Standards for sustainable megacities and its implementations for Tokyo's public transportation system

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Standards for sustainable megacities and

its implementations for Tokyo’s public

transportation system

Final version

Marleen Boersma, Earth Sciences- 10557407

David Eggink, Urban Planning – 10648801

Thijmen van Gent, Urban Planning – 10573836

Thijs Hoogenstrijd, Business Studies – 10189734

Tamara Jonkman MSc

Dr. Kenneth Rijsdijk

23 November 2015

Words:6752

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Abstract

As cities are growing, they put more pressure on the earth’s resources. Megacities also play a part in this, and are growing to become endless urban landscapes. Their ecological footprint is massive, and as such cities have to become sustainable in their practice in order to cope with the modern era. Criteria for sustainable megacities is missing however, which makes it hard to determine what can, or should be done. The first part of this research sets out to find sustainable criteria for megacities. It appears that criteria are not universally accepted and have a lot of variance. To give a more practical implication, this research follows up by assessing one criteria regarding public transport in the megacity Tokyo, namely Sustainable Urban Transport (SUT). From an interdisciplinary approach, involving business studies, earth sciences and urban planning, Tokyo’s Public Transportation System (TPTS) will be assessed to find out how megacities such as Tokyo can make their public transportation network more sustainable. In regard to Tokyo, even though it still has plenty of room for improvement, it seems that it could turn out to become an example of modern day sustainable urban transport in megacities.

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Cities are growing faster every day. Even though they only cover 2% of the earth’s surface, cities consume 75% of all the earth’s resources and produce just as much of the total waste (UNFPA, 2007). As of now, 50% of the world’s population lives in cities and estimations are that by 2025 the urban population will consist of more than ⅔ of the world’s population (UNFPA, 2007). These high concentrations of population, economic activity and material and energy consumption means that cities are important front lines in regard to fighting climate change (Roy, 2009). At the end of the 20th century, Tokyo, like other megacities such as Sao Paulo and Beijing, has grown to become an ‘endless urban landscape’ as Lehmann (2010) describes it. They are a new and different type of megacity that requires a near impossible amount of planning and regulation.

Becoming sustainable is one of the challenges megacities face. As becomes clear from the vast ecological footprint a megacity has, for them to cope with their predicted growth they have to adjust to the modern era (Roy, 2009). However, as it stands now, a single all-encompassing definition of a sustainable city is missing (Mori & Christodoulou, 2012). There are various interpretations of the characteristics a city should present to be considered sustainable and some cities have been developing their own sustainability indicators. In the effort of becoming more sustainable in the future, having a clear indicator, or perhaps even a label, on what actually makes a city sustainable can possibly help stimulate this change.

One distinct topic of interest regarding sustainability in megacities is infrastructure, and more specifically (public) transport. In 1996 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) stated that it was becoming clearer that the current transportation systems of their member states are not sustainable in any way. They therefore came up with the concept of environmentally sustainable transport and defined it in the following way: ‘Transportation does not endanger public health or ecosystems and meets needs for access consistent with: (a) use of renewable resources below their rates of regeneration; and, (b) use of non-renewable resources below the rates of development of renewable substitutes.´ (Maclaren, 2006). Creating more sustainable ‘mobility’ was the overall goal for the European Common Transport Policy in the EU Commission's paper on transport in 1992 (Gudmundsson & Höjer, 1996) and goes to show the importance of a sustainable transportation network. However, transportation has proven to be difficult to address comprehensively. As Goldman and Gorham (2006) describe, transport is a complex social, technical, and economic system which is challenging to approach and requires multiple disciplines to resolve its issues. In the case of East Asia, the rising middle class is putting its wealth into automobiles and the governments are pushing non-motorized vehicles (NMV) off the streets to make room for these cars (Goldman and Gorham, 2006). This is devastating for the creation of a sustainable public transport network as Mohan and Tiwari (1999) argue that these NMV’s are at the essence of a sustainable transport system in urban areas. This combination of increasing pressure on megacities and the difficulties in creating a sustainable transport network could lead to faulty policy making in the future if not addressed properly.

