Intercity Transport Policy and Planning System: International Comparison Between the EU, USA, China and Japan

Abstract

It has been pointed out in Sect. 1.1.2 that the share of intercity transport of total passenger-kilometres is estimated to be more than 40 % and will probably increase substantially in the future. In freight transport, the share of intercity transport is much higher and can account for more than 80 % of the total tonne-kilometres in industrialised countries. This underlines-in spite of the statistical difficulties for international comparisons-that intercity transport is a highly relevant segment of transport when it comes to analysing the responsibility of the transport sector to global warming and the potential for mitigation.This chapter gives an overview of the current status and the intercity transport policies concerning greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction. Our focal points here are how the impact of global warming is treated in the existing transport planning processes and how to integrate the avoid/shift/improve strategies described in the previous chapter into the long-term planning context. International comparison will be made, including Japan, the USA and Europe, partly extended by incorporating Chinese examples. As a consistent intercountry comparison is possible only for a