The Urban Co-benefits approach:

Methods and tools

Christopher Doll Research Fellow

United Nations University

Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability

Quantifying the Environmental, Social, Economic Benefits from

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Systems

SPAD & Asia-LEDS Workshop

Kuala Lumpur - 25 June 2014

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Outline

• Introduction to UNU, urbanisation and urban

systems

• Urban development with co-benefits

– How much (quantification)

– ASI framework and transport tool

• Case study: Delhi Metro

– How come (dimensions of decision

making)

• Results of survey

• Back to systems thinking

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The UNU and its Institutes

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UNU-CRIS

[regional integration]

UNU-EHS

[environment & human security]

UNU-FLORES

[material fluxes & resources]

UNU-IAS

[advanced study for

sustainability]

UNU-IIAOC

[alliance of civilizations]

UNU-IIGH

[global health]

UNU-IIST

[software technology]

UNU-INRA

[Africa's natural resources]

UNU-INWEH

[water, environment, health]

UNU-MERIT

[society, economy, innovation]

UNU-WIDER

[development economics]

Conceptualising the urban challenge

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http://urban.ias.unu.edu

Global urbanisation trends

• Since around 2007, more than 50% of the world’s

population live in cities

• Around 75% GDP, but only 2-3% of the Earth’s land surface

6 Grimm et al. 2008 Science (319)

• Human population growing (1911:

1.75bn - 2011: 7bn)

• Asia added 754 million people in

cities between 1990-2010

(US+EU). The trend will continue

in the next decades

• Africa still well below 50% urban

• Africa’s global share of urban

population is projected to rise from

11.3% in 2010 to 20.2% by 2050.

(1bn in 2010 – 2bn in 2040)

Only 8% live in clean air, 37 % (3/4 billion people) live

outside minimum WHO target

7 Doll, 2009; IPCC WGIII, Fig 12.23

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Private transport and density

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Greening the sectors

Transforming space and movement

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• Compact urban development

increases density, which promotes

all kinds of efficiencies in terms of

energy use and reduced travel

– 20-40% reduction in private

vehicle kilometres driven

• Combined with mixed land-use and

increased public transport

– Green buildings

– Enhanced urbanism

• Sustainable transport initiatives

– Avoid, shift, improve

– Equity in mobility

Why does mode share matter?

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Urban Development with co-benefits

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Urban development with co-benefits

approach

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• Urban climate co-benefits are the contribution of one

city to the reduction of global environmental

degradation and achievement of local sustainable

development goals at the same time.

• Here, it refers to policies which simultaneously address

global and local environmental problems; GHG and air

pollution reductions

• Particularly pertinent for developing

countries

• Case study approach

to evaluate:

• How much?

• How come?

• Develop support tools

The vicious cycle of urban

transport

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The virtuous cycle of urban

transport

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The tools

• Excel based: Transport; Energy; Waste, Governance

(for transport)

• Designed to evaluate co-benefits of interventions into

respective sectors for first order policy screening

• Four basic steps to the tools:

– Input data

– Examine initial baseline/results

– Apply changes to the sector (Avoid, Shift, Improve)

– Calculate co-benefits

• GHG emissions

• Local Air pollution, fuel saving etc

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Governance & co-benefits evaluation:

Transport

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• Initial conceptual framework presented in Doll et al.

(2011)

Governance & co-benefits evaluation

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• Initial conceptual framework presented in Doll et al.

(2011)

Technical dimension of

co-benefits

How much?

The Institutional Dimension, (G) acts as

a multiplier of effectiveness to the

technical analysis

How come?

Governance & co-benefits evaluation

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• Initial conceptual framework presented in Doll et al.

(2011)

Technical dimension of

co-benefits

How much?

The Institutional Dimension, (G) acts as

a multiplier of effectiveness to the

technical analysis

How come?

Transport tool structure

• Bottom up assessments of GHG emissions and air

pollution in each sector based on local information

– Transport

• Fleet size (number of vehicles)

• Activity (annual distance - km)

• Occupancy ( persons/vehicle)

• Fuel efficiencies (km/litre)

• Fuel emission factors (gram/litre)

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Policy variables

• Activity

– Fleet (number of vehicles)

– Activity (distance travelled)

• Share

– Mode share of different vehicles

• Intensity

– Fuel efficiency

• Fuel switch

– Changing fuel efficiency

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Transport tool

• Step 1. Mode selection

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Step 2: Data input

• Step 2. Data input by Mode

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Policy scenario sheet

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Transport Activity (A)

Fuel Efficiency (I)

Fuel share (F) below

Mode Share (S)

Policy scenario sheet

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Results

Policy scenario sheet

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Dynamic Graph

Co-benefits over time

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Extending ASI to other sectors

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Avoid, shift, improve in other

sectors

• ASI framework is applied to the tools in each sector

– Transport

• Travel activity (fleet size & distance)

• Mode share

• Fuel efficiency

• Fuel Type

– Energy

• Dwelling sizes

• Building management

• Energy sources (local generation)

– Waste

• Waste generation, waste composition

• Waste processing method (compost, incineration..)

