Public transportation is often framed as a key component of building sustainable cities. Conversely, the social, economic, and environmental impacts of transport are framed as critical issues that can challenge the sustainability of cities and regions. This paper presents a critical literature review of the relationship between public transportation and sustainability. First the paper offers a review of key sustainable transportation concepts and how public transport contributes to sustainability goals. Second, the paper reviews past studies that analyse sustainable transportation in order to develop recommendations for planning, engineering, and researching sustainable public transport. Finally, the paper concludes by offering suggestions for future research into the sustainability performance of public transit.

Travel demand is increasing in many countries and the transportation sector produces about 14% of the global greenhouse gas emission, which has been linked to the current climate change. As the oil and gas capital of Canada, the City of Calgary has a very high carbon footprint per population. Hence, the increase usage of transit and the reduction of auto dependency is an important policy goal for the city, and understanding the determinants of transit ridership is a critical first step to achieving this goal. The objective of the study is to identify the effects of different street patterns, traffic, road infrastructure, socioeconomic and demographic characteristics on public transit ridership in 185 community areas of the city. Our results suggest that several street patterns have a significant effect on public transit usage and thus should be considered in the development of new communities for promoting public transit. Also, increases in commercial areas, expressways or highways and train stations are associated with greater transit use. In addition to these physical attributes, a number of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics related to income, age, living pattern and minority or immigrant populations are important determinants of public transit use.

The traffic on the roads in many countries has been increasing in recent decades, and the increases in congestion and carbon emission are contributing significantly to climate change. To minimize these adverse effects, the use of more sustainable travel modes, such as public transit, walking, bicycling, carpool and ridesharing, has been widely promoted. Apart from these travel modes, alternatives, such as teleworking, which reduces commute trips, should also be promoted. The objective of this study is to identify different neighborhood design and social characteristics that are associated with teleworking. In this case study, a multiple regression model is applied to 2011 census data and road infrastructure data of 185 communities from the city of Calgary in Canada. In addition, a random intercept model is estimated to account for unobserved heterogeneity. We find that different street patterns, geographical size, land use, mass rapid transit, and road types have a significant effect on teleworking or working-at-home and should be considered when designing new communities. We also find several significant sociodemographic characteristics, including family size, marital status, children, housing type and language. Policy implications based on this research are then provided.

The growing demand for air transportation has led to an increase in worldwide air traffic inefficiency due to capacity constraints. The impacts associated with this situation can be reduced through operational changes. To better handle the problem, the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) and the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) program suggest Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) as a solution. The Area Navigation (RNAV) and Required Navigation Performance (RNP) approaches belong to the group of PBN procedures. These procedures allow for a more efficient use of airspace by reducing route distances, fuel consumption and perceived aircraft noise. This article quantifies the benefits of PBN systems for two indicator parameters—fuel burn and flight time—and compares PBN systems to conventional instrument navigation procedures. The case studies use five airports in Brazil. The results of this analysis show that the benefits of the PBN approach vary with aircraft type and individual route characteristics.

Traditional airport planning and design considers the airport as an isolated entity accessed by aircraft and passengers. However, airports are rarely the final destination of air passengers – these have a need to access the airport from a widely distributed set of origins/destinations. The surface portion of air trips has a significant impact on the urban transportation system. In addition, airports also affect the land use in their vicinities due both to the noise generated by low-flying aircraft and the need to protect the airspace used by those some aircraft from obstacles protruding from the ground. This article reviews the most important issues associated with integrating airports into the urban environment in a sustainable manner.