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This paper will have a focus on what makes a megacity sustainable and their future perspective in regard to a sustainable transportation system. Our main research question is as follows: ‘to what extent are standards for sustainable megacities available and how can these standards be implemented to make Tokyo’s public transportation system (TPTS) more sustainable?’ Starting off, a clear definition of what makes a city sustainable is required, after which the focus will then shift towards one aspect of these criteria, which is transport. To do so, a case study will be made regarding Tokyo’s public transport sector. From an earth science perspective, an assessment will be made to what extent the public transport sector influences the greenhouse gas emissions in Tokyo and what techniques can be used to improve the situation. Then through urban planning, the paper sets to find out how the public transportation network should be developed in relation to the Sustainable Urban Transport (SUT) concept. Finally, from a business perspective, there will be a stakeholder analysis of the current state of the public transport sector including a possible solution as to how these stakeholders can work together to become more sustainable.

Theoretical framework

The first part of this chapter consists of an overview of most of the common approximations and standards for sustainable cities. The second part focuses on the main characteristics of Tokyo’s Public Transportation System (TPTS), a specific part of sustainability in Tokyo. So that eventually the most valuable aspects of the different standards could be defined for Tokyo and additionally could bring us a step closer to an universally accepted standard for sustainable megacities. There are various interpretations of characteristics a city should present to be considered sustainable. Many different studies have been done on sustainability which has led to a wide range of concepts such as Green

Urbanism, Sustainable City, and Eco City. It also resulted in a diversity of indicators, to

measure specific elements in certain cities. ‘In order to confront unprecedented urban expansion, rising energy prices and the adverse impacts of climate change, cities worldwide are adopting the principle of ‘think globally, act locally’. The need for a paradigm shift has provided the window of opportunity to introduce an overwhelming range of ‘solutions’ under different labels, such as ‘eco cities’, ‘sustainable cities’ and so on, but there are no clear, universally acceptable definitions of these terms’ (Koh et al. 2010).

The concept Eco City was, as described by Roseland (1997), in the beginning phase in 1980, as ‘a collection of disconnected ideas about urban planning, transportation, health, housing, energy, economic development, natural habitats, public participation and social justice’, which in the mid-2000s has begun to be promoted at high profile policy initiatives at both national and international levels through the concurrent globalization and the mainstreaming of the Eco City concept (Joss, 2010). Currently there are several definitions of an Eco City. However, Koh et al. (2010) found some consensus on the basic features. ‘From an environmental sustainability perspective, an Eco City should be in balance with nature,

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dedicated to minimizing the required inputs of energy, water and food, its waste output of heat, gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that cause atmospheric pollution and water pollution’

The term Sustainable City is approximately twenty years younger than the concept of

Eco City and made one of its first major appearances in 1992 in The Sustainable Cities

Program, by the United Nations Human Settlements Program, to promote sustainable urban planning (Koh et al. 2010). Since then, several different definitions were conceived. Overall a

Sustainable City has stricter requirements and is more utopian than an Eco City. A definition

drawn up by the United Nations is; ‘A Sustainable City enables all its citizens to meet their own needs and to enhance their well-being, without degrading the natural world or the lives of other people, now or in the future’ (Koh et al. 2010). The difference between Eco City and

Sustainable City is that Eco City emphasizes the balance between nature and the city and Sustainable City is aiming at a footprint of zero. However, ‘in practice the term ‘Eco City’ is

often used to describe new cities rather than modification of existing cities (as in the case of ‘Sustainable Cities’)’ (ibid). Although Sustainable City is mostly associated with the modification of megacities, the various definitions of the term Eco City are provisionally more appropriate on the modification of megacities because living in balance with nature is a more realistic goal for existing cities than reducing the footprint to zero.

Another concept that should be noted is Green Urbanism. Green Urbanism is defined as ‘the effort to minimize the use of energy, water and materials at each stage of the city’s or district’s life-cycle (Lehmann, 2010). Lehmann gives 15 guiding principles of Green

Urbanism, which can aid in local action and an integrated approach towards urban

development. The principles are based on the triple-zero framework which consists of: zero fossil fuel energy use, zero waste and zero emissions (low-to-no carbon emissions). One of these principles is ‘sustainable transport and good public space’. It speaks of eco-mobility, which exists out of an efficient low-impact public transport system and aims to get people out of their cars and into public transport.