• Technology used within a processing method

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Case Study: Delhi Metro

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Mode shift to the metro

• Mode shift revealed from interview

data and corroborated with the

literature

• Future scenarios looked at varying

proportion of car vs. bus

contribution at 22:44; 33:33; 44:22

• Other modes kept constant even

for greater ridership levels

• Current ridership calculated

1.8million/day - around 50% of

capacity ≈ 6% total demand

• Calculations also made for 75%

and 100% capacity (≈ 12% total

Delhi travel demand)

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Bus 44%

Car 22%

Taxi 4.5%

Motorcycle 25%

3-wheelers 4.5%

Mode shift to the Metro

Carbon(eq) reductions by

ridership and mode contribution

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-18%

-16%

-14%

-12%

-10%

-8%

-6%

-4%

-2%

0%

Current 75% 100%

Bus 44; Car 22

Bus 33; Car 33

Bus 22; Car 44

Percentage of potential metro capacity use C

O2

(e

q)

em

issi

on

s re

du

ctio

ns

Co-benefits by pollutant

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Co-benefits by pollutant

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Summary

• Gives general idea of the range of co-benefits

achievable under different scenarios

• Co-benefits mainly come from three areas:

– Ridership of metro

– Mode shift to the metro

– Electricity generation of metro

• Currently, marginal co-benefits with large potential

• Discussion focuses on means of attaining such shifts

– Better integration with other modes to use access

the metro stations

– Improved and enforced parking regulations

• More detailed modelling required to fully understand

tradeoffs

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Urban development with co-benefits

approach

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• The Co-benefits approach is a means of achieving

multiple outcomes with one policy initiative

• Here, it refers to policies which simultaneously address

global and local environmental problems; GHG and air

pollution reductions

• Particularly pertinent

for developing

countries

• Case study approach

to evaluate:

• How much?

• How come?

• Develop support tools

Flexible framework for extension

to other sectors

• Context

– Ranks relative importance of 11 factors

upon which AHP is used to determine

priorities

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Specific

Policies

(e.g.

transport)

Governance Tool structure

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General Governance Specific

Policies

(e.g.

transport)

Governance indicators

• Developed currently for the transport sector to aid

decision making about what changes to make in the

tool

• Self assessment of context indicators to determine

capacities and most implementable projects

– Cultural/Lifestyle

– Legal

– Orgainisational

– Coordination

– Political

• The key question is what is your ability to change

one variable relative to another?

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Prioritizing conditions

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(partial screenshot)

Ranked policy measures

Link to Transport Tool

Two modes of usage

If no policies under consideration:

• Assess context

– Determine governance abilities (AHP)

• Determine most implementable options

• Determine coherent policy package

• Set parameter sensitivity of change for transport tool

If policies are in mind:

• Determine policy coherence

• Run self assessment

• Identify which areas of governance need strengthening/addressing

Users from outside

Access to local server

Registration

&

Fill in the input form

Submit and save

Input data

Download excel-based Tool

Run the tool

Access to tools: Tool-Server Interaction

https://tools.ias.unu.edu

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Guidebooks for Evaluation tools

and Governance tools

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Results from yesterday

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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Lifestyle change

Public support and acceptance

Legal authority and legislation

Administrative structures and enforcement

Openness and learning

Expertise

Human resources

Financial resources

Technology and infrastructure

Horizontal coordination

Vertical coordination

Consensus and commitment

Relative Governance Challenges

Mean rating

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Lifestyle change

Public support and acceptance

Legal authority and legislation

Administrative structures and enforcement

Openness and learning

Expertise

Human resources

Financial resources

Technology and infrastructure

Horizontal coordination

Vertical coordination

Consensus and commitment

Relative Governance Challenges

Mean rating

2.2

2.26

2.35

2.4

2.67

2.7

2.78

2.85

2.86

2.88

3.05

3.37

1.018

0.921

0.978

1.033

1.344

1.043

1.121

0.893

1.058

1.187

0.986

0.852

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Public support and acceptance

Consensus and commitment

Horizontal coordination

Expertise

Openness and learning

Human resources

Legal authority and legislation

Financial resources

Vertical coordination

Lifestyle change

Administrative structures and enforcement

Technology and infrastructure

Absolute Governance Challenges

Std. Deviation

Mean score

Governance aspect N Kuala Lumpur

Minimum rating Kuala Lumpur

Maximum rating Kuala Lumpur Sub-

Sample Mean Kuala Lumpur Sub-

Sample S.D. Non-KL Sub-Sample

mean Non-KL Sub-Sample

S.D.

