Urban transport is a major cause of climate change, and both Japan and Scandinavia are exploring new ways to tackle problems such as pollution, congestion and CO2 emissions. Henrik Gudmundsson, Senior Researcher in Sustainable Transport at the Technical University of Denmark, wanted to find areas where collaboration between Danish and Japanese transport researchers could benefit both sides.
In October 2008, with a grant from SJSF, he travelled to Japan and visited universities, local authorities and organisations in Tokyo, Yokohama, Tsukuba and Nagoya. Among other things, he studied Japanese experiments with toll road charging, which have significantly reduced congestion, and looked for reasons why Japan has been so successful in lowering transport CO2 emissions.
At city level, he found many similarities between Japanese and Scandinavian transport policies. Both treat congestion, safety and environmental impact as parts of the same problem, and both work with calmer, slower car traffic, cycling and walking, and integrating land use with public transport. He also saw that cities in both regions need indicators to monitor sustainable urban transport, and that the relationship between central and local government is an area where exchanging research could be valuable.
“A network of Japanese colleagues was a concrete result of my three busy weeks in Japan,” said Gudmundsson. Together with these colleagues, he planned a more extensive collaboration on ways of securing sustainable transport in Japan and Scandinavia.
