Climate change, enhanced greenhouse gas emissions and passenger transport – What can we do to make a difference?

The transportation sector, led by the automobile, has been cited constantly as a major contributor through human intervention to climate change. Short of banning car use, the challenge remains one of understanding better what mix of actions might contribute in non-marginal ways to reducing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and the absolute amount of CO2 produced by automobiles. This paper evaluates instruments aimed at a number of policy objectives linked to efficiency, sustainability and equity, focusing on social surplus gains in addition to cost effectiveness; but in particular the ability to reduce CO2. TRESIS, an integrated transport, land use and environmental strategy impact simulation program, is used to assess the influence on CO2 of a number of ‘at source’ and ‘mitigation’ instruments such as improvements in fuel efficiency, a carbon tax, variable user charges, and improvements in public transit. TRESIS is applied to the Sydney metropolitan area with instruments enacted in 2010 up to 2015.