Towards Net-Zero Emissions from Urban Transport: Ex Post Policy Evaluation in Canberra, the Australian Capital Territory

Abstract

The achievement of net-zero emissions is a major governmental challenge to ameliorate the adverse impacts of climate change, and to reduce the health risks associated with poor air quality. In Australia, the transport sector is a major contributor to particulate matter and greenhouse gas emissions, especially in urban areas. The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government recognises that one of the greatest sustainability challenges to achieving a carbon-neutral society with net-zero emissions is the transport sector because it contributes 60 percent of all emissions under its jurisdiction. The ACT is a suitable case study on climate change, energy policy, and transport emissions because its electricity is powered by renewable energy; its governance has included a continuous planning philosophy of integrating transport with land use. The methodology is based on identifying and summarising the international literature on net-zero emissions policy (n = 50), the relevant policy documents and reports by the Australian Government (n = 8) and by the ACT Government (n = 32). An appraisal of policy outcomes in the ACT is based on an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. In a car-dependent city (77% of trips by private transport), the most realistic policies for achieving net-zero emissions are to encourage, through fiscal incentives and regulations, the adoption of electric vehicles for buses and private cars, electric or hydrogen vehicles for the commercial fleet, and regulations to phase out petrol- and diesel-powered vehicles.

1. Introduction

The International Energy Agency’s “Net Zero Scenario” [1] aims to “decarbonise transport by implementing a broad set of policies to encourage shifts to the least carbon-intensive travel options and operational and technical energy efficiency measures to reduce the carbon intensity of all transport modes”. In the case of urban transport, this includes the use of biofuels, the substitution of fully electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for petrol and diesel vehicles in passenger and commercial transport, and a modal switch from personal to public transport (with buses powered by electricity or hydrogen fuel cells). Whilst the decarbonisation of the economy represents national responses that counter climate change and global warming (for European countries, see, for example [2]), at the city scale, there is a wider set of economic, social, and environmental issues that require policies to achieve more sustainable development, including the reduction in harmful vehicle emissions from the transport sector. Using a series of indicators relevant to sustainable development goals (SDG), the World Health Organization [3] calls for a reduction in deaths and diseases from air pollution (SDG 3.9.1) and an improvement in cities of their air quality (SDG 11.6.2). A major source of particulate matter and greenhouse gas emissions are from urban activities of which transport is a major contributor [4]. The global public health impacts of poor ambient air quality include lung cancer attributed to diesel engine fine particulate matter [5], heart disease, and stroke from fine particulate matter and from concentrations of ground-level ozone [6].

One mainstream policy by national governments to improve urban air quality is based on the technology of vehicle engine design by setting emission targets for automotive manufacturers [7], which also aligns with decarbonisation of the transport sector, but there is also a raft of land-use, transport and the environment policies aimed at reducing emissions in the urban transport sector that are the subject of this review paper. The places where the greatest challenges to achieving net-zero emissions from transport are in low-density cities where car ownership and use are high, in places where distances travelled are relatively large, and where suburban public transport services are poor. Such examples can be found in Australia, New Zealand, and North America. The aims of this review paper are to identify policies, and then search for evidence of their effectiveness in achieving policy outcomes in reducing vehicle emissions. A case study of Australia and the city of Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) forms the basis of the methodology.

Under the Australian Constitution of 1901, the States and Territories have the major responsibilities for infrastructure (energy systems, transport systems, and urban developments) with the national government being responsible for defence, foreign affairs, finance, and taxation (grants are distributed to the states and territories). The Constitution also established a new capital city on 2348 km² of land appropriated from New South Wales (designated as the Australian Capital Territory). The layout of Canberra, as a planned garden city (418 km²), was based on an international competition won by Walter Burley Griffin in 1912 [8], and this became the Gazetted Plan of 1925 [9]. However, for a variety of political and economic reasons, Canberra developed rapidly only in the post-Second World War era at a time when private vehicle ownership in Australia was exploding. When the National Capital Development Corporation commenced its land-use and transport planning activities in 1958, the population was 39,000, and the number of vehicles had trebled from 1950. The urban structure in the long-term plan was a series of free-standing towns arranged in a Y shape with open space surrounding each town. At the heart of this layout is Griffin’s architectural design, with a parliamentary area and a civic centre. A public transport spine connects the town and civic centres, and an extensive peripheral freeway system negates the intrusion of through traffic into the urban fabric [10].

Canberra represents a good example of a low-density, car-dependent city developed during the motorway age where a major policy challenge is to eliminate vehicle emissions from its transport sector. The city covers 418 square kilometres and has an urban density (in 2016) of nearly 5 persons per hectare. At the 2021 Census of Population and Housing, 53 percent of households owned two or more cars and only 5.5 percent of households did not own a car (https://profile.id.com.au/australia/car-ownership?WebID=250, accessed 26 September 2024). The ACT Government recognises that one of the greatest sustainability challenges is the transport sector because it contributes 60 percent of all emissions under its jurisdiction [11] (p. 1). The estimated resident population for 2024 is 477,567 (available at: https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/canberra-population, accessed 26 September 2024). According to data in [11], passenger vehicles annually travel some 3900 million kilometres and are responsible for 82 percent of this travel demand. Journey-to-work travel is dominated by the car (80 percent). Bus and tram usage is 8 percent, active transport is made up of cycling which is 5 percent, and walking which is 3 percent. Between October 2020 and March 2021, the mean daily number of e-scooter trips in the trial area of inner Canberra was 4479 [12] (p. 14)—0.6 percent of all daily trips.

In its planning strategy to minimise greenhouse gas emissions, the ACT Government is committed to consolidating Canberra’s position as “a world-leading sustainable city” [13]. The ACT Government was the first state or territory in Australia to appoint a Sustainability Commissioner, and its State of the Environment reporting provides data to analyse trends in emissions and policies for their mitigation. There is strong community support for this sustainability goal. A sample of residents questioned about quality of life in Canberra in 2012 found that sustainability and the environment were key factors [14]. More specifically, a recent national survey found that two-thirds of Canberra’s citizens nominated climate change as the number one threat to humanity [15]. Data from the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) allow us to describe and qualitatively and quantitatively analyse, the long-term effectiveness of land use, transport, and environmental policies.

The methodology employed in this empirical research review is to identify and describe the dominant policies and the policy packages promulgated both by the Australian National Government (n = 8) and by the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government (n = 32), and to interpret their efficacy in achieving their policy aims. These reports and policy documents in the ACT stretch back to 1963 [16]. These primary data sources were provided by the former Head of Planning in the National Capital Development Commission (see Acknowledgements) to the first author when he was conducting a benchmark study of Australian urban land-use and transport planning reports [17]. Subsequently. the first author has been involved as an independent consultant to the ACT government and therefore has kept abreast of land-use and transport policies. Other ACT policy documents and Federal Government policies were accessed by a search on the worldwide web. Senior public servants who had been employed by the ACT Government were asked to comment on whether all relevant policy documents had been included and whether the interpretations of policy effectiveness were robust.

The methodology also included an interrogation of Google Scholar and SCOPUS search engines using keywords. The methodology also involves the analysis of secondary data in the periodic State of the Environment Reports and of primary travel data in the Census of Population Journey-to-Work tabulations. Since the development of information technologies, governments post their policies and regulations on the worldwide web allowing easy access to their latest initiatives by researchers. At the University of Canberra, the second author convened the program for the Master’s Degree in Urban Planning and thus has developed a network of local planners abreast of current environmental and sustainability issues in the Australian Capital Territory. She also accessed topical news items about transport that have been reported in the media (grey literature).