Sustainable urban transport

Brundtland et al. (1987) defined sustainable development as ‘meeting the needs of the present without sacrificing the ability of future generations to do the same’. So, our current use of resources can not endanger the use of the same resources by future generations. This is clear for many resources, for example the use of wood may not lead to the loss of forest, if we only use as much wood as the forest replenishes in the time that we use it. For transportation however, the resources that are used are much more unclear. The transportation system does use resources though, resources like energy, human and ecological habitats, atmospheric carbon loading capacity and the time of individuals (Goldman & Gorham, 2006). To create a sustainable transportation system it is suggested to reduce the use of these resources, but such an reduction in the use of one resource could lead to the further depletion of another resource. Furthermore, transportation systems are used to serve economic and

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political agendas, as these agendas are more often larger policy goals than urban sustainability. This makes a resource optimization approach for sustainable transport extremely hard. Goldman & Gorham (ibid) therefore made a division between the projects that try to develop and operationalize sustainable transport into two broad categories: ‘those that envision sustainable transport as a pathway, and those that envision it as an end-state.’ According to Goldman & Gorham (2006) there are two broad categories in which sustainability policy can be divided. The first category is sustainable transport as a pathway; this means that policy measures all are steps towards a more sustainable future. With these efforts organizations try to make policies to create a ‘more sustainable’ path than the trajectory set forth by current policy. Whereas sustainability as an end-state vision summarizes efforts which operationalize the concept of sustainable transport and do come up with a definition of the mark of where sustainability has been reached. An example of the end state vision of sustainability is the definition of the OECD’s environmentally sustainable transport; through this definition there is a point where a system can be considered completely sustainable (a net footprint of zero). This point thus defines when a transportation system is sustainable, but it gives no concrete examples of how this could be achieved. Goldman & Gorham (ibid) defined their concept ‘sustainable urban transport’ or SUT for this reason, because every vision of SUT, as a pathway or end-state, is lacking concrete ways of implementation. Therefore they first created a new vision, which would according to them provide a better idea of what SUT system would look like. This system-based vision states that transportation can only be considered by examining the whole transportation system. For example: if at some place in a road a lot of traffic is congested, and that road is widened as a solution for the congestion, the travel time and cost will decrease, whereby more traffic will be attracted to use the newly widened road and therefore the traffic will increase. This may lead to another congestion of traffic on another or the same part of the road. With this example is shown that only widening the part of the road where the congestion takes place is not enough to create a congestion free road. This can only be accomplished if the whole road system is widened. The same goes for the concept of SUT, if only one part of the infrastructure is made sustainable this will not help the system as a whole. Furthermore, by using this system-based vision it will be easier to translate vision into policy, which will in turn lead to actual improvements of the transportation system.

Hidalgo & Huizinga (2013) suggest another vision towards SUT. They state that it is necessary to shift the current transport planning paradigm from the mobility perspective to a perspective of access. This new transport planning paradigm of access focuses on efficient modes of transport, promoting low carbon, and clean vehicles and fuels. To shift this paradigm they suggest that implementation of SUT follows these principles: avoid, shift and improve. Avoid long and unnecessary motorized travel, shift the movement of goods and people to most efficient modes and improve the technology and operational management of transport services. In the next part of this literature report the focus will lie on the actual implementation of these policies.

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Tokyo

Tokyo has a thriving public transport system, mainly consisting of railway transport. In 1975, about 35 million people made use of the public transport per day in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area (TMA), accounting for 43 percent of all public transport operations in Japan (Jenkins, 1979). Since 1975 this amount has increased even further. Because there are so many people travelling with public transport, the market is saturated with private companies offering public transportation options, most notably in the train sector. Besides these private companies there is also one major government owned train company and one metro/bus company. Companies are influenced by internal and external stakeholders as is indicated in Freeman’s stakeholder model, which complements the stakeholder theory (Fassin, 2009). The stakeholder theory of a corporation is a theory of organizational management and business ethics, which address morals and values in managing an organization (Donaldson & Preston, 1995). According to Fassin (2009), the design of the stakeholder model consists of the four groups of managerial capitalism; suppliers, employees, shareholders and clients, as well as competitors, the government, and the communities, the last of which are both important external stakeholders. The model is used as a tool for developing corporate strategy. In the case of Tokyo there is a major saturation in the market in regards to private companies. Here, through stakeholder dialogue between internal and external stakeholders, public-private partnerships can prove to have a big influence on creating a sustainable transport system in the city, and perhaps even serve as an example for the rest of the world.The city Tokyo is stated to be sustainable, however the air quality is still not better than average according to the International Air Quality Index (Bishoi & Prakash & Jain, 2009). The transport of humans is enormous in a mega city like Tokyo and on a daily basis there are more than 40 million people that use the public transport system of Tokyo. If the public transport system can be improved and made more sustainable by using green energy, it could result in a decrease of carbon dioxide release for the transport sector and provide an example for the rest of the world on sustainable urban public transportation (Seinfeld & Pandis, 2012).

