Exploring future sustainable urban transport through scenarios: a critical review of contemporary practice

Under deep uncertainty, long-range transport forecasts are prone to inaccuracy. Scenario planning – a foresight approach from futures studies – offers a means to explore different long-range transport possibilities while also engaging transport stakeholders. Transport scenario narratives constitute a rich dataset of qualitative insights to draw upon concerning contemporary transport foresight. In this paper, thematic analysis and synthesis were utilised both to identify key ideas being explored through transport scenario planning and to evaluate sampled published transport scenario narratives critically. Through standardized keyword queries of Google Scholar, published documentation from 40 scenario planning projects were identified that met the study criteria. Sampled published transport scenario narratives (n = 173) from 40 scenario planning projects, across 25 countries, were analysed; 95% of projects were published in peer-reviewed academic journals. This study’s results provide a thematic map exploring the principal concerns captured by sampled published transport scenario narratives and opportunities for improvement are discussed as a set of recommendations for enhancing transport scenario narrative quality.