Sustainable Transportation

Toward Sustainable Transportation?

Six Steps in the Right Direction

 Sustainable Transportation’s Dirty Secret

Sustainable Transportation’s Dirty Secret

Sustainable Transportation’s Dirty Secret

Sustainable Transportation’s Dirty Secret
The impact of technology on people in their daily lives
Toward Sustainable Transportati
ward Sustainable Transportation

Breaking the
Impasse
 Breaking the Impasse
through...

The New Media,

Direct Citizen Involvement,
and

Six Concrete Linking Initiative

A Word of Background
 A Word of Background
➜ Presentation made in Paris on 11th October 1996 to the OECD’s
Environment Policy Committee, Task Force on Transport.
➜ In it I try to encourage our group to take advantage of the same
communications techniques which are at present being used to
such good advantage by private sector groups.
➜ While I feel strongly that there is no reason that public sector
undertakings as important as the EST program should continue
to operate on the basis on fifty year old technologies and
organisational approaches, I am also aware that we need a good
place to start. Which is what this presentation is all about.
This presentation is...

✓ Supported by a print handout with details on the

suggested e/e access routines and the six proposals
✓ Extended by a quick tour of key WWW sites of The
Commons at http://www.the-commons.org/
✓ Detailed support and additional background will be
found in appropriate sections of The Commons
✓ Further materials & information available from EcoPlan

EcoPlan International (c)

10, rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France
Tel. 331.4326.1323 Fax 331.4326.0746
e-mail: 100336,2154@compuserve.com ISDN/videoconferencing 331.4441.6340 (1-4)
Sustainable Transportation Perspectives

1759

1812

1996
Sustainable Transportation Perspectives

1759
He that travels in theory has no inconveniences; he has shade
and sunshine at his disposal, and wherever he alights finds
tables of plenty and looks of gaiety. These ideas are
indulged till the day of departure arrives, the chaise is
called, and the progress of happiness begins. A few miles
teach him the fallacies of imagination.
The road is dusty, the air is sultry, the horses are sluggish, and
the postilion brutal. He longs for the time of dinner that he
may eat and rest. The inn is crowded, his orders are
neglected, and nothing remains but that he devour in haste
what the cook has spoiled, and drive on in quest of better
entertainment. He finds at night a more commodious
house, but the best is always worse than he expected.
Samuel Johnson, The Idler, no. 58, in Universal Chronicle, London, 26 May 1759
Sustainable Transportation Perspectives

1812
 Environmentally Sustainable Transportation:
1812 Perspectives

Map Showing Successive Losses of French Army in Russian Campaign, 1812-1813

Map drawn in 1885 by M. Minard, retired Inspector General of Transportation

(Shows temperature drops below zero Reaumur during retreat

Sustainable Transportation Perspectives

1996
 1996 Perspectives

✓ Are we here “travelling in theory with no inconveniences”?

✓ EST/1812 parallels? Are we too heading toward disaster?
✓ Are we going to able to make that vital turn ... in time?
✓ We know that our policies & practices are hugely wrong..
✓ … and that our message is not getting through to our leaders.
✓ Accordingly, is what we are doing with this program enough?
✓ If not, is it important enough to try something different?
✓ Or do we just keep on marching? marching? marching?
 The New Media, the e/e &
Sustainable Development
● Only one of many necessary tracks for policy and practice
● But a VERY important one!
● Because it allows us to “put our heads together”
● It cannot however be “mastered from outside”
● Leaders & advisors must be prepared to become “practitioners”
(i.e., reasonably skilled users in their daily lives)
● This we around this table can begin to do today!
 Topics for Review Today

The Electronic Environment & the New Media

● Our new tools and where to start
● Reactions to non-travel Vancouver Conference proposal
● And what happened in its wake

and on the bottom line...

23
Six Steps Toward Sustainable Transport
1. EST e/e initiatives
2. STEP
3. S/TEDI

4. TbyT

5. S/T ‘98

6. Global Laboratory Program

Each for group & individual decisions & action
24
 Preparing the 1996 Vancouver S/T Conference:
Our Non-Transport Counter-Proposal

✥ Initial proposal (mid-1995) not even considered by group

✥ Apparently judged to be too far removed from...
• Topic of intended meeting (“sustainable transportation”?)
• The specific mandate of the group
• Critical path of group’s EST concept & research orientation
• Sensible use of proven technology
✥ Our reaction:
• Went ahead & did it anyway at our own expense
• With some later OECD and Canadian support
✥ Results -- Inspect WWW site under The Commons
(http://www.the-commons.org/vancouvr)
25
 The New Media and
the Electronic Environment (e/e)
For effective international work, we all now
have to get to know and learn to work with...

