Background:

Most people on Earth now live in cities, and both economic development and global environmental sustainability now depend in part on solving the urban problems of traffic congestion and air pollution. Tackling the congestion and pollution clogging up cities is vital not just for their development but for global environmental sustainability.

Strategy:

WRI believes that finding socially, financially, and environmentally sound solutions to the problems of urban mobility in developing cities is vital to global sustainability. EMBARQ, the WRI Center for Sustainable Transport, is leading the way by pioneering the use of carefully structured public-private partnerships in Istanbul, Mexico City, Porto Alegre, Shanghai, and Hanoi. Our role is to help them reduce the risks and costs of making their transportation systems more sustainable and to expand activities to other cities within the country or region to leverage the capacity and learning created through initial city partnerships. In the case of Istanbul, our ambition is to provide an affordable and sustainable model that other Turkic Republics just on the cusp of development might aspire to.

The solutions EMBARQ delivers include:

• Reducing air pollution and improving public health
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
• Improving safety, accessibility and personal security
• Improving quality and cost effectiveness of transport
• Improving quality of public spaces

The activities that EMBARQ network brings to catalyze the planning and implementation of these projects are:

• Strategic planning
• Fast track problem diagnostics
• Project planning and management support
• Risk management
• Quality assurance reviews
• Macro and micro modeling
• Emissions inventory/measuring/information systems
• Social/environmental impact assessments
• Post-project assessment and advisory services
• Project financing

The transport solutions that are the core of implementing the integrated sustainable urban mobility and that are the projects that EMBARQ network works on are organized in 5 working areas:

1. Urban transport-urban planning: integrating urban transport as key element of urban planning.
2. High capacity transport systems: providing high capacity transport systems that are efficient, environmentally friendly, safe, comfortable and accessible.
3. Private cars use: promoting rational use of private cars.
4. Non motorized transport: promoting the use of non motorized transport, its integration with the public transport system and an inclusive human mobility, including recuperation and dignifying public space.
5. Clean fuels and vehicles: incorporating vehicle technologies and clean fuels.

Accomplishments:

EMBARQ’s flagship program in Mexico City helped create a 20-kilometre bus corridor in which 97 articulated buses carry an average of 263,000 people a day. By introducing cleaner, more efficient buses, and convincing many commuters to leave their cars at home, Metrobus has reduced carbon dioxide emissions from Mexico City traffic by an estimated 47,000 tons a year. Reductions in emissions from bus operations alone earned Metrobus US$145,885 from the Spanish Carbon Fund in the system’s first year of operation. A dozen other cities, including Hanoi and Istanbul, are now looking to replicate Mexico City’s success.

In November of 2006, Metrobus celebrated its 100 millionth passenger since the system began operations in June 2005. Since its inception, Metrobus has cut travel times have been cut in half, with significant reductions in congestion, noise, and air pollution. Metrobus uses new, diesel-powered articulated buses to move 263,000 people daily at an average speed of 19 kilometers per hour. The new buses have replaced hundreds of smaller buses and alleviated the legendary traffic jams that afflicted Mexico City's longest avenue the famed Avenida Insurgentes. Based on figures from the non-profit Mexican National Institute of Ecology, increased productivity due to time saved with the new system could approach $15 million per year.

EMBARQ has been working with the City of Istanbul to measure vehicle emissions and to analyze for the first time ever the city’s transportation patterns. The data gleaned will be used in a series of “Transportation Solutions Scenarios” workshops bringing together national and city officials, business, NGOs, and professional transport associations representing taxi drivers and truck drivers to develop a portfolio of policies and strategies designed to help solve the city's worsening transport problems.