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Methods

This study will be performed by four students combining three different academic backgrounds. The two urban planners will inquire into the sustainable city concept and the translation to Tokyo’s public transport system. The stakeholders of TPTS will be evaluated by our business scientist and recommendations on decreasing the impact of TPTS on Tokyo’s air pollution will be given by our earth scientist. This paper will mainly consists of literature study and will include local policy and Tokyo reports. The integrated result is a combination of academic knowledge from different disciplines which makes this an interdisciplinary study.

In the first part an assessment is made of the criteria that indicate a sustainable megacity. In this assessment it becomes clear that it is hard to have a certain set of indices and labels. Practical solutions may therefore be a more achievable goal in creating more sustainable practices in megacities. To do so, the other three perspectives researched this problem in regard to public transport in the megacity Tokyo. Common ground was found between the three perspectives, most notably in what initiatives can be taken and how these initiatives can be brought to practice by the various public transport companies, and their effect on the environment.

In the figure below you can see a visualization of the way we will integrate the different insights. Using the criteria for sustainable megacities as an overarching theory (meta-level), the remaining three insights will be linked to both these criteria as well as to each other (local level). The linkages are made in the theory as well as the results.

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Results

In this section the results from the various disciplines will be integrated to assess the current state of megacities and in more detail the situation regarding Tokyo’s urban public transport. First, before an in-depth overview of the current state of the public transportation system can be given, a clear insight in what the boundaries are for the definition of a sustainable megacity is required. When these criteria’s are set, an assessment can be made of Tokyo’s sustainability regarding their transportation network.

Criteria regarding sustainable megacities

Authorities, willing to innovate and rebuild existing (mega)cities, are confronted with difficulties when putting the various concepts such as Sustainable and Eco Cities into practice, they are not touchable and directly applicable because concrete measurements are missing. ‘There is broad consensus that designing complex system models, which depict the

city-region in every detail, is too time and money consuming. Therefore, indicators which simplify system representation are used to describe and monitor the system to be assessed’

(Wiek & Binder, 2005). The local city-region should be represented with as much complexity as necessary and as much simplicity as possible (ibid). However, this would mean that every city needs to develop his own indicators, which may result in different and incomparable indicators, while comparability is one of the most helpful aspects for local authorities to determine their sustainability. Parris and Kates (2003) state that there are no indicator sets that are universally accepted due to (I) the ambiguity of sustainable development, (II) the plurality of purpose in characterizing and measuring sustainable development and (III) the confusion of terminology, data, and methods of measurement.

The absence of an universally accepted indicator set encouraged Mori and Christodoulou (2012) to contribute to an universal City Sustainability Index (CSI), which enables comparability: ‘It is necessary to create a new CSI that enables us to assess and

compare cities' sustainability performance in order to understand the global impact of cities on the environment and human life as compared with their economic contribution. In the future, the CSI will be able to provide local authorities with guidance toward sustainable paths’ (Mori & Christodoulou, 2012). In order to do so, they reviewed existing major

sustainability indices and indicators such as the Ecological Footprint (EF), Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), Dashboard of Sustainability (DS), Welfare Index, Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), Human Development Index (HDI), Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI), Environmental Policy Index (EPI) etcetera and concluded that none of these indices could satisfy the four requirements for an ideal City Sustainability Index (CSI). The first requirement is that it must consider the triple bottom line of sustainability from the viewpoint of strong sustainability, this means that environmental, economic and social dimensions should be considered, equity between current and future generations and healthy conditions must be maintained. The second requirement is, that it has to capture leakage effects on areas elsewhere in the environmental dimension. The third requirement is that it

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ought to be created originally for the purpose of assessing city sustainability and the fourth requirement is that it has to be able to assess world cities in both developed and developing countries in an equitable manner. To provide a CSI that would meet all the requirements, more research is needed. For now, local and incomplete indicators and indices have to be used to measure the sustainability of (mega)cities, which makes it difficult to compare them.