• POTS (which can be a lot better used)

• Email 1 (with care on protocols, netiquette)
• Email 2 (zipping and encoding)
• Internet (a lot more than email & aimless surfing)
• WWW (Beyond Gutenberg-bis)
• e/Conferencing

26
 Next Stage Electronic Environment

International Group Work Packages

(Hardware, software, routines)

•All-modes communications package

• Videoconference (1-on-1 & multipoint)
• Whiteboarding (direct screen sharing)
• High speed data transfer
• Group work software

Cost of a complete rig: Pentium PC + ISDN + Ecu 1000

 The World Wide Web

Now, let’s go over to the Web and have a

quick look at those sites that have been set up
under The Commons to support this work…
World Wide Web Sites under The Commons
Now that you know where they are, you
can always go back to check out and
develop more detail for yourselves.

http://www.ecoplan.org/

....
 Question

What can we now do with these new tools?

And can we use them to link into all that

diverse intelligence and enormous
problem-solving potential that is out
there and at present entirely untapped?
 Six Steps to Sustainable Transport

1. Put the new media to work for EST & for yourselves
2. Back & use the Sustainable Transport Emergency Program
3. Support the S/T Economic Development Initiative
4. Link early to the EC’s forming-up TbyT program
5. Sponsor 1998 Daughter of Vancouver Conference
6. Link to and support Global Laboratory Curriculum
(incl. The Transportation Program)

32
Common Points of these Proposals
All have come out of Vancouver e/e follow-up
All share basic objectives and priorities of EST
Each aims to implement practical solutions
All involve on-going initiatives elsewhere
(Opening up possibilities for cost-effective partnerships)
All increase linkage and impact of research
community with practical remedial processes
All can be done by group as whole, or individually
All are thoroughly documented via The Commons
33
 1. Putting the New Media to
Work
◆ Become sustainable transport practitioners yourselves
◆ Improve email-2 and Web skills of group (coach needed)
◆ Try to use e/e to work at home at least one day/week
◆ Join core group Videoconferencing-Plus demo program
◆ Cancel your next physical meeting
– (Be sustainable -- use your new electronics skills instead)

34
 2. Link to STEP:
The Sustainable Transport
Emergency Program
◆ Shape & use STEP to support EST objectives
◆ Consider STEP as one of EST’s links to the outside world
◆ Establish an electronic conference to invite public
discussion of EST issues and eventual remedial measures
◆ Set up protected ftp (library) site within STEP for private
group exchanges and document sharing (encoded)
◆ Use STEP as a forum for pre-publication and critical open
discussion of selected papers and results

35
 3. S/T Economic Development
Initiative
■ Participate in on-going brainstorming & preparatory
discussions for the planned 1997 S/TEDI Toronto
Symposium & Demonstration Program
■ Scan S/TEDI program materials and sources for
practical hands-on measures of EST progress
■ Give attention to prospect for strategic linking of EST
policy objectives to priority new work issues
■ Further develop your e/e skills by using both STEP and
New Work Web sites and related facilities in the process

36
 4. The EC’s New TbyT
Program
■ TbyT - Querying the potential for substituting
telecoms for (some portions of) physical transportation
■ Associate early with this new EC program as part of
your search for specific policy leads to incorporate into
final EST recommendations package
■ Use as a means to develop more concrete and complete
views of transport/telecoms trade-off potential
■
Enrich TbyT by bringing in at the outset the EST
program’s special perspectives and expertise
37
 5.
Let us give more thought to the
proposed “Daughter of
Vancouver” Conference

38
Building on the values and vision of women like..

Rachel Carson

Jane Jacobs
The 1998 Sustainable Transport
Conference
■ Review STEP proposals for a more (a) inclusive,
(b) action-oriented 1998 follow-up to Vancouver
■ Check out discussions of proposal for women
leadership (as a symbol of the new inclusiveness)
■ Bring in OECD (and your Ministry) as active co-
sponsors of this important, path-breaking event
■ Present EST findings and recommendations to
this critical audience for comment and discussion
■ See if you can help make specific, hands-on EST
recommendations to the needy host city (cities)
40
 6. The Global Laboratory
Curriculum
■ Inspect GLC program materials and Web sites to
scan for link potential to EST
■ Consider a demo showing how these schools’
environmental indicator maps can complement
and extend more official information channels
■ Give the program your formal endorsement (at
OECD & individual ministry and agency levels)
■ Participate as parents and citizens in this and
similar school programs in your community

41
If governments measure pollution levels at official
government stations, they then have to think of what
government is supposed to do about it.

If people measure pollution levels in their own

neighbourhoods, then they have to consider
what they need to do about it.

