other serious impacts of trafficand road construction. It seems unlikely that those con-cerned with the environmental costs of transport wouldaccept that they had thereby been intemalised. Twoimplications follow: cost increases would need to bemore draconian to effect substantial reductions in traffic;and/or the impacts of traffic and roads on many aspectsof social life and the environment need to be dealt withby additional policy instruments, including changinginvestment priorities, other regulatory measures andland use planning policies. The availability of alterna-tive modes of transport, and land use patterns thatreduce the need for movement, may in turn effectincreases in the price elasticity of demand for individualmotorised mobility.The above analysis suggests not only that the notionof the right price is conceptually and operationallyproblematic, but that economic instruments in isolationmay not be markedly effective across the whole range ofenvironmental effects..It will be argued, of course, thatif impacts remain unacceptable when prices have beenincreased, this simply means that the right price hasstill not been applied. From a theoretical perspective,this is an interesting tacit acknowledgement that objec-tives have been defined independently of cost-benefitanalysis (it suggests that we know what we want in thefirst place). The pragmatic problem - if we accept thatprices should nevertheless be used as a means to an end- lies in the political risks associated with high andsustained real increases in motoring costs.

The planning panaceaOne explanation for the relative price inelasticity oftravel demand is that increasing mobility and dispersalof land uses have reinforced each other over at least halfa century, so that in many areas car use has becomemore of a necessity than a choice. There is nothing newin recognition of a relationship between land use andtransport: it has long been accepted that travel costs,broadly defined, have a dynamic effect on land use,while development patterns influence both the amountand mode of travel. Researchers and planners have beenattempting to understand and model these interactionsfor at least 30 years and they are the subject of a sub-stantial literature. What is surprising is how long it hastaken to gain political acceptance for the strategy thatlogically follows: the adoption of land use planning pol-icies to reduce the need for movement and encouragethe use of less polluting modes of transport. A flurry ofactivity during the 197Os, driven by concern about

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resource depletion in the wake of the oil crisis, wascharacterised by confusion about the legitimacy of usingthe planning system to reduce resource consumption intransport. Policies related to this objective were in someinstances deleted from structure plans by theDepartment of the Environment on the grounds that theywere non-land use policies (Owens, 1986). The sub-stantial shift in thinking in recent years can be attributedin part to environmental concerns - this time with afocus on pollution, especially CO, emissions - but alsoto some restoration of faith in land use policy after theretreat from government (Cherry, 1982) during the1970s and 1980s. The new thinking culminated in thepublication of planning policy guidance on transport(PPG 13, Department of the Environment, 1994) whichlegitimises the use of land use planning as an instrumentof wider transport and environmental policies:

By planning land use and transport together in wayswhich enable people to carry out their everyday activ-ities with less need to travel, local planning authoritiescan reduce reliance on the private car and make a signi-ficant contribution to the environmental goals set out inthe Governments sustainable development strategy(para I .3).

This important development raises two interesting ques-tions. Why did it take so long to make the landuse/transport/environment connection? And how effec-tive are the policies urged in PPG 13 likely to be inpractice?

One reason for the long time scale, apart from theusual difficulties of translating intellectual recognitioninto practical policies, is that we have been asking thewrong questions. The emphasis in research has been onthe travel or energy requirements associated with differ-ent land use patterns, typically informing a search forthe most efficient. The goal has proved elusive,because we will never have perfect knowledge about therelationship between land use and transport. Modelsprovide a simplified mathematical description of anobserved situation; empirical work has to deal with thereal world in all its complexity. Neither of theseapproaches has provided unambiguous information, norare they ever likely to do so. What can be demonstratedin theory will often not happen in practice; what is effi-cient will be contingent: and while it is possible toidentify robust policies, these will seem to counter wellestablished trends.

A clear limitation of approaching the problem fromthis direction is that the research findings identify neces-sary but not sufficient conditions for reducing theamount of travel and inducing modal shift: and there is aconfusion of the need to travel (which can reasonably berelated to land use variables) with the inclination to doso. When travel is cheap, people use mobility to extendtheir choice of jobs, retail facilities and leisure opportun-ities, and to improve their residential amenity.Employers, retailers and developers respond appropri-ately in their locational decisions. The most attractive,rather than the closest facilities are used: and homes are