The significance of this case study is that it demonstrates that the most realistic policy package for achieving net-zero emissions in the transport sector is to encourage, through fiscal incentives and regulations, the adoption of electric vehicles for buses and private cars, and electric or hydrogen vehicles for the commercial fleet. Integrated land use and transport planning in Canberra does avoid suburban sprawl (potentially reducing trip distances) and does achieve a fairer distribution of employment and other services (an equity outcome). However, the construction of a system of free-flowing traffic on freeways, designed specifically to avoid traffic congestion, has resulted in a behavioural response by workers where they travel by private transport to employment destinations further afield (the phenomenon of induced traffic thereby countering policy objectives of reducing VKT [18]. “Green transport” initiatives (walking, cycling, public transport, and e-mobility) are having a marginal impact on mode choice in Canberra. In the very long term, fully autonomous vehicles acting as on-demand taxi services have the potential to reduce private vehicle ownership and to provide more efficient public transport services [19].

The paper is organised in sections. Section 2 expands on the methodology adopted. Section 3 summarises the findings from the selected international literature describing policies leading to a net-zero emissions transport sector and identifies the policies being applied in the ACT. The Australian federal government’s role under the constitution is limited to macro-policies for the energy sector, but these are important and are described. All ACT Government policy documents that have been analysed for this research are identified in the reference section. Section 4 is a critical appraisal of these policies. Section 5 is a discussion of our findings followed by a concluding section.

2. Methodology

The methodology is to identify and describe the dominant policies to achieve a carbon-neutral transport sector from the international literature and from the domestic Australian literature. Using the search engines, Google Scholar and SCOPUS, and the keywords “sustainable transport, 2021–2023”, 2067 documents were retrieved, of which 224 were substantial scientific contributions. Based on reading the abstracts, 22 papers were identified as focused on policy, incentives, and implementation. In addition, the keywords “zero emission transport” were entered into the search engine which identified 1086 papers, of which 698 were extracted. From this list, the first 50 abstracts of the academic papers downloaded were scrutinised and the policy mentioned was noted. Within this subset of papers, we are confident that we have identified all the policies and regulations directed at achieving net-zero emissions (that is, achieving saturation of possible policies). Twenty-eight of these papers dealt in depth with the policy, incentives, and implementation that form the basis for Table 1. The table is not aimed at a comprehensive compilation, description, and review of the international literature on policies leading towards net-zero emissions in the transport sector. The Australian literature was identified using the keywords, “Australia/net zero emissions/transport/policy”. We used more than one word at the same time on the search engine. The literature search identified the Australian Federal Government’s higher-level energy policies to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030 (n = 8).

For the case study of Canberra and the ACT, we identified the relevant land-use, transport, and environmental policies contained in consultants’ reports to the government from 1963 and the more recent ACT Government policies aimed at achieving net-zero emissions from the transport sector (n = 32). Since the development of information technologies, governments post policies and regulations on the worldwide web allowing easy access to researchers. To ensure our identification of all the policies and their interpretations are accurate, we invited three senior ACT public servants who were involved with the planning of Canberra from 1964 onwards (see Acknowledgement section) to comment on a draft of this paper, specifically asking as to whether all relevant policies had been identified and whether our interpretation of the effectiveness of these policies was sufficiently robust to convince policymakers of their impact on the target of net-zero emissions from the ACT transport sector. As our informants were senior public servants whose careers span the decades from the establishment of the National Development Commission in 1957 to the present day, we have asked them to identify any key documents that we had not reviewed. Therefore, we are confident that the database for our evaluation of all relevant policies is complete.

The policy development cycle within governments [20] contains both policy analysis that examines the impacts, benefits, and costs of policy options to assess the best response to an identified societal problem (ex ante evaluation) and monitoring that tracks the progress of specific targets, objectives, and milestones (ex post evaluation). Researchers are involved in this process by applying systems’ models to quantitatively estimate benefits and costs. A less common approach by researchers—and the one followed in this paper—is to monitor policy outcomes that evaluate the effectiveness of policy instruments and thereby challenge the merits of government policies, strategies, and programs [21] (p. 97). Governments, on the other hand, want to strengthen “the manner in which its policies and programs are evaluated to improve performance and accountability…” and there are detailed guidelines for public servants to follow [22] (p. 1).

Extracting from these ACT Government guidelines, our assessment process on the ACT Government achieving net-zero emissions in the transport sector aims to answer questions such as: is the policy producing the intended outcomes or any unintended outcomes? has the policy achieved its stated objectives? and is the policy still aligned with government priorities, particularly when circumstances change? Our ex post evaluation involves forms of analysis, interpretations (and some judgement), and a comparison between stated objectives, performance indicators, and actual results where available as suggested by the ACT Government [22] (p. 3).

The case study identifies and describes in detail the evolution of land use, transport, and environmental policies and the consultants’ reports to the government from 1963 and concentrates on the more recent ACT Government policies aimed at achieving net-zero emissions from the transport sector. The review also identifies the Australian Federal Government’s policies to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. In the ex post evaluation of these policies, the methodology involves the analysis of secondary data in the periodic State of the Environment Reports, in consultants’ reports, and of primary travel data from the Census of Population Journey-to-Work tabulations. The outcomes and milestones of this evaluation of ACT policies to achieve net-zero emissions are synthesised and summarised in tabular form (see Table 5 later in Section 4). The Discussion section suggests four groups of policy packages that might be of wider applicability to governments aiming to achieve net-zero emissions in the transport sector.

Table 1. Summary of policy recommendations for net-zero emissions from transport.

Policy Proposal	References
Mandatory fleet emissions standards	Wood et al. [23]
Sunset legislation for petrol and diesel engines	Wood et al. [23]
Extra tax on petrol and subsidise EVs	Bjertnæs [24]
Transition to electric vehicles	Ball, et al. [25]; Ben Ali, and Boukettaya [26]; Bye et al. [27]; Huovila et al. [28]; OECD [29,30]; Pani et al. [31]; Shouquat Hossain et al. [32]; Tian et al. [33]; Tsai et al. [34]; Tsoi et al. [35,36]
Remove import duties and stamp duty on zero-emissions vehicles	Wood et al. [23]
Alternative power sources for vehicles	Horváth and Szemesová [37]; Huovila, et al. [28]; Kinsella et al. [38]; Kowalska-Pyzalska et al. [39]; Makarova et al. [40]; Obregón et al. [41]; Roca-Puigròs et al. [42]; Say et al. [43]; Wood et al. [23]
Electric and hydrogen charging infrastructure	Huovila et al. [28]; Valdmanis et al. [44]; Wood et al. [23]
Car clubs and car sharing	Göddeke et al. [45]; Henderson et al. [46]
Mode switch to public transport—lower fares; increase costs to motorists	Danielis et al. [2]; Gota et al. [47]; Atabaki et al. [48]; Bielińska-Dusza et al. [49]; Hasselwander et al. [50]; Kimpton et al. [51]; OECD [29,30]
Urban vehicle access regulations	Attia et al. [52]; Ogunkunbi and Meszaros [53]
Increase coverage of carbon-neutral public transport	Huovila et al. [28]
Increase use of active transport	Buehler et al. [54]; Doğru et al. [55]; Huovila et al. [28]; Nieuwenhuijsen [56]
Increase use of e-scooters	Ballo et al. [57]; Pace et al. [58]; Weschke et al. [59]
Increase urban density and reduce urban sprawl	Nieuwenhuijsen [56]; OECD [29,30]
Regulations all new buildings with off-street parking have electrical cabling to allow for vehicle charging infrastructure,	Wood et al. [23]

(Source: Authors—See Reference Section for numbers in the bibliography).

Table 1. Summary of policy recommendations for net-zero emissions from transport.

