From Global Warming to Sustainable Transport 1989–2006

Beginning with a review of a 1990 article on the impact of global warming on the transportation infrastructure, this article summarizes the changes in our knowledge of climate change and its impact on transport over the past sixteen years. Although most of the basic scientific knowledge has not changed there has been an increase in our understanding of the potential impacts. It is noted that this field of study has evolved from the pure concern for global warming into a general concern for sustainable transportation and the other factors that make transport non-sustainable: local air quality problems, injuries and fatalities from motor vehicle incidents, petroleum resource depletion and congestion, as well as concerns over what can be done about the various negative externalities of transportation today. It is the field of sustainable transport broadly defined that now dominates nearly all research in transport.