Mobility for Development

Today's mobility systems in rapidly developing cities are not sustainable and the situation is deteriorating, although opportunities are increasing and are an important driver of economic development, concludes the WBCSD's Mobility for Development final report.

The WBCSD Development Focus Area teamed up with leading members of the transport industry to produce the report which summarizes its findings from a two-year study into the state of mobility in fast-growing cities of the developing world.

The study set out to measure the state of mobility in four rapidly developing cities – Bangalore, Dar es Salaam, São Paulo and Shanghai.

The report builds on earlier work of the WBCSD, summarized in the publication Mobility 2030: Meeting the challenges to sustainability. The Mobility 2030 report defined sustainable mobility as “The ability to meet society's desires and needs to move freely, gain access, communicate, trade and establish relationships without sacrificing other essential human or ecological values, today or in the future.”

Overall, the mobility opportunities in all four cities are expanding, but for low-income communities, the mobility situation is deteriorating. Pedestrians, cyclists and bus passengers have to travel on increasingly congested city streets and poor sidewalks. Transport-related health and safety risks remain a serious problem. The bad state of roads and vehicles, poorly controlled intersections and inexperienced drivers are the main causes for transport-related deaths and injuries. Congestion is getting worse.

City residents who participated in local dialogues organized by WBCSD members and local research institutions reported that they are not confident that sustainable mobility will be achieved in their cities, and many fear that the situation will deteriorate further. For them, the main challenges are adequate public consultation in planning processes, consultation, coordination among municipal authorities and implementation, and lack of capacity to finance and maintain investments.

To achieve higher levels of sustainability, recommendations in the report call for leadership and collaboration towards more integrated planning, an integrated and inclusive approach to urban land-use and transport planning and improved access to mobility through integrating public and private transport modes.

Innovative solutions, such as the deployment of intelligent transport systems, are gaining ground and can help mitigate negative transport impacts, and link alternative modes of transport, including para-transit operators, popular in many developing countries. Finally , individual transport users need to be educated and empowered to make safer and more efficient mobility choices.

The findings of the Mobility for Development report presents a snapshot of the status of mobility in these cities today, but we believe the dialogues organized in each city will not have been one-off events, but part of a continuing debate through which progress will be assessed over time.