Policy Proposal	References
Mandatory fleet emissions standards	Wood et al. [23]
Sunset legislation for petrol and diesel engines	Wood et al. [23]
Extra tax on petrol and subsidise EVs	Bjertnæs [24]
Transition to electric vehicles	Ball, et al. [25]; Ben Ali, and Boukettaya [26]; Bye et al. [27]; Huovila et al. [28]; OECD [29,30]; Pani et al. [31]; Shouquat Hossain et al. [32]; Tian et al. [33]; Tsai et al. [34]; Tsoi et al. [35,36]
Remove import duties and stamp duty on zero-emissions vehicles	Wood et al. [23]
Alternative power sources for vehicles	Horváth and Szemesová [37]; Huovila, et al. [28]; Kinsella et al. [38]; Kowalska-Pyzalska et al. [39]; Makarova et al. [40]; Obregón et al. [41]; Roca-Puigròs et al. [42]; Say et al. [43]; Wood et al. [23]
Electric and hydrogen charging infrastructure	Huovila et al. [28]; Valdmanis et al. [44]; Wood et al. [23]
Car clubs and car sharing	Göddeke et al. [45]; Henderson et al. [46]
Mode switch to public transport—lower fares; increase costs to motorists	Danielis et al. [2]; Gota et al. [47]; Atabaki et al. [48]; Bielińska-Dusza et al. [49]; Hasselwander et al. [50]; Kimpton et al. [51]; OECD [29,30]
Urban vehicle access regulations	Attia et al. [52]; Ogunkunbi and Meszaros [53]
Increase coverage of carbon-neutral public transport	Huovila et al. [28]
Increase use of active transport	Buehler et al. [54]; Doğru et al. [55]; Huovila et al. [28]; Nieuwenhuijsen [56]
Increase use of e-scooters	Ballo et al. [57]; Pace et al. [58]; Weschke et al. [59]
Increase urban density and reduce urban sprawl	Nieuwenhuijsen [56]; OECD [29,30]
Regulations all new buildings with off-street parking have electrical cabling to allow for vehicle charging infrastructure,	Wood et al. [23]

(Source: Authors—See Reference Section for numbers in the bibliography).

3. Description of Policies towards Net-Zero Emissions

3.1. The International Literature

This section is not aimed at a comprehensive compilation, description, and review of the international and Australian literature on policies leading towards net-zero emissions in the transport sector. We have searched a substantial body of academic publications—to the point of topic saturation. This ensured that we have captured a full range of policy proposals (Table 1). Alternative fuel types for vehicles figure prominently as do studies of the transitions to new vehicle technologies. The literature includes regulations and financial incentives to phase out diesel and petrol vehicles and to encourage electric and hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles. A switch from private transport to more active travel and public transport options also are proposed. Changes to the built form that increase densities complement the more traditional demand-side policies.

There is extensive literature about sustainability, energy, urban development, transport futures, and emissions from the transport sector that we made no attempt to review. Even when policy is added as a keyword, the scope is still too broad. Instead, we concentrate on a few key studies that summarise the state-of-the-art policies to achieve net-zero emissions in the transport sector. We then describe the relevant policies in Australia and in the Australian Capital Territory in the next sub-sections.

Recent OECD reports [29,30] outline a package of policies that promote public over private transport through fiscal measures, a shift towards electric vehicles, and an increase in urban density to reduce urban sprawl [60]. The promotion of public transport is based on making public transport cheaper and private transport more expensive. Fares on public transport are reduced and the price of petrol is increased, a distance-based tax on private motor vehicles is introduced as is CBD cordon pricing. One aspect of the electric vehicle policy is for governments to subsidise the purchase of electric vehicles.

Huovila and others [28] undertook a systematic literature review of the planning of carbon-neutral cities (Europe and Finland). A summary of the policies and actions [28] (Table 5, pp. 7–8) are:

“to promote and to increase the share of trips made by active transport; introduce carbon-neutral public transport that has a greater spatial coverage; to renew city-managed car fleets to zero emission vehicles; to decrease the total vehicle kilometrage of travel; to improve accessibility without using a car; to encourage zero-emission vehicle production; to make available alternative sustainable fuels; and to construct vehicle charging infrastructure”.

Pace and others [58] (p. 1) have reviewed international and Australian studies on micro-mobility and have concluded that e-scooter riding on footpaths and on roads imposes safety risks to users and their misuse has contributed to accidents; e-scooter riders are sometimes ignorant of the laws. In Australia, the regulations surrounding these devices differ amongst states and amongst local government areas [58] (pp. 3–5). Through information sharing, the education of users and private sector operators is thought by these authors to be necessary to achieve the government’s policy objective of introducing safety to a new mode of transport.

Based on the health impact assessment (HIA) literature, and from conducting meetings with experts, Nieuwenhuijsen [56] published a meta-review on how to improve public health through better urban planning. Governments should take the lead and invest in policies that focus on active transport, increasing urban densities, better public transport, and public participation in planning [56] (Figure 4, p. 5 and Table 1, p. 7).

3.2. Australian Literature

When discussing the Australian literature on vehicle emissions, it is necessary to point out the high level of private vehicle ownership and some characteristics of the purchases associated with new vehicles [61]. In 2023, the top three selling vehicles in Australia (78 percent of new vehicle sales) were large utility vehicles and sports utility vehicles (SUVs). As an approximate comparison, in 2024, a new sedan costs an average AUD 36,075 and a new SUV an average of AUD 39,857.

Somewhat perversely, a national government policy encourages such purchases of large SUVs. Many of these vehicles are purchased on novated leases whereby the employer owns the vehicle and leases the vehicle to the employee as part of a salary-sacrificing package that is exempt from fringe benefits taxation. The net result is that Australian passenger vehicles are emitting 50 percent more carbon dioxide than the mean value of the world’s major passenger cars [62].

The most relevant Australian report that is independent of government (the Grattan Institute) on policies in the transport sector that reduce vehicle emissions is by Wood and others [23]. The policy recommendations include:

“…the formulation of a mandatory fleet emissions standard applied to the sale of all new light vehicles; the tightening of standards to zero emissions by 2035; the setting of an end date for sales of new petrol and diesel light vehicles; and a guarantee that Australians have the widest choice of competitively priced, low-emissions and zero-emissions vehicles available”.

Wood and others [23] (p. 4) argue the case for the scrapping of inefficient taxes and regulations that slow the take-up of zero-emissions vehicles in Australia. A survey undertaken in March 2024 shows that only 4 percent of respondents own or have ordered, a fully electric vehicle (https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2024/04/10/evs-face-future-challenges-despite-increasing-uptake-.html, accessed on 20 June 2024).

3.3. Australian Federal Government Policies

Australia’s transport sector is the third largest source of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and contributes 19 percent to the total. The Australian Federal Government (Labor Government) aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 43 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and, by 2050 achieve net-zero emissions, primarily through renewable energy that would achieve an estimated 83 percent of the 2030 target. Australia is party to the 2016 Paris Agreement where the country has submitted the above emissions reduction commitments known as the Nationally Determined Contributions [63]. The opposition party (Liberal-National Coalition) is sceptical that the 2030 target is achievable and has announced it will formulate an energy policy before the next Federal election, which is due next year, that includes the construction of seven nuclear power stations and is aimed at reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 (https://esdnews.com.au/coalition-to-break-australias-commitment-to-paris-agreement/, accessed on 4 April 2024).

It is important to point out that under the Australian Constitution, the States and Territories have the major responsibility for infrastructure developments including urban development, energy, and transport policies.

Table 2. Australian federal government policies by year of legislation to achieve net-zero emissions 2016–2025.

Policy	Year	Outcome	Reference
Party to Paris Agreement	2016	Nationally Determined Contribution 2015/2022	Australian Government, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water [63]
Net-Zero Economy Agency	2023	Established	Australian Government, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet [64]
National Electric Vehicle Strategy	2023	Electric vehicle uptake	Australian Government, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water [65]
New Fuel Efficiency Standard Strategy	1 January 2025	Cap on emissions from new cars	Australian Government, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water [66]
Real-World Testing of Vehicle Efficiency	2023	Consumer information on fuel consumption and emissions	Australian Government, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water [67]
Capacity Investment Scheme	2023	More investment in renewable energy capacity	Australian Government, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water [68]

(Source: Authors).

summarises the current Australian Government’s policies aimed to achieve the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 that support the Paris Agreement, including the establishment, in 2023, of the advisory body, the Net-Zero Economy Agency [64]. The National Electric Vehicle Strategy [65] and the New Fuel Efficiency Standard Strategy [66] come into effect on 1 January 2025 and aim to reduce CO₂ emissions by 321 million tonnes by 2050. Consumer information estimates how much a particular vehicle will cost to run thereby encouraging purchases to make informed choices [67]. Finally. The Australian Government announced the Capacity Investment Scheme [68] in 2023 which is aimed at increasing investment in renewable energy projects.