In conclusion, there are broad universal standards and specific city component standards which can be differentiated; these contain mainly ideologies instead of concrete criteria, indices and definitions. These standards have to be met to be able to label a city as sustainable as defined by the terms Eco City or Sustainable City. Furthermore, the city sustainability index can be used to value certain points wherein a city can be considered sustainable or not. At last there is a definition of Sustainable Urban Transport (SUT) which allows us to translate these abstract standards into two possible practical solutions. The first is the envisioning of SUT as a pathway, the second envisions it as end-state. These visions are translated into technical, practical and societal systems. The implementations of the adaptation of these technological and societal systems will be discussed in the following section.

Tokyo’s Public Transport System

In Japan’s situation of limited available land for expansion in dense urban areas such as Tokyo, it is not a simple task to improve the mobility of the public in terms of safety, comfort and more importantly with care for the environment. Especially whilst competing with an increase in ownership and growing market of private motorized vehicles in Asia (Nguyen, 2004; Goldman & Gorham, 2006). However, an overview of transport trends in Japan show a high amount of railway passenger transport: 27,9% (Nguyen, 2004). This impressive amount of railway transport is an indication that Japan can be seen as an example in public transport operations. Even in its history, Tokyo was way ahead of its time. In 1975, about 35 million people made use of the public transport every day in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area (TMA), accounting for 43% of all public transport operations in Japan (Jenkins, 1979). Figure 1 gives more recent insight in the share of public transport compared to private personal transport. Note the modal share of railway transport; accounting for nearly 80% in the 23 central wards of Tokyo and around 60% for the entire Tokyo Metropolitan Area, showcasing the immense influence of railway transport in Tokyo. Part of this demand being so high is because personal transport via car has very few benefits when compared to the railway transportation in Tokyo. This is mostly due to the fact that congestion is a major issue in private car transport (Nakamura, 1995; Beirão & Cabral, 2007). Congestion is also one of the many sources of increased GHG emissions related to transport, most notably in Asian countries (Beirão & Cabral, 2007; Nguyen, 2004).

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s

Figure 1: Modal Shares in Various Metropolitan Areas (Nakamura, 1995)

What makes Japan, and specifically Tokyo, unique, compared to Western countries, is that most of its urban railways are still operated by private companies as businesses. This is mostly possible due to the large demand of railway transport in the TMA, so when the market becomes more saturated, more companies will try to get a slice of the pie (Nakamura, 1995). Due to this stiff competition, companies have to outperform each other to keep their customer base satisfied. Because of this the fluidity with which public transport operates is greatly improved. This is most notable in the subway system, where many of the suburban railways are directly connected to the inner-city subway systems, which allows direct access. The frequency of trains and the extreme punctuality of the service add to delivering above average transport quality in terms of efficiency, thus leading to higher reliability for passengers and increased customer satisfaction (Nakamura, 1995). These factors have led to railway transportation becoming the dominant form of transport in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area.

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Tokyo Public Private Third-sector

Train Japan Railways Group Tokyu Corporation Metropolitan Intercity

● JR East Tobu Railway Railway Company

● JR Central Odakyu Electric Railway ● JR West Keio Corporation

● JR Hokkaido Seibu Railway

● JR Shikoku Keihin Electric Express Railway ● JR Kyushu Keisei Electric Railway

JRTT1 Sagami Railway

Metro Toei2 Subway Tokyo Metro

Bus Toei Bus Subsidiaries of railway companies

Table 1: Major actors in Tokyo's public transport system

Table 1 gives an overview of the stakeholders in Tokyo’s public transport network. The Japan Railways Group consists out of seven for-profit companies, which can be seen in Table 1, and are the result of the takeover of the government-owned Japanese National Railways (JNR) which folded in 1987 (CJRC, 2010). It is a special case in the Tokyo public transport system, as it is both a public and privately owned company. JR East, JR Central and JR West are all fully privatized; however, they are not seen as a private company, as they are a successor to the national railways of JNR. In the case of Tokyo, JR East is the biggest operator. The other JR companies do not operate near the TMA. In the second column are the eight major private operators in Greater Tokyo, and are listed from top to bottom in amount of annual ridership (Train Media, 2010). The final actor in railway services is one third-sector operator going by the name of the Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company. A third-sector company is a semi-public, non-profit organization. Regarding subway transport, there are two major actors: the public Toei Subway, which is owned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation (TMBT) and constructed by the Tokyo metropolitan government, and Tokyo Metro, which is a private company which originated from Teito Rapid Transit Authority. Bus transportation in Tokyo usually exists out of taking passengers from one railway station to the other, and is also regulated by the TMBT and several subsidiaries of the railway companies (Shoji, 2001). Now that the landscape of Tokyo’s public transport system has become more clear, the following section of this report will give an overview of the air quality in Tokyo,

1_{Japanese Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency} 2_{Owned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation (TMBT)}

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after which the paper will assess what Sustainable Urban Transport (SUT) solutions consist of and how they can be implemented.