chosen for reasons other than proximity to work. Timeand money spent on travelling is readily traded againstthese other factors. This simple fact makes it difficult todefine the most travel-efficient forms of developmentwithout making assumptions about future mobility, andtherefore about other factors and policies strongly influ-encing the propensity to travel. It also means that landuse planning in isolation is not an effective way ofreducing travel demand. These qualifications often seemto be forgotten in the new found enthusiasm for plan-ning as an instrument of transport and environmentalpolicy, especially amongst those who find the prospectof other measures, such as pricing, more immediatelythreatening and unpalatable.If no other steps are taken to restrain traffic growth,the advice in PPG 13 is likely to be wasted. Even if itpersuades planning authorities, in the face of other pres-sures, to increase densities, mix land uses and relatedevelopment to public transport, the changing spatialpattern of opportunities may have little effect on thenumber and length of journeys undertaken. At worst, thepolicies could be counter-productive: concentration ofdevelopment in conditions of high mobility, for exam-ple, may simply exacerbate congestion. At best,planning will be reduced to a contingency safeguard(Webster er al., 1988, p 377).(j In any case, there issomething inconsistent about using a relatively bluntand typically long-term instrument to influence travelbehaviour without applying more direct measures, suchas pricing. As the Royal Commission (1994, p 153)points out, the effectiveness of the policies advocated inPPG 13 will depend crucially on the transport policycontext as a whole and on the ability of local planningauthorities to achieve the necessary shifts in policy.Thus while the Commission welcomes the Guidance asan important statement of intent, it stresses the needto address specific limitations in the wider policyframework which will otherwise frustrate the intentionsof integrating land use and transport policies (p 153).Publication of PPG 13 implies a tacit acceptance thatenough is known, especially about inefficient and robustdevelopment patterns to inform policy, as long as adviceis flexible and adaptable to specific circumstances. Whatis needed to reduce uncertainty about the workings ofthe new guidance is not more research, but a clear andconsistent policy framework. If we begin with a com-mitment to constrain travel by road, the questionbecomes one of how land use planning policies mightaccommodate this trend-break in an efficient and equita-ble manner. Results need not always be qualified byhow particular land use patterns would perform undercurrent conditions of mobility, since it is axiomatic inthis framework that current trends are unacceptable.Planning then emerges as permissive, rather than causal:it becomes an important means of maintaining accessand choice within a future of lower mobility. The poli-This is essentially the argument that even if policies have little impacton travel patterns under current conditions, they are still usefulbecause they keep options open for the future.

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Prediction, pricing and planning: S Owensties advocated in PPG 13 - avoidance of obviouslytransport intensive development, concentration ofgrowth in moderately sized centres and design of thephysical environment to provide safe and attractiveconditions for walking and cycling - would then belogical and necessary complements to other policymeasures.The interesting question is whether PPG 13 is part ofthe process of this broader policy shift, or an isolated(and therefore ineffectual) attempt to modify land usepatterns while the broader framework remainsunchanged. In support of the first interpretation is thefact that publication of the Guidance owes more to thenew realism than it does to definitive new answersfrom research. Although a major project funded by theDepartments of Environment and Transport providedthe basis for PPG 13 and was published simultaneouslywith the draft (ECOTEC, 1993) it produced fewinsights that could not have been gleaned from athorough review of the existing literature. It certainlydid not eliminate all uncertainties in a field in whichthe timescale for well-founded empirical work stretchesbeyond the policy horizon and the costs may be dispro-portionately high. In such circumstances, the model ofresearch-led policy can, if required, provide anexcuse for indefinite procrastination. Though it wasstill necessary politically to point to research to legit-imise the new policies in PPG 13, in the absence ofstartling new findings its publication would seem to beboth indicative and partly constitutive of a significantpolicy shift.p

Concluding commentsThe old tenets of conventional wisdom in transportpolicy have been seriously challenged. This paper sug-gests, however, that there is a temptation to replacethem with new panaceas, implying that the answerlies in getting the price right, planning to reduce theneed to travel or (though it is not discussed in detailhere), major investment in public transport. Thepotential effects of such policies tend to be explored inisolation, whereas a growing consensus suggests thatthey must work in combination, and that the whole islikely to be greater than the sum of the parts. Increasingprices, while people remain locked into land use pat-terns requiring high mobility, for example, may beinequitable and politically risky, whereas land use plan-ning policies aiming to reduce the need to travel willnot persuade people to travel less if using cars remainscheap and convenient. But working together, and sup-ported by complementary policies (such as trafficrestraint and investment in public transport), theseapproaches have the potential to be mutually reinforc-ing. In proposing its own comprehensive package ofpolicy measures, the Royal Commission (1994, p 251)stresses that its recommendations complement andreinforce each other, and must be viewed as a whole.Only through such reinforcement will the intellectualrecognition of the need for radical change - the new

realism - be translated into workable policies.Further research will be useful in clarifying specific

issues. We need to recognise, however, when there areinherent uncertainties and when the time and cost ofproducing meaningful results will simply be too great.In the context of land use and transport the call for fur-ther research has too often been used to avoid facingdifficult policy decisions and the wheel has been rein-vented many times. Theoretical and empirical researchcan now most fruitfully be conducted in parallel and inconjunction with policy development, implementationand monitoring.There is a further implication if the objective is a sus-tainable transport policy. It will be necessary to considerthe kind of environment that we want to hand on tofuture generations and to some extent to tailor transportpolicy to it. Ceilings on emissions would provide onestep in this direction, and they need to be disaggregatedso that the expected contribution of the transport sectorbecomes clear. But an equally important dimension liesin protection of other aspects of the environment -valuable habitats and cultural landscapes, for example- which have too readily been traded off against trans-port benefits such as the aggregate of many small timesavings. The clear environmental targets proposed bythe Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution(1994) as a framework for transport policy are a wel-come and significant development in this context. In asense they imply a rethinking of what we mean by inte-gration of transport and environmental policies. Whilethe concept of integration found in European Unionand UK policy documents implies meeting the need formobility while taking the environment into account,sustainability may require that we meet the imperativesof environmental protection while maximising access-ibility within these constraints.

AcknowledgementThe author is grateful for the support of the Economicand Social Research Council. This paper was writtenwhen she held a Global Environment ChangeProgramme Fellowship to explore issues of land useplanning and enivommental change.

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