Short and long term effects of sustainable mobility policy : an exploratory case study

The aim of the present paper is to offer an exploratory contribution to the general debate on sustainable transport, in particular from the perspective of impact assessment of sustainable transport policy. Specifically, starting from data available from different public sources in the United States, two different types of analyses are conducted: (1) comparison of the declared short term results of the most practical policies applied (e.g. ramp metering, HOV lanes, etc.); and (2) an analysis of mobility data to interpret long term effects of policy previously and semi-unconsciously applied. In particular, the latter point has a more innovative character with respect to the former. It is based on the assumption that, specifically in the West Coast of the United States, at a local scale (e.g. states), policies that would be defined as sustainable today, have already been applied in the past. sustainable mobility ; Clean Air Act ; transport policies ; California