Tokyo’s air quality

As stated before, there are few to no clear criteria or standards for a city in order claim the title sustainable. Something that could be an indicator for sustainability is the air quality in megacities. Air quality is heavily influenced by air pollution; air pollution might increase the greenhouse effect, but is also a danger for human health. A major cause of air pollution is the traffic and transport sector, which also includes the public transport system in Tokyo. The transport and traffic sector consumes 25% of the non-renewable energy that is produced and used worldwide (Gurjar et al, 2008). Therefore, this sector plays a key role in the release of air pollutants that are hazardous in regards to health (Kato & Akimoto 1992). The city Tokyo is stated to be sustainable, however the air quality is still no better than average according to the International Air Quality

Index (Bishoi & Prakash& Jain, 2009). The air quality index is based on measurements and models, these measurements and simulations demonstrate the health impacts for different amounts of air pollutants and calculate the average air quality values for different air pollutants. Air quality values are clustered in ranges, each range indicates an air pollution level, decreasing from good to hazardous, each range is assigned a different color and a health risk level or associated health impacts (Garcia et al., 2002). Here and below, the tables with air quality values and levels of health concern is

displayed. Table 2. Air Quality Index explanation of different ranges (AirNow, 2015)

Air Quality Index

(AQI) Values

Levels of Health Concern

Colors

When the AQI is in this range:

..air quality conditions are:

...as symbolized by this color: 0-50 Good Green 51-100 Moderate Yellow 101-150 Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups Orange 151 to 200 Unhealthy Red

201 to 300 Very Unhealthy Purple

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Good 0 to 50 Air quality is considered satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk

Moderate 51 to 100 Air quality is acceptable; however, for some pollutants there may be a moderate health concern for a very small number of people who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.

Unhealthy for Sensitive

Groups

101 to 150 Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is not likely to be affected.

Unhealthy 151 to 200 Everyone may begin to experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.

Very Unhealthy 201 to 300 Health warnings of emergency

conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected.

Hazardous 301 to 500 Health alert: everyone may

experience more serious health effects

Table 3. Air Quality Index explanation of different ranges. (AirNow, 2015)

The World Health Organisation and the United Nations Environment Programme (WHO & UNEP) studied the air quality in 20 megacities worldwide, the results of this study show that most hazardous air pollution is measured in developing countries. However, they concluded that air pollution is a widespread problem in megacities and that there is at least one air pollutant exceeding health guidelines in each of the megacities that were studied (UNEP &WHO, 2006). Tokyo is one of the 20 megacities that where studied; Tokyo’s value

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for air quality is 104 according to the Air Quality Index. This value is slightly higher than the average value of 86 in Japan (AQI AirNow, 2015). Pollutants that are monitored to estimate the air quality are: ozone (O3), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur

dioxide (SO2) and suspended particulate matter (SPM) (Cole, 2003). The most hazardous

pollutant affecting air quality in megacities is SPM, especially amongst megacities in Asia. SPM is known to be a great danger for the health of people. The sources of SPM are varied; it can come from natural sources, for example: from dust blown by wind from the desert. The more toxic sources are the man-made sources such as power generation, motor vehicles and industrial processes. Especially the motor vehicles using diesel are a major toxic source (Bishoi & Prakash & Jain, 2009). However, the SPM is not the major air pollutant in Tokyo, it is estimated that ozone is the biggest threat to local air quality. Along with NO2, SO2 and

CO, the main source of ozone is road vehicles. The public transport system in Tokyo includes road vehicles, therefore it is stated that the public transport sector in one of the drivers of air pollution (Cole, 2013).

It becomes clear that there is still room for improvement in regard to Tokyo’s air quality. Using the principle of Sustainable Urban Transport (SUT), which was coined earlier in this paper, an assessment can be made as to how the public transport system can be improved and made more sustainable.