Can we think about that for a minute?

 How Hard is This Going to Be to Do?

❖ No new mandate required (This is, after all, sustainable transport)

❖ Modest resource requirement (Great potential for cost-sharing)
❖ Flexible action development permits mid-stream adjustments
❖ The technology is there, easy to use, and affordable
❖ Many fine partner groups ready for collaboration
❖ Actions can be engaged at any of several levels, including
at a personal, family or local group level

43
 Your Next Steps?

✔ Your decisions and actions at the OECD?

- via the EST program and linkages?
- other ways to follow-up these ideas & initiatives?
✔ Your Ministry, agency or group -- actions
within this program or yet other areas?
✔Your local community and neighbourhood?
✔You and your family?
The impact of technology on people in their daily lives
 The presentation was prepared with the help...

Presentation Software: Microsoft PowerPoint

WWW Site Server: Prime Host Team
Videoconferencing & Group Work Systems: Teles GmbH
Sound effects: Microsoft, Moon Valley, Gateway
Production counsel: B. Geraudel
Music: J.S. Bach (via Gateway Multi-media)

With kind thanks to the OECD Environment Directorate

and to DG XIII of the European Commission
 Documentary support for and further background on
this presentation is available upon request from:

EcoPlan International
The Network for Technology & Systems Studies
10 rue Joseph Bara 75006 Paris, France
Tel. 331.4326.1323 Fax 331.4326.0746
e-mail: 100336,2154@compuserve.com
isdn/videoconferencing 331.4441.6340 (-4)
On WWW at http://www.ecoplan.org
WWW Library at ftp://ftp.the-commons.org
On CompuServe: GO TWEUROPA, New Ways to Work

47
 Making
the
OECD Print
Multi-Media
Sustainable notes for
Transportation Task
Presentation:
Force
members
& others
interested
 Intended Uses
> An electronic handout in support of 11 Oct. presentation
> A handy means for sharing presentations with others
who may not be able or choose to attend
> Because electronically transferable, lends itself to wide
international distribution and use.
> Permits a restatement of important points that do not
seem to be getting through by other means
> May reach people who are not “print-receptive” (not all
of whom necessarily idiots)
> Permits presentation to be made without requiring the
speaker always to travel (sustainable transport)
How
hard
is
this
to
do?
✻ Uses readily available PC tools (which are
improving all the time)
✻ Toughest problem is finding balance between
presentation form and content
✻ It does take time though
✻ & thought, & patience, & perhaps a bit of touch
✻ And respecting intellectual property
 Does it get its message across?
■ You are best placed to decide that!
■ You may wish to note that the entire text of the
presentation is reproduced on the following page.
■ This may suggest to some that the entire effort is a
waste of everyone’s time?
■ Or, alternatively, that creative restatement of
central points and issues is possibly much needed?
Sustainable Transportation Breaking the Impasse: Through the New Media, Direct Citizen Involvement, Linking Initiatives, & the Global Lab Curriculum A Word of
Background Presentation made in Paris on 11th October 1996 to the OECD’s Environment Policy Committee, Task Force on Transport. In it I try to encourage our
group to take advantage of the same communications techniques which are at present being used to such good advantage by private sector groups. While I feel
strongly that there is no reason that public sector undertakings as important as the EST program should continue to operate on the basis on fifty year old technologies
and organisational approaches, I am also aware that we need a good place to start. Which is what this presentation is all about. This presentation is... Supported by a
print handout with details on the suggested e/e access routines and the five proposals Usefully extended by a quick tour of key WWW sites of The Commons at
http://www.the-commons.org/ Detailed support and additional background will be found in appropriate sections of The Commons Further materials & information
available from EcoPlan Who am I & why am I here today? By background, education, chosen life work EcoPlan A thinking garden (not a “think-tank”) Impact of
technology on people in their daily lives Communications, Environment, Learning, Work Policy and decision-making focus (not research per se) A consistent, explicit
ethic to provide deep roots Public/private partnerships that work Network approach to building knowledge & community Long term presence and commitment
(temoin) Our long-standing OECD links: 1969-1996 What I Won’t Talk About Today (But if time allowed perhaps should) The sad story of Sustainable Development
The hopeful end of closed government The Brains on the Knee syndrome OECD history and desirable futures The Environment Directorate: 1971-1996 Work and
employment as the ‘back door’ for achieving many environmental objectives Learning curves (barriers to some, joy to others) Sustainable Transportation Perspectives
Environmentally Sustainable Transportation: 1759 Perspectives He that travels in theory has no inconveniences; he has shade and sunshine at his disposal, and
wherever he alights finds tables of plenty and looks of gaiety. These ideas are indulged till the day of departure arrives, the chaise is called, and the progress of
happiness begins. A few miles teach him the fallacies of imagination. The road is dusty, the air is sultry, the horses are sluggish, and the postilion brutal. He longs for
the time of dinner that he may eat and rest. The inn is crowded, his orders are neglected, and nothing remains but that he devour in haste what the cook has spoiled,
and drive on in quest of better entertainment. He finds at night a more commodious house, but the best is always worse than he expected. Samuel Johnson, The Idler,
no. 58, in Universal Chronicle, London, 26 May 1759 Environmentally Sustainable Transportation: 1812 Perspectives Environmentally Sustainable Transportation:
1996 Perspectives Are we here “traveling in theory with no inconveniences”? EST/1812 parallels? Are we too heading toward disaster? Are we going to able to make

