Sustainable transport key to healthy growth

Across the Asia-Pacific region, especially in urban centers, electric cars and buses are increasingly replacing gasoline-powered ones as a means of transportation. Aided by the ubiquity of smart devices, smart mobility and other transport innovations are significantly reshaping everyday life through ride-sharing apps, driver-assistance technology and real-time traffic management. With new highways and railways operationalized in the last decade, the region is getting yet more connected, while the ongoing digitalization of road, rail and maritime freight transport further improves efficiency and cost reduction.

These are part of the wider trend of sustainable transport development, which benefits everyone through making transportation of people and goods safer, "greener", more efficient and more accessible. Countries across Asia and the Pacific have made great progress toward these goals, but major challenges remain. More cooperation will be needed to advance these trends and overcome obstacles.

The transition to sustainable transport leads to interlinked benefits that are felt across multiple aspects of life. The move toward public transport, walking and cycling not only improves general mobility by relieving congestion stress, but also significantly cuts down emissions from personal vehicles, reduces the risk of road accidents, and promotes physical fitness.

Ride-sharing or ride-hailing apps offer personalized transport solutions tailored to individual needs, reducing fuel consumption and waste, while connected and autonomous vehicle technology improves traffic flow and prevents crashes — by UN estimates, up to 80 percent of non-alcohol ones — by minimizing human error. Coupled with inclusive transport planning, these developments make it much easier for the elderly, disabled, pregnant women and other underserved groups of people to access transport solutions and fully engage in society.

The knock-on effects across economic growth, health, climate action and social inclusion thus make sustainable transport a key enabler of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations.

The good news is that the Asia-Pacific region has made solid progress toward sustainable transport. Coordinated regional development of transport infrastructure continues to advance economies of scale to meet increased demand in freight transport. Currently, about 145,000 kilometers of Asian highways, 121,000 km of trans-Asian railways and 275 dry ports cover all parts of the region and almost 99.7 percent of the total population, while the region also hosts the world's 10 largest container ports and accounts for more than half of the global maritime trade.

In addition to the widespread adoption of smart mobility solutions, countries are in general committed to decarbonizing their road, railway and maritime transport, with plans to electrify transport modes and fuel efficiency and the use of clean sources of fuel. Most countries have seen a decline in road traffic deaths in the last decade, and several have made progress in improving gender equality in the transport sector.

However, this path is fraught with challenges. Most of the projected future growth in global transport demand will take place in the Asia-Pacific region, owing partly to rapid urbanization and a growing appetite for personal vehicles. While the most tangible effect of this growth will be the rise in greenhouse gas emissions due to the ongoing heavy reliance on fossil fuels, these trends also add additional strain to existing urban transport systems, many of which are underinvested.

Missing links and sub-standard quality of infrastructure, coupled with lack of transport facilitation, continue to increase costs and delays of international transport, especially in landlocked developing countries. Likewise, small island developing states continue to show limited and often stagnant levels of their maritime connectivity, hindering their integration into the regional and global economy. The disparity in technological capabilities between countries, as well as the current gaps in meeting low-carbon transport goals, hinder the effective adoption of region-wide smart mobility systems and net-zero strategies, respectively.

And despite improvements, a person in Asia and the Pacific loses his or her life in a road accident every 45 seconds. Women make up only about 16 percent of the regional transport workforce, a slightly lower figure than the global average.

Government representatives gathered in early November and assessed these achievements and challenges within the framework of the Regional Action Programme for Sustainable Transport Development in Asia and the Pacific. Many tasks, such as transport decarbonization, cannot be overcome by any country alone.

Meanwhile, the benefits of transport innovations such as digitalization and automation will only be fully realized if widely implemented. With Asia and the Pacific 32 years behind in achieving the SDGs, accelerating sustainable transport development would benefit everyone, so everyone needs to get on board to make it happen.

The author is under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.