Implementing Sustainable urban transport

In this part examples from the literature on how to implement SUT are given. These examples will be reviewed for applicability on the TPTS. Goldman & Gorham (2006) came up with many examples3, some of those are Distributed Travel Information (DTI), bike sharing and breaking the driving routine. DTI is creating a good information flow, by which everyone can exactly know when a train, bus or metro arrives and leaves, and also if it has any delays. This will optimize travel time and make public transportation a more attractive way of transportation. Bike sharing is practiced in many cities all over the world. It is an integrated form of travel with public transportation. This could be created in Tokyo by giving out bikes at central public transportation hubs, to let people continue their journey on bike and thus lowering travel time. This would again increase the use of public transport. The last example, which is practised in Bogotá, is breaking the driving routine. This can be done by introducing ‘car free days’ on which other kinds of transportation must be used, this will help people get familiar with the public transportation system and will prevent residents from becoming habitual drivers. Car free days are a very good idea;. however this example seems hard to carry out in a city like Tokyo.

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Hidalgo & Huizinga (2013) also came up with a number of examples. A few of these examples are enhanced institutional capacity among relevant departments, administrative restrictions and integrated public transportation systems. These are the most relevant for creating a sustainable urban public transportation system. With enhanced institutional capacity they mean that the departments of government which concern transport become bigger and better funded so that they can improve their policy making and planning practices. Also they suggest the introduction of administrative restriction using the cameras to recognize number plates and tax car users who drive frequently more. However, this has proven to be non-sustainable in the long term or even negative regarding their purposes. Their last useable example for Tokyo was the integration of transport systems. This means that every transportation hub in Tokyo has to be connected efficiently into the greater national web of transportation and make a seamless way of changing vehicle modes for people at these hubs. This will make travel time and cost lower and therefore the public transport more attractive.

Banister (2008) comes with another vision on how to make public transportation in cities more attractive. He states that travel time is always seen as lost time in modern day society. This is logical, if you drive a car, because you have to watch the road until you get to your destination. However, with current technologies, this is no longer logical if you make use of public transportation. You can simply read the paper in the subway or you could finish your last assignment for your job on your tablet and then time would not be lost. Especially the use of tablets or laptops should be made more easy and safe in the public transportation system. Things that can be done to make the use of mobile devices more easy are supplying W-Lan in public transportation or create seats which have a table so that people can work there. This might make people willing to make their journey from home to work 10 minutes longer.

SUT on a business level

Implementing SUT could prove to be difficult in practice. In general, when looking at public transport Shoji (2001) identifies two basic objectives that are expected to be achieved: being profitable (strategic issues) and serving the public interest (societal issues). The general worldwide trend is that public transport companies tend to struggle with achieving both these objectives and thus most companies only go for being profitable to remain in the long run. As Shoji (2001; pp14) describes: “this has helped maintaining public transit systems that offer relatively low fares; however, the public-interest approach has led to several problems such as inefficiencies in management and operations and services.” Following this, reforms are being implemented worldwide to solve these problems, and a major principle behind these reforms is the involvement of the private sector (Shoji, 2001). In regard to the transport sector liberalization of recent years, public-private partnerships (PPPs) seem to gain more worldwide acceptance (Tsamboulas, Verma and Moraiti, 2013).

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In the case of Tokyo, such a construction involving public and private corporations operating on the public transport sector already exists. The majority of Tokyo’s public transport system consists of private companies, thus creating a competitive industry involving strategic issues. In regard to public-private partnerships, the Japanese government policy forces public transport companies towards self-sufficiency, where most operators usually decide their own level and types of service. They create massive tax revenues for the government whilst receiving little to no subsidy (Shoji, 2001). The diversification that arises from private company operations offers several more advantages, including, but not limited to, increased rail ridership due to attractiveness, internalization of externalities due to the creation of rail infrastructure and reduced railway operating costs through sharing activities (Shoji, 2001). However, the Japanese government could become more of an influence on the public transport market if it starts increasing pressure through their stakeholder position. In regard to the stakeholder model, control by public authorities has led to great contributions from private-sector companies in finding efficient solutions to reduce their environmental pollution rates (Nguyen, 2004). As Fassin (2009) describes, the company with the biggest share on the market usually sets the bar for all the other competitors. Since JR East is the biggest railway operator in Tokyo, they can set examples for other companies regarding more sustainable transport. By implementing the aforementioned SUT principles, such as bike sharing, they can attract more customers while maintaining a sustainable practice. As the market is heavily competitive, the private companies would soon have to follow suit.