3.4. Policies Introduced by the ACT Government

The planned “garden city” Canberra in the ACT dates back to the 1920s and has been developed with clear planning principles. When the National Capital Development Commission was established in 1957, it remained faithful to the original plan by Walter Burley Griffin but deliberately set out to ensure Canberra was laid out with the private motor vehicle in mind, specifically to avoid the traffic congestion being experienced in other Australian capital cities. Therefore, these early land use and transport policies are described before turning in detail to the more recent policies formulated in an era when greenhouse gases were contributing to climate change.

One advantage that the ACT has over other Australian States and Territories is that the leasehold land tenure system [69,70,71] provides land use planners with the power to direct the spatial location of land use activities. The integration of land use and transport planning has been enabled through the consistent adherence to a long-term strategic plan since 1970 [10,72]. One of the consistent objectives of strategic land use and transport planning in Canberra has been an urban development pattern that “will minimise the probability of significant traffic congestion” [73] (p. 7), which is important because fuel consumption and vehicle emissions from petrol and diesel engine vehicles increase rapidly during stop–start driving conditions.

Subsumed under ACT Government planning policy at the neighbourhood level is the implementation of a functional road hierarchy to support suburban design [74] that gives residents access to local amenities through a network of streets, footpaths, and cycle paths and therefore a choice of “last mile” transport modes. However, Canberra’s neighbourhoods now have “…outdated standards and a safety approach that does not promote safe walking and cycling” [75] (p. 13). ‘Movement and Place’ is aimed at promoting more active travel through a best practice Design Guide [76] to support the Active Travel Plan.

A fast inter-town public transport system to support the Y-Plan has taken many years to be implemented and is a long way from completion. When the ACT Government adopted the Y-Plan some form of high-speed intertown public transport technology was envisaged, and, in 1976, the National Capital Development Commission [77] (p. 17) reformulated transport policy in favour of public transport. The Intertown Public Transport—Alternatives for Canberra study evaluated alternative modes, given the low forecast patronage levels, concluded “a conventional priority bus system was the preferred system…” [77] (p. 118).

Only in 2013 was a light rail masterplan formulated for Canberra. Using the public–private sector mode of infrastructure delivery, Canberra Metro (a consortium of Pacific Partnerships, CPB contractors, John Holland, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Aberdeen Infrastructure Investment) was appointed in mid-2016 as the contractor to construct a line from the suburban town of Gungahlin to the City Centre. Operations started on 20 April 2019, with, on average, about 9000 passengers per day [78]. A 1.7 km extension, costing AUD 577 million from Alinga Street in the city centre to Commonwealth Park, was announced in December 2023 and is expected to be operational in 2028 [79].

The Canberra Spatial Plan [72] (p. 31) indicated that increased density will occur at major employment centres (Civic, the town centres, and Barton), along the major Griffin legacy boulevards of Northbourne Avenue and Constitution Avenue, and in major urban renewal sites (such as Kingston and west Fyshwick). Net residential densities remain low. In the inner suburbs of Canberra (Braddon, Dickson, Lyneham, O’Connor, and Turner), the net residential density is zoned at 14 single-dwelling units per hectare (representing 70 percent of the housing stock) and 99 per hectare for multi-unit developments [80] (p. 3).

The construction of a network of cycle paths has subsequently been extended to the metropolitan scale starting with the first path constructed fifty years ago from the centrally located Australian National University campus 3.8 km away to the northern suburb of Dickson. Monitoring of bike usage found that after three years in 1976 ridership had doubled in the two-hour morning peak [81] (p. 214) but the uptake of commuter cycling remains low. Nevertheless, the ACT Government is extending the metropolitan network of cycle paths, subject to funding. The ACT has about 3500 km of dedicated shared cycling/pedestrian paths and on-road cycling facilities (for a detailed map of its cycle paths, see, https://www.transport.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/1961722/Cycle-network-map.pdf, accessed on 3 March 2024)

The ACT Government is encouraging the use of electric vehicles [82]. The 2019 ACT Climate Change Strategy [83] outlines the ACT’s commitment to a 100 percent zero emission by 2045. There is a policy objective of eliminating petrol and diesel engines from 2035 onwards. In 2019, 12 percent of vehicles were fuelled by diesel engines—a three-fold increase since 2010 [83] (p. 128). The ACT Government is providing financial incentives to consumers to purchase electric vehicles [84]. The ACT Government had offered: two-year free registration until June 2024; stamp duty exemption for new (AUD 2100) and used electric vehicles (AUD 1600) and hydrogen vehicles (this includes electric scooters, motorbikes, and trikes); AUD 15,000 interest-free loans for zero-emissions vehicles and charging equipment and installation. Also, the ACT offers zero-interest loans of up to AUD 15,000 to help eligible buyers purchase new or second-hand zero-emissions vehicles and charging infrastructure and installation. Buyers have up to ten years to repay. There are no upfront costs or fees to make use of this program.

As of June 2024, vehicle registration fees in the ACT will gradually transition from the current weight-based vehicle registration system to an emissions-based system for most light vehicles [85]. This means lower registration fees for lower-emissions vehicles, including zero-emission vehicles such as EVs. The separate Vehicle Emission Reductions Scheme on Motor Vehicle Duty continues beyond 30 June 2024 which applies to eligible zero- and low-emission vehicles. The details of this new registration system are available from the Australian Automotive Dealer Association [85].

Recognising one of the barriers to the ownership of electric vehicles, the ACT Government [86] (pp. 23–25) developed streamlined license applications for investors in EV charging stations on public land that will deliver more than 70 publicly accessible electric vehicle charging stations across Canberra in 2022–2023 (see, a map at https://www.plugshare.com)—a number expected to double by 2025. Regulations in the Territory Plan are being enacted to require electric vehicle charging infrastructure for new multi-unit residential and commercial buildings. Also, incentives for the installation of electric vehicle charging at multi-unit buildings to the amount of AUD 2 000 are offered by the government.

The State of New South Wales surrounds the borders of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) so it is important for motorists who are residents in the ACT to know where charging stations are located when making inter-state trips. In 2022, New South Wales had the highest number of public regular-speed and fast EV charging stations (668) of all Australian States and Territories. In late May 2024, the New South Wales Government announced the construction of an additional 650 charging points within a year (https://apple.news/AiiUt5n5tS9af8fjBEdBpoA, accessed on 2 June 2024). These 391 additional sites would benefit ACT electric vehicle drivers nervous about running out of battery power, but this will not meet ACT residents’ environmental aspirations as energy supplied to the NSW electricity grid is currently around 53 percent of renewable energy generation capacity [87].

Another barrier to the adoption of new technologies is a lack of information to consumers. A new online tool is helping Canberrans compare the total cost of ownership of different models of electric versus petrol or diesel vehicles. Features of the tool [88] include users can input the features for vehicles arriving on the market soon and find out the total cost of ownership; users can input various features for vehicles, such as vehicles by make/model, body type (hatchback, sedan, etc.), fuel type (petrol, diesel, battery electric, etc), average kilometres travelled per year, and annual fuel costs. The financial calculators reflect taxes and incentives that are unique to the ACT, such as registration waivers and stamp duty exemptions on electric vehicles.

