Investigating pro-Environmental and Active Travel Behaviour for Successful Sustainable Travel Promotion

The location of new housing developments, and the provision of safe space for walking and cycling to key destinations around them, have major and long lasting impacts on travel behaviour, health, and environmental outcomes. Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is a well-recognised concept in urban planning, but systemic evidence is often lacking on the likely ‘active travel performance’ of new developments, making it hard for the planning process to support sustainable transport objectives. This paper articulates the concept of‘Active Travel Oriented Development’ (ATOD) and describes methods for operationalising it. We demonstrate the use of a set of simple metrics to assess the active travel performance of new and proposed development sites. ATOD has the benefits of building on the established concept of TOD and being easy to assess. We conclude that ATOD, and tools for measuring it, are needed to ensure that transport and development policies work in harmony.

Download Full-text

Integrated Impact Assessment of Active Travel: Expanding the Scope of the Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT) for Walking and Cycling

10.20944/preprints202009.0335.v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Thomas Götschi ◽

Sonja Kahlmeier ◽

Alberto Castro Fernandez ◽

Christian Brand ◽

Nick Cavill ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Health Economic ◽

Carbon Emissions ◽

Assessment Tool ◽

Scientific Evidence ◽

Economic Assessment ◽

Travel Behaviour ◽

Active Travel ◽

World Health ◽

Health Impacts ◽

Mode Shift

The World Health Organization’s Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT) for walking and cycling is a user-friendly web-based tool to assess health impacts of active travel. HEAT, developed over 10 years ago, has been used by researchers, planners and policymakers alike in appraisals of walking and cycling policies of both national and more local scales. HEAT has undergone regular upgrades adopting the latest scientific evidence. This article presents the most recent upgrades of the tool. Health impacts of walking and/or cycling in a specified population are quantified in terms of premature deaths avoided (or caused). In addition to the calculation of benefits from physical activity, HEAT was recently expanded to include assessments of the burden associated with air pollution exposure and crash risks while walking or cycling. Further, impacts on carbon emissions from mode shift to active travel modes can now be assessed. Monetization of impacts using Value of Statistical Life and Social Costs of Carbon now uses country-specific values. As active travel inherently results in often substantial health benefits as well as not always negligible risks, assessments of active travel behaviour or policies are incomplete without considering health implications. The recent developments of HEAT make it easier than ever to obtain ballpark estimates of health impacts and carbon emissions related to walking and cycling.

Download Full-text