Managing the environmental impacts of land transport: integrating environmental analysis with urban planning

Ecological systems have limits or thresholds that vary by pollutant type, emissions sources and the sensitivity of a given location. Human health can also indicate sensitivity. Good environmental management requires any problem to be defined to obtain efficient and effective solutions. Cities are where transport activities, effects and resource management decisions are often most focussed. The New Zealand Ministry of Transport has developed two environmental management tools. The Vehicle Fleet Model (VFM) is a predictive database of the environmental performance of the New Zealand traffic fleet (and rail fleet). It calculates indices of local air quality, stormwater, and greenhouse gases emissions. The second is an analytical process based on Environmental Capacity Analysis (ECA). Information on local traffic is combined with environmental performance data from the Vehicle Fleet Model. This can be integrated within a live, geo-spatially defined analysis of the overall environmental effects within a defined local area. Variations in urban form and activity (traffic and other) that contribute to environmental effects can be tracked. This enables analysis of a range of mitigation strategies that may contribute, now or in the future, to maintaining environmental thresholds or meeting targets. A case study of the application of this approach was conducted within Waitakere City. The focus was on improving the understanding of the relative significance of stormwater contaminants derived from land transport. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.