The ACT Government policy of dockless-shared micro-mobility applies to commercial operators who offer casual hire of pedal bikes, e-scooters, skateboards, and e-bikes without a purpose-built docking station. Operators need to obtain a permit to deliver services on public land in the ACT under the Public Unleased Land Act 2013. The conditions of the permit specify how devices should be managed, they do not clutter streetscapes and do not interfere with the activities of people walking. Riders must adhere to the government’s road rules [89] (Division 14.3, pp. 257–263). The designated speed limits are 25 km/h on cycle paths shared with pedestrians, 15 km/h on footpaths, and 10 km/h on pedestrian crossings. A map of the two areas in Canberra designated for the trials of e-scooters, as of mid-2021, can be found in the consultants’ report to the ACT Government [90]. On 8 December 2022, licenced e-scooter services had extended to most of the suburbs in Canberra (Figure 1).

Government leadership is obviously important in the energy transition towards renewables. The ACT Government owns a fleet of buses, trams, and garbage waste trucks. The Federal Government provides vehicles to members of parliament. The Transport Canberra bus fleet comprises 451 vehicles powered by a combination of diesel and compressed natural gas (CNG) and housed across three depots [91] (pp. 8–10) with an additional depot (zero-emission) to be built in 2026. The transition pathway to net-zero emissions from the bus fleet includes: delivering a temporary infrastructure solution to the first tranche of 90 zero-emission vehicles; undertaking in 2023 a depot feasibility study to determine future needs; partnering with the energy sector [91]. Transport Canberra will develop an indicative charging strategy to assess the future zero-emission fleet needs and develop a charging regime that identifies where, when, and how vehicles will be powered. This will be essential in scoping and designing the necessary on-route and in-depot infrastructure requirements. In April 2022, The ACT Government assessed the benefits of using zero-emissions technology for heavy commercial vehicles with a trial of a diesel Hino FE 1426 with an electric motor conversion developed by Bucher Municipal Pty Ltd. of Clayton, Victoria, and SEA Electric in Victoria (https://www.cefc.com.au/case-studies/sea-electric-gives-trucks-an-electric-makeover/, accessed 2 October 2024) for waste collection [92].

In summary,

Table 3. ACT government policies to achieve net-zero emissions, 1970–2024.

Policy	Year	Outcome	Reference
Canberra leasehold land tenure system	1921	Gives planners power to direct location of economic and social activities	[69,70,71]
Long-term strategic land-use/transport plan (Y-Plan)	1970	Equitable balance of home/work and other activities; shorten travel distances	[10,72]
Functional road hierarchy to support suburban design	1975	Allows range of transport modes to access nearby services	[74]
Evaluation of intertown public transport	1976	Implementation of bus system to encourage greater use of public transport	[77]
Light rail master plan	2013	Encourage more use of public transport	[78]
Increasing residential densities	2004	Increased use of public transport & less car dependency	[80]
Movement and Place	2022	Promote active transport in town centres and suburbs	[75,76]
Active Travel Plan	2023	Promote walking and cycling	[75]
Construction of bike paths	2022	Promote cycling	[75]
ACT Climate Change Strategy	2019	Target for net-zero emissions with elimination of petrol and diesel engines	[83]
Encourage EV purchases	2023	Increase EV new car purchases	[82,84]
ACT Vehicle Registration	2024	Emission based system to encourage zero polluting vehicles	[85]
Streamline applications for licence to install EV charging stations	2022	Deliver more than 70 publicly accessible electric vehicle charging stations in 2022-23—a number to double by 2025.	[86]
EV consumer information	2023	Online tool compares the total cost of ownership of different EV models and petrol or diesel vehicles.	[88]
Permits for operators of e-scooters	2021	Regulations for operators and consumers	[89,90]
Conversion of bus fleet and depots to electricity	2021	Eliminate diesel bus emissions	[91]

(Source: Authors).

lists the policy and the year that it was promulgated. It indicates the main policy outcome and provides the bibliographic reference number for convenience of access to the reader. The table is updated to mid-2024, but energy policy, and how best to achieve net-zero emissions, are, in Australia, fluid areas of public policy, so additional policies are likely to be introduced in the future. Nevertheless, the raft of identified policies that have been introduced in the Australian Capital Territory allow us to address the important question of the effectiveness of each policy in contributing to the aspirational target of net-zero emissions from the urban transport sector.

4. Effectiveness of ACT Government Land-Use, Transport, and Environmental Policies

Having described the policies adopted by the ACT Government, we turn our attention to a qualitative and quantitative appraisal of selected policies using primary and secondary data where available. These sources have been identified in the earlier description of the methodology but each of the following sub-sections fully references the basis for this ex ante evaluation of policies by the authors.

4.1. The Success of the Leasehold System and Integrated Land Use and Transport Planning

Advocates argue that urban governments should rearrange institutional structures that integrate land use and transport planning into one holistic process (for example, [93]). This was achieved in Canberra in 1957 when the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) was established. The question addressed here is whether this organisational arrangement has led to better outcomes in controlling the location of land use activities than in other Australian cities that have sprawled over low-density suburban landscapes.

The NCDC realised that a future urban form with a concentration of employment in the central area surrounded by suburbs would cause unacceptable road traffic congestion requiring the unacceptable construction of freeways into the central city area containing the Parliamentary Triangle [8]. Instead, transport planners tested various long-term land-use and transport scenarios [73] before recommending one strategic long-term plan to the NCDC. The “Y-Plan” was adopted by the NCDC in 1970 and continues to be the strategic document guiding future growth [72].

The leasehold land tenure system in the ACT has allowed the planners to control the location of land-use activities (especially employment), and the successful outcome of this policy can be seen in

Table 4. The spatial distribution of employment in town centres—The Y-plan at half a million population and the 2001 and 2017 Census Figures.

District	Y-Plan (at 0.5 pop.) Jobs in Thousands (%)	2001 Census Jobs in Thousand (%)	2017 Jobs in Thousands (%)
North Canberra	70.0 (37.7%)	54.2 (30.1%)	70.1 (33.3%)
South Canberra	39.2 (21.1%)	36.1 (20.0%)	53.2 (25.2%)
Belconnen	22.5 (12.1%)	25.4 (14.1%)	30.2 (14.3%)
Woden	8.5 (4.6%)	25.5 (14.2%)	24.5 (11.6%)
Tuggeranong	10.9 (5.9%)	17.0 (9.4%)	19.9 (9.4%)
Gungahlin	5.0 (2.7%)	5.9 (3.3%)	4.5 (2.1%)
Weston Creek and Other	25.1 (13.5%)	7.1 (3.9%)	4.8 (2.3%)
Queanbeyan (NSW)	9.4 (5.0%)	9.2 (5.1%)	3.5 * (1.7%)
Total Metropolitan Jobs	185 500	180 150	210 700

* Estimate at 2021 (Source: Authors based on [94] (Table 4, p. 55); [95] (Figure 11, p. 136); and [96] (p. 94).

. The table shows for each major employment centre, the number of jobs forecasts in the Y-Plan when Canberra has a population of half a million and the number of jobs expressed as a percent of the metropolitan total, the corresponding numbers recorded at the 2001 Census of Population and Housing (when the total amount of employment coincided), the data are in the most recent published report of 2018.

In Table 4, it is important to note that Queanbeyan is a free-standing town located over the ACT Border in New South Wales, and therefore not subject to ACT Government policies on the location of economic and social activities. Although Table 4 is only an indicative analysis of employment location because the data sources are different, it does confirm that a decentralised pattern of employment into structured centres has occurred within the ACT. The policy intention has been to avoid an over-concentration of jobs in the city centre (North and South Canberra), as has occurred in other Australian State capital cities, and this has been achieved by planners over the past five decades. The transport planning for the Y-Plan set this proportion of centralised jobs at about 59 percent of the total metropolitan employment. The 2017 data confirm that this policy objective was achieved with the city centre containing 58.5 percent of all jobs.

