In this section I introduce the choice of methods and cases in the articles that compose this thesis. The articles themselves are introduced in more detail in the next section.
1.5.1 Methods
38 I draw from multiple research methods across the articles in this thesis. For the conceptual work, I rely on purposive literature reviews. I have conducted extensive reviews on sustainability theory and the implication of this body of knowledge for sustainable transport, which I summarise in Chapter 2. The first article of this thesis is based on a detailed review of selected literature on the topic of sustainable transport indicator frameworks. For article V which is a conceptual paper, I not only rely on the seminal literature in the two distinctive fields of High-Speed Rail (HSR) assessment and the experience of time in transport, but I also engaged two of the leading researchers in those respective areas.
39 Empirical work for articles II, III and IV draws upon extensive desktop-based analysis of impact assessment reports and other publically available material for each of the case studies. Because of the large amount of textual data available, I have also used the qualitative data analysis software ‘NVivo’ to conduct the document review work and extract the specific topics of interest as a basis for the research (e.g. in order to find out the details about biodiversity impacts and how they were handled in the appraisal of a high-speed rail case in article IV).
40 For the work specifically concerned with the elaboration of assessment methods in articles II and III, this thesis builds on a research tradition at the Department of Transport about sustainable transport planning, appraisal and decision-support tools based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) tools and the use of elicitation techniques such as the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) (Jeppesen 2009; Salling 2008; Barfod 2012; Jensen 2012). In the later work I draw more specifically from the application of Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA) to transport project appraisal, which gives more prominence to the explicit
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integration of stakeholders in transport project appraisal (Macharis and Bernardini 2015). For this purpose I have elaborated an online questionnaire to structure a series of interviews and to collect assessment-related judgments from various groups of stakeholders. Devising the questionnaire was done in close collaboration with an experienced researcher in survey design methods at Copenhagen Business School. The validation of the MCDA approach was done with fellow researcher at DTU Transport specialising in decision-support. All calculations were done in Excel22. Although interviews were carried out in person or over Skype, I have used the online survey tool ‘Qualtrics’ for collecting data (a main reason for this software choice is that it allowed for an intuitive implementation of various weighing approaches).
41 In order to inform the concepts developed in the articles concerned with high-speed rail, I also conducted exploratory work consisting of structured observation of passengers’ activities in an actual high-speed rail trip between London and Lille, which was followed by face-to-face unstructured interviews. Results in this case were represented using a variation of time-geography notation (in annex of article V).
1.5.2 Case selection
42 Three of the articles submitted as part of this thesis use the UK’s high-speed rail (HS2) project as empirical material (articles III, IV and V). In this section I explain these choices (the UK, high-speed rail, and HS2).
43 First there are a number of advantages to picking a transport project in the UK as a research case:
1) There is a long tradition for environmental impact assessment in the UK, including for transport23. The current Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG) has evolved based on more than a decade of real-life applications, and it is based on a wider framework of national guidance called ‘The Green Book’, still valid and updated today (HM Treasury 2011). Methodologically, it is considered to be the ‘state-of-the-art’ and is often used as a benchmark by other countries (Mackie et al. 2013).
2) The transport appraisal guidance is underpinned conceptually by a wider framework of sustainability principles (see Figure 2). The UK has demonstrated high ambitions both for climate and
biodiversity, the two core environmental planetary boundaries. For carbon emissions, The UK was the first country to set a legally binding goal and plan for carbon emission reductions up to 205024. For biodiversity, guidance is based on the concept of ‘not net loss’ and ‘biodiversity offsets’25. On
22 The final version of the Excel sheets containing all data is available upon request.
23 The Buchanan report of 1963 is usually credited for first raising concerns about the environmental consequences of expected growth in road traffic volumes, and for introducing methods for estimating environmental capacity and satisfying environmental norms in transport (Buchanan 1963).
24 In 2008 the UK government legally committed to reducing its carbon emissions at least 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. So far the UK has met its planned carbon budgets, reaching 38% reduction as per 1990 levels in 2015 across sectors according to the preliminary report by the independent Committee on Climate Change (CCC) charged to monitor progress.
25 The Lawton report introduced the concept of ‘not net loss’ and ‘biodiversity offsets’ in 2010, which became DEFRA policy in 2011 (Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs 2011; Lawton et al. 2010). ‘No net loss’ applies to priority habitats, whereas ‘biodiversity offsets’ allows for ‘compensation’ of biodiversity losses by, for example, securing habitat expansion or restauration elsewhere and in a measurable way. However this ‘natural capital’ approach to biodiversity assessment has proven challenging to apply to irreplaceable life forms or ecosystems like ancient forests (see article IV)..
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the other hand the UK faces the same challenges as other European countries with the difficulty to address the growing environmental impacts of transport26.
Figure 2: UK Framework of sustainable development principles (Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs 2005). This reference is still in use and was explicitly referenced by both the HS2 Appraisal of Sustainability (Booz & Co.
and Temple 2011) and the Environmental Statement (HS2 Ltd 2013).
3) The guidance recommends the complementary use of CBA and MCA methods in order to assess a wider set of impacts, monetised or not27. This is relevant for examining how the summing up, weighting and prioritising of the varied impacts under the topic of sustainability is in fact handled, which is one of the research objectives of this thesis.
4) The UK also has a long tradition for democratic processes and transparency, which translate into an elaborate system of public scrutiny and stakeholder engagement for major decision-making of proposed transport investments (e.g. public consultations, petitioning processes, special
parliamentary committees etc.). This is relevant for this thesis objective to evaluate whether and how communicative planning tools may be used for operationalising a future generations’ viewpoint.
5) At least until today, the UK is bound by EU regulations for Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA), which implies the learnings from the UK can, at least in theory and at a higher-level, be transferrable to other European contexts (although it is outside the scope of this thesis to evaluate transferability).
6) The guidance is in English and all the material is easily available online at no cost, making it an example of open documentation (called WebTAG)(Department for Transport 2014).
26 Domestic transport emissions grew in 2014 and became the largest emitting sector of the economy in 2015,
representing 29% - substantiating the fear that in terms of transport, monitoring frameworks “have accomplished little other than highlighting the poor state of progress” (Gudmundsson et al. 2010).
27 The White Paper of 1997 called for “safe, efficient, clean and fair” transport based on supporting sustainable development goals (Department of the Environment Transport and the Regions 1998). It also introduced multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework in its New Approach to Appraisal (NATA). This was to become the basis for today’s web-based Transport Appraisal Guidance (WebTAG)(Department for Transport 2014).