The ways in which human mobilities are viewed have undergone profound changes. Many government measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic were designed to discourage and even stop people from travelling.

UNESCAP has developed The Sustainable Urban Transport Index (SUTI) to help summarize, track and compare the performance of Asian cities in regards to sustainable urban transport and the related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), more specifically target 11.2.

Urban India, particularly metros, is a major hotspot of air pollution with a PM2.5 concentration level ranging above the permissible limits defined by the WHO for most of the year. Unsurprisingly, special efforts have been made by the Government of India in recent years to improve air quality.

The Transport and Communication Bulletin for Asia and the Pacific is a peer-reviewed journal that is published once a year by the Transport Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating impacts on cities – putting unprecedented pressure on municipal budgets and public services, exacerbating inequalities and revealing their extreme fragility to shocks.

Overall, Metro Manila’s total SUTI score is relatively high compared to other Asian cities. The public transport system of the Philippines is relatively unique in the sense that majority of its public transport systems are run as small to medium-scale operators (such as bus, jeepney) which have fixed routes and well-defined fare structure.

Urban transport is a significant contributor to climate-warming greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in cities, with most urban transport emissions coming from cars. More than seventy percent of global carbon dioxide emissions come from cities, making mitigation efforts at the local level an important contributor to decarbonization.

This module explores the impact wreaked by extreme weather events on cities and their transport networks and means by which resilience can be built up against the increasing frequency and intensity of these events.

This report is the synthesis of the key findings and recommendations of the studies carried out under the World Bank’s Ethiopia AQM ASA program. The rest of the report is organized as follows.

Welcome to Mobility and Development: Innovations, Policies, and Practices, an online periodical launched by the World Bank's Transport Global Practice to disseminate policy-oriented and practice-ready publications affecting the transport sector worldwide.