The success of the ACT government in controlling the macro location of economic activity and reducing distances travelled is reinforced by a recent political development [97]. The ACT Government will make a submission to the National Capital Authority to officially change the National Capital Plan and reclassify the Molonglo Valley as Canberra’s sixth town centre and therefore allow greater growth in the commercial precinct. Originally planned to house around 55,000 residents, the population is now expected to grow to 70,000 people by 2050.

In addition, the release of land for residential purposes in any new suburbs is tightly controlled for efficient servicing of that land and to achieve a balance between housing demand and supply. The policy of higher residential developments (central areas, town centres, that are located along light rail services) also provides a greater choice in the housing market with one- and two-bedroom apartments that will encourage public transport use. The aim is to minimise the distance of some workers to their places of work and to also facilitate active modes of transport such as walking, cycling, and e-scooters.

4.2. Successful Home-Work Balance but the Behaviour to “Maximise” Travel Distances

The land use planning policy set in 1970 has been to achieve a balance in each district identified in Table 4 between the size of the population and the number of jobs—the home–work balance desired in so many global urban planning studies [98]. The ACT Planning Strategy 2018 [96] reinforces the successful policy outcome and commits to a continuation of the policy. For example, in the district of Belconnen, the ratio of people to jobs is 3.3, in Gungahlin it is 5.1, in Tuggeranong it is 4.3, in Weston it is 5.6, and in Woden it is 1.5. As in the case of all outer suburbs of major Australian cities, this means there will be substantial out-commuting. In Canberra, the net result is a mean trip length of 11.5 km [99] (Table 5, p. 10). Having achieved the policy objective of a decentralised employment pattern over the metropolitan area that has avoided the lack of accessibility to jobs and long commute times that is so it is problematic for the outer suburbs of major Australian cities [100] the question is whether workers do take advantage of commuting to work closer to home in Canberra.

One way of establishing an answer to this question is to draw on the theory of intervening opportunities [101] as applied in trip distribution modelling by Ruiter [102]. The model can be operationalised by calculating, from each residential origin zone in turn to destination zones arranged at increasing distance from the origin zone, the cumulative proportion of jobs by zone (including the origin zone) that are reached using Census data—Journey-to-Work tabulations. By expressing the numbers as the proportion of metropolitan jobs, the methodology can be applied to both intra-metropolitan zones and zones in other cities, such as a comparison of the outer suburbs of Canberra and the outer sprawling suburbs of Sydney.

Such a methodology provides a sound basis for cross-city comparisons such as a study on travel behaviour in the outer suburbs of Canberra (solid-coloured lines) and Sydney (broke- coloured lines). The point where the coloured lines touch the Y-axis in Figure 2 represents the amount (proportion) of intra-zonal journey-to-work trips. Steep gradients of the preference functions suggest a trend towards “distance minimisation” behaviour, whereas flatter gradients suggest a trend towards “distance maximisation” behaviour. For example, the free-standing town of Wyong on the Central Coast of the Greater Sydney Metropolitan Region has the highest proportion of intra-zonal travel. Queanbeyan is, in fact, a free-standing town in New South Wales and is not counted as a part of the ACT. The preference functions for the Canberra suburbs are consistent to the right of those for Sydney suburbs indicating that when the job opportunity surface is normalised in both cities as the proportion of metropolitan jobs, Canberra commuters exhibit more of travel “distance-maximisation” behaviour than those commuters in the outer suburbs of Sydney. Whilst the “Y-Plan” has provided an appropriately distributed landscape of local job opportunities, the excellent provision of a network of uncongested major roads and freeways offers the choice of easy access to more distant workplaces.

The results from Figure 2 confirm that Canberra commuters exhibit more of travel “distance-maximisation” behaviour than those commuters in the outer suburbs of Sydney. An explanation for this is whilst the “Y-Plan” has provided an appropriately distributed landscape of job opportunities across the ACT aimed to shorten commuter distances, the construction of a network of uncongested major roads and freeways offers the choice of easy access to more distant workplaces by private transport (sometimes referred to as the “induced” traffic effect). This factor, in addition to the extra travel distances, caused generous open space landscapes between the districts and increased travel distances to destinations, therefore, adding to extra fuel consumption and vehicle emissions to what would be the case if commuter preferences followed a distance-minimisation pattern found in other Australian cities.

4.3. Investment in Public Transport Does Not Translate in a Higher Mode Share

Buses still carry the load of passengers using public transport in Canberra. The Y-Plan was predicated on a public transport spine that would have been completed as the population reached about 500,000 (that will be in a few years from now). Only in 2019 (Canberra population of 452,000) was a 12 km section of light rail in operation from the city centre to the town of Gungahlin. Light rail operations commenced in Canberra on 20 April 2019. Figure 3 shows the total number of boardings for each month from April 2019 to May 2024, calculated by the authors based on data collected by two ticketing methods—MyWay card (transport smart card) and paper tickets. The peak monthly ridership of 450,000 was recorded in May 2019—soon after the light rail commenced services. As happened throughout the world, there was a significant drop in ridership during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.

Although the months and years are difficult to read along the X-axis of Figure 3 the main point of including this figure is to show the broad patronage trends over time. Since the light rail was opened, its initial patronage has been steady yet never reaching its peak of May 2019. During COVID-19, patronage levels collapsed as they did in most cities of the world. Since November 2021, patronage has grown steadily but it has not yet reached its May 2019 maximum monthly level.

This recent pattern is possibly a reflection of more people working from home either for part of the week or working from home full time and not travelling by public transport. Private car usage declined along the light rail alignment following the commencement of light rail services—reducing by 9 percent in Gungahlin and 13 percent in North Canberra. By March 2024, one intersection along the route (Northbourne Avenue and Macarthur Avenue) had recorded a total daily traffic volume reduction of 18 percent [104] (p. 1). However, the post-COVID period travel patterns have changed and there is no published evidence that people have switched from driving a car to using public transport.

Under an agreement amongst all Australian states, territories, and local government every program and policy must be assessed from the perspective of its potential economic, social, and environmental impacts. A business case must be prepared (in essence, a summary of an environmental impact statement) for decisionmakers that explains the costs and benefits with quantitative and qualitative data. In the ACT Government’s Canberra Light Rail Stage 2A: Economic Analysis, the user benefits are small, and only the inclusion of “wider economic benefits” justifies this investment [105].

The completion of the inter-town light rail system remains a few decades away. Extending the system to Woden Town centre requires the construction of a new bridge across Lake Burley Griffin. After completion of an environmental impact statement [106], the light rail proponent must seek approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act from the Commonwealth government. The same policy document requires territorial approval under the ACT Planning Act. As the Parliamentary zone is a “designated area” both Houses of Parliament must approve the project. In March 2024, the ACT Liberal Party, Canberra Liberals, announced that it would cancel light rail and instead introduce bus lanes and locally constructed electric buses if elected to government in October 2024 [107] (p. 5).

4.4. Cycling Networks and Its Limited Impact on Active Transport

The ACT has about 3 500 km of dedicated shared cycling/pedestrian paths and on-road cycling facilities. Despite this impressive investment in infrastructure, the Government notes “there is much scope for improving cycling participation” [108] (p. 23). Cycling represents a mode share of only 3.0 percent of the total daily trips made by Canberrans. Over one-quarter of all social and recreational trips are by bicycle. By European standards, this extensive network in Canberra delivers a very low cycling mode share given the ratio of network length to population. For example, Amsterdam (population: 1.17 million in 2023) had a segregated cycling network of 815 km (about one-fifth that of Canberra) but with a considerably higher cycling mode share of 38 percent. There is no evidence that policies that encourage active transport are altering mode choice figures in Canberra, despite the well-known fact dating back two decades that links active transport with health benefits (for example, [109] (p. 116); [110]). The provision of cycling facilities in the ACT has achieved little by way of reducing overall vehicle emissions.