Conclusion

This paper set out to find if there were standards available for sustainable megacities, and how these standards could be implemented in Tokyo’s Public Transport System (TPTS). In conclusion, there consist broad universal standards and specific city component standards about sustainability in megacities which can be differentiated; these contain criteria, indices and definitions. These standards have to be met in order to label a city sustainable as defined by the concepts of Eco City or Sustainable City. Moreover, the City Sustainability Index (CSI) can be used to value certain points where a city can be considered sustainable or not. However, these standards miss an actual overview regarding sustainable urban transport. On the practical side, there is a definition of Sustainable Urban Transport (SUT) which translates the abstract standards into two possible practices. The first is the envisioning of SUT as a pathway, the second envisions it as end-state. These visions translate into technical, practical and societal implications for the public transport system in Tokyo.

Tokyo is unique to most other cities due to a high amount of competition on the public transportation market as most of its urban railways are operated by private companies as businesses. Due to this competition, companies have to outperform each other to keep their customer base satisfied. This has led to railway transportation becoming more efficient, leading to it becoming the dominant form of transport in Tokyo’s urban area. However, even

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with this high amount of railway transport, the air quality is still not better than average (104) according to the International Air Quality Index. The air quality in 20 megacities worldwide was studied by the WHO and UNEP, they concluded that air pollution is a widespread problem in megacities and that there is at least one air pollutant exceeding health guidelines in each of the megacities that were studied, including Tokyo. Pollutants that are monitored to estimate the air quality are: ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and suspended particulate matter.

The most hazardous pollutant affecting air quality with regard to human health in megacities is SPM especially amongst megacities in Asia. The sources of SPM are varied; toxic source are the man-made sources such as power generation, motor vehicles and industrial processes. However, it is estimated that ozone is the biggest threat for the air quality in Tokyo. Along with NO2, SO2 and CO, the main source of ozone is road vehicles. Sustainable Urban Transport (SUT) could prove to be a solution in this case. There are many possibilities for Distributed Travel Information (DTI), such as bike sharing and breaking the driving routine. DTI will optimize travel time and make public transportation a more attractive way of transportation. A few other examples of possibilities are enhanced institutional capacity among relevant departments, administrative restrictions and integrated public transportation systems. These are the most relevant for creating a sustainable urban public transportation system, a so called SUT. With enhanced institutional capacity they mean that the departments of government which concern transport increase and are better funded in order to improve their policy making and planning practices.

Implementing SUT on public transport could prove to be difficult in practice, however in Tokyo there is a window of opportunity. This difficulty is due to competitive businesses following two basic objectives when looking at public transport; being profitable (strategic issues) and serving the public interest (societal issues). Reforms are being created worldwide to meet these objectives and a major principle behind these reforms is the involvement of the private sector. In the case of Tokyo such a construction involving public and private corporations operating on the public transport sector already exist. The majority of Tokyo’s public transport system exists out of private companies, thus creating a competitive industry involving strategic issues. In regard to the stakeholder model, control by public authorities has led to great contributions from private-sector companies in finding efficient solutions to reduce their environmental pollution rates. Even more so, public-private-partnerships (PPP) could lead to big steps in regard to sustainable public transport in Tokyo. The fact that the market is saturated by private companies, but dominated by one public transport company, leads to this public company setting the bar for others to follow. If this public transport company implements SUT and has success with it, the other competitors would have to follow due to external pressure from stakeholders, as well as demand from customers shifting towards sustainable transport.

The amount of transport of humans is enormous in a megacity like Tokyo, and on a daily basis there are more than 40 million people that use the public transport system. If the

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public transport system can be improved and made more sustainable by implementing SUT, it will results in a decrease of ozone and other air pollutants release from the transport sector and therefore in a less enhanced greenhouse effect and less concerns regarding human health. More so, it could set out to become an example for other megacities in regard to their policy on sustainable urban transportation. We conclude that it is not possible to name Tokyo a sustainable city in regard to public transportation, but instead we see Tokyo as a city that contributes to sustainable development, with the potential to become an example for the rest of the world.

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Standards for sustainable megacities and its implementations for Tokyo's public transportation system