Visioning and Backcasting for Transport Futures in Chinese Cities

This research project will analyse policy pathways and business models to support sustainable transport in China. Transport provides essential infrastructure for development and is often viewed as “the maker and breaker of cities” yet it is the most difficult sector within which to reduce CO2. The rapid and large-scale urbanisation of China provides an unprecedented and urgent opportunity to “leapfrog” existing technology and tackle mobility on a grand scale, both for China and other economies that follow in its footsteps. The project uses visioning and backcasting to examine possible futures, outline policy options, and test the feasibility of balancing competing priorities with a sustainable, low-carbon transport system. The research is led by Oxford University’s Transport Studies Unit in collaboration with Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, and Chinese research institutes.

About the project

This project is original in applying a visioning and backcasting approach in transport to a large city in China (Jinan). It examines a range of possible futures (2020, 2030 and 2050), outlines policy options and tests the feasibility of different pathways that balance economic, social, environmental and political priorities with those of a sustainable low-carbon transport system. The research establishes and evaluates institutional policy pathways, as well as business models, that can support the creation of sustainable transport in cities in China. This will be the first time that such an approach will have been used in China.

Research questions

This project is the first time to use a visioning and backcasting approach in transport (VIBAT) to examine a range of possible futures (2020, 2030 and 2050) for Jinan in China. Specific research questions to be addressed include the following:

  1. Developing a Baseline and Projection: What are the historic and projective transport CO emissions in Jinan under a business as usual (BAU) projection?
  2. Visions of the City Future: What would a future city’s sustainable transport system with binding constraints on carbon emissions and flexible to other challenges look like?
  3. Pathway Analysis: What are the optimal pathways for achieving such a vision of sustainable urban transport (flexibility, mobility and liveability, consistent with economic, social, environmental and governance objectives) – potential for leapfrogging and minimal lock-in?
  4. Barriers: What are the key factors (institutional, financial, behavioural, and technological) influencing future policy pathways?
  5. Key Actions: What are the actions, policies, incentives and investments needed to move rapidly to pathways of sustainable urban transport?
  6. Key Non-state Actors: What is the role of business and what kind of new business models need to be developed? What is the role of the public and how can ‘ownership’ of sustainable futures be better engendered and communicated?

About the methodology

This research combines a quantitative backcasting scenario-building approach with a qualitative analysis of drivers and challenges and required policy and business model changes Backcasting approaches have been developed to look at normative scenarios and explore their feasibility and implications for the longer-term future (20-40 years). Instead of starting with the present situation and projecting prevailing trends (forecasting), the backcasting approach defines and evaluates alternative images of the future, and “casts back” to the present. Policy pathways are then developed to determine different ways in which these “visioned” futures can be achieved. A backcasting approach can avoid path dependency, and increase flexibility and innovation in decision-making for policy makers and business. The data collection involves three components: the collection of secondary data for the basic analysis (e.g., China Statistics Yearbook, Jinan Statistics Yearbook, and IEA reports, 2009a and 2009b); expert workshops with stakeholders to test the “visions”, policy options and pathways; and in-depth semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders (e.g. municipal government officials, managers of corporations, and civil society) to understand the feasibility of different policy packages.

Impact summary

This project tests the applicability of the backcasting approach in the dynamic economic and political context of China’s economic transition and rapid urban development. The output will be of practical value to all stakeholders in Jinan and more widely in China. The research will provide insights into how China can design more flexible and sustainable cities to face environmental and social challenges. Moreover, the project will also provide detailed recommendations on the implementation of specific policy packages that anticipate barriers to the implementation of future city concepts.

About the research team

Dr. Jimin Zhao will be the Principal Investigator on this project. She is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the China Environment and Energy Programme at the Transport Studies Unit (TSU) and the Environmental Change Institute (ECI). She has wide experience on China’s energy and environmental policy, clean technology development, sustainable transportation and climate change governance. She has worked on China’s alternative vehicle technologies, impacts on air pollution and oil security, and sustainable urban transport systems, collaborating actively with Chinese research institutes and government organizations, such as the Ministry of Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Tongji University, and China’s Automotive Research and Technology Center. She leads the China low-carbon city project and the urban building energy efficiency project funded by the Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO).

Professor David Banister is Director of TSU and Acting Director of ECI. He has an established international reputation in transport research, in particular the contribution that the social sciences can make to the analysis of transport. He has led a series of EU and UK projects on policy scenario building for cities, based around the modified backcasting approach. His expertise on developing sustainable mobility futures will be central to this project, given the clear need of this project to reconcile growth and social objectives with those relating to the environment. He has authored or edited 19 books, published some 250 papers in international refereed journals, and acted on many national and international panels and advisory groups.

Dr. Robin Hickman is an Associate Director and Head of Transport Research at the Halcrow Group (an international transport consultancy) and a Research Fellow at the Transport Studies Unit. He has developed and applied the VIBAT methodologies in a series of international studies (in the UK for the DfT; in London, Delhi, Victoria and Oxford). These will be adapted for use in China in this project.