4.5. The Role of E-Scooters for the Young

In 2020, Transport Canberra and City Services engaged two operators—Beam Mobility and Neutron Mobility—to provide for hire shared micro-mobility services (e-scooters) to Canberra City and two surrounding neighbourhoods. In December 2023, these services were extended to most suburbs in Canberra. Privately-owned devices had been in use a few years before. In 2022, the hire of a Beam scooter currently costed AUD 1 to unlock and then 45 cents for every minute of use. Neuron scooters cost AUD 1 to unlock and 38 cents per minute of use [111]. Three-day, weekly, and monthly passes are also available for regular users.

ACT Government, Transport Canberra, and City Services [112] undertook a review of operations to inform future policy, compliance, and enforcement. The data are patchy, but it appears the services are used mainly by teenagers and those in their twenties, the trips are short (60 percent are less than 10 min in duration). They are primarily for recreation and access to evening entertainment, and some are possibly made for transfer to light rail services given the number of e-scooters counted at stations. Part of the Government’s response to this consultant’s report [112] (p. 5) is to “continue to promote micromobility as an attractive choice that supports mode shift within the broader transport system”—a recommendation qualified by the need to protect the safety of all road users. Again, micro-mobility policies in the ACT have contributed little to achieving net-zero emissions.

4.6. Electric Vehicle Ownership—A Potential Success Story for Net-Zero Emissions

Sales of battery EVs in Australia grew to represent 9.5 percent of new car sales in March 2024. In January 2020, there were 446 battery-electric vehicles registered in the ACT (one vehicle in every 686 registered). As of 19 August 2024, this number has risen to 9051 [113]. Figure 4 illustrates the rapid rise in the annual number of electric vehicles registered in the ACT since 2020 [114] and if the trend continues the graph will show about 12 K new registrations for 2024. The ACT target is for about 80–90 percent of EV registrations by 2030.

The cost of battery packs has declined every year from 2013 until 2020 when COVID struck, and disruption to supply chains made batteries more expensive [115]. The purchase price of new electric vehicles in Australia is relatively high because of limited competition amongst car manufacturers, but this is changing as Chinese-built BYD vehicles penetrate the Australian market at lower purchase prices than those offered by other overseas competitors. The sales of BYD vehicles increased by 41 percent in 2024 (https://apple.news/AW0sF1vegS3Kgi3dQMGeDtg, accessed 28 September 2024). According to research by Canstar Blue Research (https://www.canstarblue.com.au/vehicles/average-car-price/, accessed on 5 August 2024), the average price of a new passenger car in Australia varies according to the specific model and brand, state taxes and fees, and dealer financing structures. This figure is AUD 36,700 (in 2023) in New South Wales. In November of that year, the cheapest new fully electric vehicle cost about AUD 40,000, although the range for most vehicles sold was from AUD 60,000 to AUD 90,000 (https://www.whichcar.com.au/advice/electric-car-costs-australia, accessed on 5 August 2024). Also, the limited range that electric vehicles can travel before re-charging is a constraint in Australia, especially when some driving takes place in rural areas where motorists occasionally find advertised charging stations out of operation. This barrier is currently being addressed by the public and private sectors with plans to roll out more charging stations.

4.7. The Future of Fully Autonomous Vehicles

Currently, the ACT Government has not published any policies and guidelines on the operations of fully autonomous vehicles within its jurisdiction because the National Transport Commission is developing a nationally consistent approach to on-road enforcement for automated vehicles [116]. Westerman and Black have published a detailed paper on preparing for the transition to autonomous vehicles (AVs) in urban areas, including a case study of a typical Canberra suburb [19] (Figure 9). Fully autonomous vehicles will be powered by renewable energy sources, either by electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, thereby eliminating harmful tailpipe emissions. They also have implications for reducing private vehicle ownership. The key point is that fully autonomous vehicles, combined with mobility hubs, can enhance travel patterns for everyone and in a sustainable way.

In the ACT, there are trials of semi-autonomous vehicles. The University of Canberra, the ACT Government, and a Canberra-based company, Seeing Machines, undertook a trial to investigate how semi-autonomous vehicles have the potential to increase mobility for many people who could otherwise be unable to drive. The aim of the trials was to see how older drivers (23 volunteer drivers in their 70s and older) learn how to use the semi-autonomous vehicle and to describe their experiences when doing so [117]. Trials were extended with 23 septuagenarians testing Teslas Model S to see how they respond to a car that is partially autonomous [118].

A model of the financial viability of a fully autonomous vehicle fleet in Canberra provides strong evidence that under a wide range of car operational characteristics and journey demand levels, such a fleet can provide a high level of service much cheaper than private cars and existing public transport. According to calculations by Fitch [119] that were inspired by an algorithm developed by Burns and others [120] a fleet of 34,000 fully autonomous sedans can service 1.1 million “on-demand” door-to-door journeys per day, with 95 percent of journeys starting within one minute of the request being received. This is achieved at fares much lower than undertaking the same journeys by private car. This initiative would support about 2800 full-time-equivalent jobs and generate an annual surplus of about AUD 125 million—enough to provide free transport for almost 100,000 journeys per day, all without requiring any rate-payer funding. However, more analysis is required based on up-to-date cost figures, especially the fleet purchase price of fully autonomous taxis (robotaxis), the labour costs of running the fleet, and operational costs of running services and vehicle maintenance.

Figure 4. Annual registration of zero-emission electric vehicles in the ACT. (source: [120]).

Figure 4. Annual registration of zero-emission electric vehicles in the ACT. (source: [120]).

In a survey across Australia with 5089 respondents the authors found that people have considerable concerns regarding many AV-related issues. Furthermore, most Australians are currently not willing to pay any more for a fully autonomous vehicle than for a manually operated vehicle [121]. In addition, a comparison of accident data in the USA from 2100 self-driving vehicles (SDVs) and 35,133 human-driven vehicles (HDVs) found that the automated cars were generally safer when staying in a lane or adjusting to traffic, but that rates increased around dawn and dusk [122].

In our evaluation process that followed the ACT Government Guidelines, we have identified and described policies and programs for net-zero emissions in transport, noting the importance of a whole of government approaches across multi-agency policies. We have outlined their objectives, outcomes, targets, and milestones (where available) and have described policy and program performance to date. The results are summarised in

Table 5. Outcomes and milestones of ACT government policies to achieve net-zero emissions.

Policy	Year	Outcome	Evidence
Canberra leasehold land tenure system	1921 ongoing	Successful spatial location of economic and social activities	Table 4
Long-term strategic land-use/transport plan (Y-Plan)	1970 ongoing	Equitable balance of home/work and other activities; and shorten travel distances—unsuccessful	Table 4 and Figure 2
Evaluation of intertown public transport	1976 2024	13 km has not encouraged switch to public transport	Figure 3
Light rail master plan	2013	Has not encouraged more use of public transport	Figure 3
Increasing residential densities	2004 16% PT	Has not increased use of public transport and less car dependency	16% PT for JTW
Active Travel Plan; Movement and Place—walking cycling	2022 14%	Marginal increase in active transport in town centres and suburbs	7.7%
Construction of bike paths	2022	Promote cycling	3%
ACT Climate Change Strategy	2019 2035	80–90% Target for net-zero emission vehicles	2.75 in 2024
Encourage EV purchases	2023	Increasingly successful	1 in 4 new vehicle registrations
ACT Vehicle Registration	2024	Emission based system to encourage zero polluting vehicles	1 in 4 new vehicle registrations
Streamline applications for licence to install EV charging stations	2022	Deliver more than 70 publicly accessible electric vehicle charging stations in 2022–2023 180 by 2025	165 charging bays (1/1/24)
EV consumer information	2023	Online tool compares the total cost of owning EV models and petrol/diesel vehicles.	Completed
Permits for operators of e-scooters	2021	Regulations for operators and consumers	Completed
Conversion of bus fleet and depots to electricity	2021	Eliminate diesel bus emissions	Feasibility study

(Source: Authors).

with the source of the evidence from quantitative and qualitative methods that can be verified in the reference section of this paper.

