Perspective on Sustainability in Transportation
The most comprehensive and unanimously accepted definition of sustainability is about meeting our needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.
A truly sustainable development, strategy, or business is one where all the three pillars coexist without taking over any of the others. And this is valid for all sectors apart from transportation. In this “privileged” sector a sustainable strategy is achieved by simply being labelled as sustainable by policymakers.
Mass Transportation is one of the means labelled as sustainable. Buses, Trams, and Trains cannot exist without being heavily subsidised. The first requirement for a sustainable business is to be profitable, so the economic pillar for mass transport isn’t there at all.
Mass transit is subsidised for a good reason: to incentivise as many people to use it, because if filled at capacity, the emissions/capita would be very low, compared to cars, which is correct. Unfortunately, they are rarely filled at half the capacity and after 7PM they are often single occupancy. Despite the low fares, only 6% of the commuters use buses and 9% rail (only 15% of the Social pillar) and that is because they fail to fulfil needs and well-being standards for the majority of the population. So, they have the potential to be sustainable but cannot untap it due to lack of public traction. And we don’t want just to Potentially stop our planet from warming. Potentially is not good enough with the Climate Tipping Points around the corner.
Despite the mass transit’s theoretical eco-friendliness, the real-world positive impact is nearly insignificant due to low desirability, so the Environment pillar is missing as well.
The other “sustainable alternative” for our future are electric cars. They might become affordable and reliable enough some day to fulfil the requirements for the social pillar. However, the renewable infrastructure (currently uncapable of covering domestic and industrial demand) that will keep them in motion and the atrocious environmental impact of their manufacturing and shipping are cancelling their sustainability for at least 3 decades to come.
We need to effectively stop our planet from warming, and to do it really fast to avoid passing the climate tipping points. Solutions that are only potentially or deceitfully sustainable or achievable only in high-income countries at the expense of worsening the situation in the rest of the world, will not solve the problem.
Since around 3500 BC, when mankind started to ride horses, our transportation needs were to travel faster, safer, simpler, more flexible, comfortable, and affordable. “FASTER” has always prevailed over the other attributes, and over the past 5500 years, the extent of meeting these needs has always evolved. Now, cars – the superstars that best met our needs so far, started to drown in their own success. “FASTER” became compromised by traffic congestion caused by their ever-increasing number.
What we are offered as an alternative is public transport and active travel, being hyped and labelled as “SUSTAINABLE”. However, they fail to meet our transportation needs. They are slower, less comfortable, less flexible, and their multimodal characteristic makes life more complicated. At first sight, they are more affordable, but when our most precious commodity, “TIME” is factored in, they turn out to be far more expensive. They are a little bit safer, but that pales in comparison to the other inconveniences. In other words, they fail to meet our needs and if ours aren’t met then neither those of future generations will. Failing to meet needs compromises the adoption of the proposed “sustainable” alternatives, making them “UNSUSTAINABLE”, despite having a lower environmental footprint.
Nymbel optimises the size, weight, and complexity of the vehicles and their infrastructure, around the most prevalent traffic trend today, –Single Occupancy, making them far more resource/energy/space/time-efficient than electric cars while enhancing all the other convenience parameters. And I’m not going to hypocritically bolster that our concept is “NET ZERO” or “SUSTAINABLE”. However, it is at least four times more sustainable than any existing “sustainable” labelled alternatives.
Given its simplicity and multifaceted efficiency, it is also affordable and easy to implement in countries with emerging economies, making it scalable worldwide, contributing to a global, rather than local success in mitigating Climate Change and the related crises.
There’s only one key characteristic of cars it can’t compete with: “the Status Symbol”. But that’s a fair trade-off for all the other benefits. However, Nymbel’s implementation doesn’t necessarily imply giving up on cars. The two alternatives can coexist symbiotically. Nymbel will significantly absorb the traffic demand, freeing up roads and car parks making them available and more fluent, for those willing to use shared vehicles or display their status.
This is our view on Sustainability.