Sustainability Strategies for Urban Mass Transit: Case of Pakistan

The global transport sector causes a significant amount of emissions and is a major contributor to global warming and climate change. Particularly, the passenger transport segment, which is rapidly growing, shares a more significant proportion of emissions caused by the transport sector. Realising the importance of transport in providing access to jobs, health and education, and the contribution of the same in economic growth, many technological advancements have taken place in the sector. Specifically, focussing on the efficiencies related to the environment, society, and economy, various transport models ranging from Mass Transit to Mobility-as-a-Service have been introduced, receiving varying responses from travellers across the world. This chapter documents the sustainability impacts of the transportation sector in order to highlight the significance of the same in achieving sustainable development targets and presents case studies from a developing country, Pakistan, where four Mass Transit projects were launched to curb growing sustainability issues. In so doing, this chapter summarises and critically evaluates different modes of transportation for their sustainability performance and spatial and temporal efficiencies, which then leads to an evaluation of case study models on global efficient transport standards and their potential contribution towards achieving sustainability goals. In the end, some recommendations are provided to further improve the MassTransit strategies in order to fully harness the potential of efficient transport technology for achieving sustainability goals.