A Sustainable and Resilient Urban Transportation System

ABSTRACT

Pandemics and other disasters significantly impact community and transportation system through disruptions in normal day-to-day activities, loss or damage to life, property, or environment. The majority of covid-19 cases are from urban areas demonstrating the urgent need for improving cities' resiliency to prepare for pandemics. The urban sustainable development goal (SDG) 11, namely, "make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” depicts the importance of resilient cities and resilient urban transportation system as well. Urban resilience is defined as urban system's ability to absorb shocks (sudden social, economic, or environmental changes), to adapt to changes, and transform into a new system when coping becomes difficult in the current existing form. The urban transportation system needs to be resilient to deal with pandemics, natural, and biological hazards. The transportation system also supports pandemic propagation such as covid-19 through associated local and long-distance travel risks. Generally, long-distance travel introduces disease into a non-affected community, and the local travel disperses it. A resilient urban transportation system would lead to a resilient city and decrease the negative impacts of pandemic and other calamities such as urban floods, climate risks, etc. Hence it is of utmost importance to evaluate the level of resilience of the urban transportation system and understand how a resilient and sustainable urban transportation system helps in achieving SDG 11. The objectives of the chapter are to;identify how urban transportation connects with SDG 11, develop a framework of indicators to evaluate the resilience of the urban transportation system and its association with SDG 11, and highlight how the resilient urban transportation system would cope with disasters. To develop an indicator framework, indicators are examined from relevant literature. Further, the chapter includes measurements for selected indicators. The above indicator framework would help practitioners and policymakers in the selection of suitable transportation interventions. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer 2022.