Transforming the transport sector for everyone : how to achieve more socially just and environmentally friendly mobility

The transport sector is the only sector in Germany where greenhouse gas emissions have remained virtually unchanged, and it is one of those areas of everyday life in which equal participation for all is often not guaranteed. In other words, the German transport system is in urgent need of reform, both from an ecological and social point of view. The current equality gap in transport is large and has many facets: people on low incomes tend to be more affected by transport-related air pollutants and noise than those who are socially better off. Women, children or elderly people for whom pedestrian travel plays an important role are disadvantaged in our car-dominated cities. The specific environmental costs of car transport are to a large extent not borne by the polluters but passed on to society. Prices for public transport have risen twice as much as the cost of buying and maintaining cars. Company car privileges, mileage allowance and energy tax rebate for diesel fuel have negative distributional effects and they cost German taxpayers billions every year. Transport transition makes an essential contribution to closing the equality gap. However, care must be taken to ensure that transport transition does not create new social imbalances, for example through rising fuel prices. Policy makers must take this concern seriously and find targeted simultaneous solutions for a socially just and ecologically effective organisation of transport transition.