5. Discussions

One conceptual framework to explain how policies impact the outcomes of urban development is to identify the main actors and to describe their interactions with other actors [123]. The same author also suggests that the analysis of urban policies can be approached from different perspectives, including a descriptive approach [124], as adopted in this paper. When the topic is climate change, emissions from the transport sector, and countermeasures, a useful conceptual framework is from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development [125] and employed by Engineers Australia [126] (Figure 2, p. 6) as “Avoid-Shift-Improve”. This is interpreted to mean the integration of urban development and transport, the shift to public transport and non-motorised transport and technological improvements to vehicles and fuels.

The literature review on policies to achieve net-zero emissions from the transport sector has identified a wide range of strategies but now the discussion turns to these actors and their power relationships to achieve policy objectives (avoid-shift-improve). The discussion now categorises these strategies together with the identification of the institutional and organisational actors most responsible for their implementation and the main actors targeted by the strategy. Some assumptions must be noted. Whilst beyond the scope of this paper to explore, it is a working assumption that the implementation of national policies in the energy sector is achieved with all electricity being supplied to the grid from renewable energy sources or from nuclear power. Also, beyond the scope of this paper, from the consideration of emissions from the life cycle processes of manufacturing and disposing of transport vehicles, it is assumed that technological progress will address these issues, such as recycled materials in new car production.

The first category is a group of policies initiated by national governments that target the automotive industry through regulations to improve the fuel efficiency of motor vehicles or to use alternative power sources. The European Parliament has recently approved a law to effectively ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the European Union starting in 2035. The ACT Government announced the end of petrol and diesel vehicle sales in the territory will also be in 2035. All levels of government own fleets of vehicles and can purchase zero-emission models. Governments can also encourage investment in infrastructure charging for electric and hydrogen vehicles and give subsidies to body corporates and individuals to install electric charging in residential garages. Other strategies include mandatory fleet emission standards and sunset legislation for petrol and diesel engines. Research organisations in the public and private sectors contribute towards achieving emissions reductions through research and development.

The second group of categories, also promulgated by governments (typically national or state), are directed at changing consumer behaviour through fiscal incentives or disincentives. These include increasing taxation on petrol and diesel vehicles, removing import and stamp duties on zero-emission vehicles, and subsidising the purchase cost of hybrid or fully electric vehicles. Barriers to the uptake of electric vehicles are usually country-specific and a large international literature is accumulating (for example, [127]). In the Australian Capital Territory, despite financial incentives, the most important barrier is the high electric vehicle purchase costs [128].

The third category is related to urban land use and transport planning policies by government authorities. A fundamental relationship is that vehicle emissions are directly and positively proportional to the distance travelled (modified by the driving cycle and road traffic congestion). Therefore, the avoidance of urban sprawl and the implementation of policies to encourage higher-density developments, especially around nodes of frequent public transport services, are obvious strategies by governments. However, such policies are often undermined by the lobbying power of developers pursuing profit in the urban land market and by a community backlash against higher-density development in their neighbourhood. In the case of the ACT, urban sprawl has been avoided and spatial plans have achieved their intended outcome of a home–work distribution, yet Canberra commuters travel relatively long distances.

The fourth category centres around behavioural change by urban residents. It is self-apparent that emissions per capita are reduced if car drivers switch to using public transport. This can be achieved by increasing motoring costs (including cordon pricing to major trip destinations), lowering the fares on public transport, and increasing network coverage and service frequency. Governments can further encourage behavioural change in transport mode choice by encouraging walking and cycling with appropriate investment in footpaths, walking tracks, and cycle paths (also for e-scooters). Despite the adoption of green transport plans and a heavy investment in cycling infrastructure, Canberra remains a highly dependent car city.

The overwhelming evidence is that net-zero emissions in cities will be achieved through a transition to electric passenger cars and electric or hydrogen vehicles for public transport and freight, and, for shorter trips, e-bikes and e-scooters. Throughout the world, many metropolitan governments operate public transport services (bus, bus rapid transit, light rail, and heavy rail) and municipal waste collection services, so the transition to electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells should become their priority. In the case of Canberra, the necessary policies and implementations are in place. The relatively well-educated population supports zero-emission policies. The European Union has proposed the new Euro 7 standards on emissions that will be implemented in Australia starting 1 July 2025 for cars, sports utility vehicles (SUVs), and light vans. The substitution of diesel engines in heavy trucks by zero-emission power sources currently remains the responsibility of the private sector to manage, but signs are encouraging that this transition will eventually occur sooner rather than later.

Ageing societies are a fact facing many countries. Maintaining mobility for the elderly is an important problem as recognised in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. At the 2021 Census of Population and Housing in Australia, almost one-quarter of Canberrans were aged 65 and above and this is not only an expanding cohort, but one whose attitudes to retaining a driver’s licence at all costs to guarantee independence and personal mobility are well documented [129]. In the long term, one transport option for this age group will be a transition to fully autonomous driving vehicles, such as robotaxis, and, in the longer term, personal, or shared fully autonomous vehicles.

6. Conclusions

The literature search identified a raft of policies that could lead to net-zero emissions from transport in cities (Table 1). Using the Australian Government and the ACT Government as a case study city, a review of government policy documents and consultants’ reports revealed that the general policies identified in Table 2 have been applied to the specifics of urban development in Canberra for over 60 years. Whilst Section 3 is merely a comprehensive review, the originality of the paper is the ex post evaluation of various policies (Section 4) using qualitative and quantitative information, as summarised in Table 5.

A cornerstone of Canberra’s urban development policy has been the successful integration of land-use and transport planning that has alluded many urban governments throughout the world. The Canberra planning system and its leasehold land-tenure system have proved highly successful in containing urban sprawl and achieving a balanced distribution of land-use activities into major suburban nodes across the region. However, this has not resulted in shorter commuting trips relative to cities of similar population size in Australia. Furthermore, policies to encourage more active transport and the construction of a large metropolitan cycling network have done very little to wean the city from its car dependency.

Planning practice is a deliberate attempt to create options and make a selective commitment from time to time. The evidence on the ACT presented in Section 4 suggests that some of the policies advocated in the international literature will have only a marginal impact in reducing transport vehicle emissions. For example, policies of increasing residential densities and, co-located land-use activities aimed to reduce travel distances and encourage active transport and the use of public transport are highly commendable but have been shown to be largely ineffective in the car-dependent Canberra context. The large investment in a network of metropolitan bicycle paths has failed to achieve modal split levels by cyclists that have been achieved in European cities.

In Australia, the current barriers to the take-up of electric vehicles are well documented, but these are solvable problems in the short term where the future may unfold as described by Compostella and others [130]. Whilst delivering long-term environmental benefits, the long-term transition to level 5, fully autonomous driving vehicles requires a fundamental re-think of road infrastructure design, signs, signals, and road markings (see, for example, [131]), of policy reform and regulations, and of the built form of urban areas to ensure multi-modal autonomous vehicles complement public transport to ensure a more sustainable city with fewer cars that are privately owned.

Future land-use, transport, and energy policies require that technological innovations, including improved autonomous driving systems with AI, are introduced and marketed by automotive manufacturers in a holistic way. One long-term pathway to net-zero emissions may be car manufacturers saturating the urban transport market with electric or hydrogen vehicles (although Toyota’s current strategy is to manufacture hybrid vehicles) and then turning their attention to manufacturing fully autonomous driving vehicles and penetrating international markets based on detailed business cases being validated. However, we believe that autonomous transport will only deliver social, economic, and environmental benefits when the private use of vehicles declines and networks of micro-mobility and autonomous public transport systems expand in low-density cities of the world.