Lifestyle change 18 2 9 6.61 1.852 5.58 2.469

Public support and acceptance 18 1 8 5.61 2.146 5.27 2.127

Legal authority and legislation 18 2 9 5.83 2.503 5.27 2.070

Administrative structures and enforcement

18 2 9 5.83 2.121 5.62 1.813

Openness and learning 18 1 8 4.39 1.720 4.54 1.726

Expertise 18 1 9 4.83 2.383 4.73 2.108

Human resources 18 1 9 4.39 2.033 4.84 2.173

Financial resources 18 2 9 5.39 1.754 5.27 2.736

Technology and infrastructure 18 2 9 5.17 2.550 5.38 2.118

Horizontal coordination 18 2 9 5.50 1.823 5.19 1.960

Vertical coordination 18 3 8 5.44 1.688 5.64 1.846

Consensus and commitment 18 2 9 6.06 1.893 5.81 2.191

Consistency of relative rating scores

(Kuala Lumpur vs. rest)

Governance aspect N Minimum Maximum Kuala Lumpur Mean Kuala Lumpur S.D. Non-KL Mean Non-KL S.D.

Lifestyle change 17 2 5 3.06 1.249 2.75 1.152

Public support and acceptance 16 1 3 1.94 0.772 2.38 1.135

Legal authority and legislation 16 1 4 2.44 1.094 3.00 1.103

Administrative structures and enforcement

16 1 4 2.88 0.806 3.17 1.090

Openness and learning 16 1 4 2.69 1.302 2.65 1.402

Expertise 16 1 4 2.31 1.014 2.46 1.062

Human resources 16 1 4 2.25 0.856 3.00 1.063

Financial resources 16 1 4 2.81 0.655 2.88 1.035

Technology and infrastructure 15 2 4 3.20 0.676 3.48 0.947

Horizontal coordination 15 1 4 2.33 0.816 2.36 1.093

Vertical coordination 15 1 4 2.47 1.125 3.14 0.941

Consensus and commitment 15 1 3 2.00 0.655 2.43 1.037

Consistency of absolute scores (Kuala Lumpur vs. rest)

Capacity Assessment in KL

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Average Absolute Capacity

Resp

on

den

ts

City Hall SPAD Construction/

M.Pub.Works

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 1.25 1.5 1.75 2 2.25 2.5 2.75 3 3.25 3.5 3.75

Concluding remarks

• Simple way of looking at assessing a range

of transport policies

• From an objective view, a city has a certain

capacity in these factors

• Helps generate different perspectives

• Look at sensitivities, get a feel for the policy

landscape

• One element of the multi-criteria approach

to be evaluated with other co-benefits such

as health, safety, environment, travel time

– Or.., as an aid to implementation

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Co-benefits in Health Links

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Source: Woodcock et al., 2009

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OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROMOTING URBAN CO-

BENEFITS

• Discussions of Co-benefits has emerged in several organizations: Opportunities in the Policy Arena

• Short Term- Straight forward initiatives using simple technologies

E.g., waste management, 3R.

• Medium Term: require larger investments and the projects can have a high institutional complexity, and consequently high risks and transaction costs

E.g., transportation, and industry and energy sector.

• Long Term – Areas with slow changing paths and involving a larger set of integrated initiatives and standards

E.g.,: building and land-use sectors, consumption

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Climate Change and Cities

• Mitigation and Adaptation

– Sectoral issues (energy, transportation)

– Physical issues (buildings)

– Land use issues (urban form, heat islands)

– Regional issues (effects on economy of the

region)

– Green Agenda issues (consumption)

Co

mp

lexi

ty i

ncr

ease

Discussion items

• Is the tool useful in an operational sense?

– If so, by whom?

• What is the best level to discuss

governance?

• Are we missing any important dimensions?

– Is anything irrelevant

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Brève histoire de la mobilité

(A brief history of mobility)

Sempé, Rien n’est simple (1962)

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