Transport & The Environment

Introduction

Transport forms one of the most fundamental aspects of our daily lives in the developed countries. We travel to and from work, go on holidays abroad, consume foods produced in countries far away and enjoy the freedoms that transport provides. But ask us to pay more for fuel, parking, foreign flight and road taxes and the response is not quite so positive. It is perhaps true to say that we want to have our cake and eat it.

Although air, water and rail transport are important elements of commercial and public transport globally, in this unit we will be concentrating on road transport. In the UK the government is continuing to strive to develop a successful integrated public transport system, and it is the issues of road traffic congestion and the associated pollution that we naturally find more interesting, since it affects our everyday lives.