Entire text of this presentation

that vital turn ... in time? We know that our policies & practices are hugely wrong.. … and that our message is not getting through to our leaders. Accordingly, is what
we are doing with this program enough? If not, is it important enough to try something different? Or do we just keep on marching? marching? marching? The New
Media, the e/e & Sustainable Development Only one of many necessary tracks for policy and practice But a VERY important one! It cannot however be “mastered from
outside” We must be prepared to become “practitioners” (i.e.., reasonably skilled users in our daily lives) This we can begin to do today! acti Topics for Review Today
Our new tools and where to start 1995 reactions to non-travel Vancouver proposal And what happened in its wake Five Concrete Action Proposals 2. The New Media
& the Electronic Environment (e/e) Next Stage Electronic Environment International Group Work Packages (Hardware, software, routines) Now, let’s go over to the
Web and have a quick look at those sites that have been set up under The Commons to support this work… Now that you know where they are, you can always go
back to check out and develop more detail for yourselves. Five Proposed Link Initiatives Arising from the Vancouver Follow-up 1. Put these new media to work for
EST & for yourselves 2. Support the S/T Economic Development Initiative 3. Link early to the EC’s forming-up TbyT program 4. Get behind 1998 Daughter of
Vancouver Conference 5. Make use of the Global Laboratory Curriculum (incl. The Transportation Program) Common Points of these Proposals All have come out of
Vancouver e/e follow-up All share basic objectives and priorities of EST Each aims to implement practical solutions All involve on-going initiatives elsewhere
(Opening up possibilities for cost-effective partnerships) All increase linkage and impact of research community with practical remedial processes All can be done by
group as whole, or individually All are thoroughly documented via The Commons 1. Putting the New Media to Work Become sustainable transport practitioners
yourselves Improve email-2 and Web skills of group (coach needed) Set up protected ftp (library) site within STEP for private group exchanges and document sharing
(encoded) Use STEP as a forum for pre-publication and critical open discussion of selected papers and results Join core group Videoconferencing-plus demo program
Cancel your next physical meeting (Be sustainable & use your new electronics skills instead) 2. S/T Economic Development Initiative Participate in brainstorming &
preparatory discussions for the planned 1997 S/TEDI Toronto Symposium & Demonstration Program Scan S/TEDI program materials and sources for practical hands-
on measures of EST progress Give attention to prospect for strategic linking of EST policy objectives to priority new work issues Further develop your e/e skills by
using STEP Web site and related facilities in the process 3. The EC’s New TbyT Program TbyT - Querying the potential for substituting telecoms for (some portions of)
physical transportation Associate early with this new EC program as part of your search for specific policy leads to incorporate into final EST recommendations
package Use this link as a means to develop more concrete and complete views of TbyT trade-off potential Enrich TbyT by bringing in at the outset the EST program’s
special perspectives and expertise Let us give more thought to the proposed “Daughter of Vancouver” Conference The 1998 Sustainable Transport Conference Review
STEP proposals for a more (a) inclusive, (b) action-oriented 1998 follow-up to Vancouver Check out discussions of proposal for women leadership (as a symbol of the
new inclusiveness) Bring in OECD (and your Ministry) as active co-sponsors of this important, path-breaking event Present EST findings and recommendations to this
critical audience for comment and discussion See if you can help make specific, hands-on EST recommendations to the needy host city (cities) 5. The Global Laboratory
Curriculum Inspect program materials and Web site to scan for link potential to EST Consider a demo showing how these schools’ environmental indicator maps can
complement and extend more official information channels Give the program your formal endorsement (at OECD & individual ministry and agency levels) Participate
as parents and citizens in this and similar school programs in your community How Hard is This Going to Be to Do? Next Steps? For further information or to follow-
up on any of these ideas, don’t hesitate to contact us at:
oward Sustainable Transportatio