The transport sector of any nation is central to driving its economic and social progress. It is the beneficiary of perpetual innovation and rapid growth while also being responsible for a significant chunk of global GHG emissions. Transport is both indispensable and constantly under examination, a key metric in determining and mitigating several global challenges that fall under the umbrella of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including climate change, road safety, energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructure and livable cities.

But a decade before the SDGs were ever a reality, a regional Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) forum was established in 2005 under the aegis of the UN Centre for Regional Development. Its aim was to set a series of goals at its annual high-level meetings for the transport sector across Asia, bringing together national governments with multiple line-ministries in their quest for more sustainable transport development. Over the years, EST’s goals have ranged from a focus on accessibility at national, rural and urban levels to environmental and economic sustainability. Such a forum, dedicated singularly to advancements in transport-oriented policies at a regional level, lent itself naturally to many of the areas that eventually found their way into the UN Sustainable Development Goals, announced in 2015; transport itself, however, did not get a dedicated standing among the SDGs. A recent Asian Development Bank (ADB) report called the transport sector the "missing piece" in the achievement of the SDGs, finding evidence that "providing a global agenda on sustainable transport can raise the sector's profile, unlock finance, and result in improved actions that benefit everyone."¹

The lack of transport as a separate SDG represents an egregious chasm in an agenda that is built, in many ways, upon the progress and successes of the transport sector. The EST forum has attempted to solve for that since its inception; however, in terms of gathering quantitative evidence and tracking goals, the sector remains woefully behind, and the significance of monitoring the achievements of the transport sector cannot be overstated.

EST and the need for tracking

The first pièce de résistance of the EST forum came in the year 2010, when the Bangkok Declaration of 2020 was announced—a series of ambitious goals towards "safe, secure, quick, reliable, affordable, efficient and people-centric and environment friendly transport in rapidly urbanizing Asia."²

The Declaration not only set the framework for sustainable transport goals for the next decade, it also identified a series of key performance indicators that participating nations may use to monitor EST goals, laying down the need for an effective data-gathering and tracking mechanism. However, since these were simply guidelines with no way of enforcing them, it fell on countries and regions to implement monitoring mechanisms themselves.

These loose directives don’t provide the cohesive guidance that the transport sector needs to achieve targets at the scale required. For instance, to asses the progress made by the countries participating in the Bangkok Declaration, states were encouraged to submit individual reports detailing their own activities, which turned out to be a "soft" accountability and progress monitoring mechanism at best. The need for something more robust has been imminent for a while now. The implementation of the Bangkok Declaration, for example, faced challenges that hindered "its impact, including conflicting transport policies between government agencies on the national and local level, marginalization of social equity issues in transport, political opposition to pricing reform, lack of ridership incentives, and weak traffic and parking regulation enforcement." Quite importantly, "the lack of comprehensive and consistent data also sets back the tracking and evaluation of the progress made under the Declaration."³

The Introduction of Aichi Declaration and the ATO

In 2020, the Asian Transport Observatory (formerly the Asian Transport Outlook) was initiated by the ADB as a knowledge database and, significantly, to use the data it has collected from countries across Asia (and the Pacific) to track the progress of the transport sector in order to support policy development and guide investments. Since the ATO's introduction, sectoral tracking has evolved. The ATO is being championed by the ADB and Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a sectoral instrument to track the SDGs, the Paris Agreement, and other transport-related international agreements. As a case in point, ATO's third and most recent Asia-specific report on the implementation of transport-related SDG targets brings together thirty-two indicators from official and non-official data sources for Asia and the Pacific region. This is the only instance where sectoral data from multiple sources is combined with policies to understand the progress made by the sector.

ATO is also tracking the EST forum’s second flagship long-term sustainable transport goals document, announced in 2021: the Aichi Declaration of 2030, drawn up to achieve "universally accessible, safe, affordable, efficient, resilient, clean and low-carbon passenger and freight transport in Asia."⁴ The Aichi 2030 Declaration laid out six goals for itself, making amply clear the significance of 1. Tracking the implementation of the six goals of the Aichi 2030 Declaration, 2. Tracking the 2030 goals on SDGs, and 3. Tracking of policies, institutional arrangements and funding in support of the Aichi 2030 Declaration. At the announcement of the Aichi 2030 Declaration, EST members acknowledged the need for substantial strengthening in the collection, documentation, and analysis of transport data and information on the transport sector in Asia. Towards that end, they welcomed the development of the ATO as an important player and a reference source in tracking the implementation of the six goals of the Aichi 2030 Declaration.⁵ ATO covers all EST member countries when collecting transport data and policy information.

What the Bangkok Declaration was lacking has been fulfilled by the presence of a strong monitoring mechanism like the ATO, and the results speak for themselves.

The High-Level 16th regional Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) forum in Asia took place in Manila, the Philippines, in December 2024. In his opening remarks, Dr. Haruhiko Hakuno, Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan, noted the importance of implementing and tracking the realization of the goals of the Aichi 2030 Declaration. Weeks before the meeting, the ATO had provided concise customised reports on the progress made by eighteen developing countries in Asia and the Pacific to their respective delegates for review and comments.⁶

Each regional EST forum is designed to review and discuss three goals from the Aichi 2030 Declaration, following a phased approach adopted by participating countries. At the 16th forum, the three areas of focus were air pollution, economic sustainability and urban access. The background papers on each of these issues, co-written by the ATO team, demonstrate the efficacious outcomes of the transport sector being tracked—countries are able to draw concise data from the metrics at their disposal and receive strong policy recommendations, opening them up to better investments and more informed policy decisions pertaining to the transport sector. Sri Lanka, for instance, credited the work done by the ATO in supporting the country’s policy framework for sustainable transport.

The Case for a Monitoring Apparatus for the UN Decade

In 2023, the UNGA declared the first ever United Nations Decade of Sustainable Transport (UN Decade), 2026–2035. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) has been tasked with preparing the implementation plan for the UN Decade in close collaboration with regional commissions and in consultation with member states, intergovernmental organizations and other relevant stakeholders. It is intended to be a global policy document to be prepared with existing resources. The precedent that the Aichi model of tracking the transport sector’s activities has set provides a unique opportunity for the UNDESA to construct a similar design in order to achieve the best results.

A formal tracking mechanism working in partnership with the UNDESA will not only result in better policy frameworks and investment opportunities, but it will also help with the creation of a knowledge base that can be accessed by all key stakeholders. Aichi’s existing tracking framework can be used as a strong jumping off point for the UNDESA in pursuit of its own.

Quantitative evidence and goal tracking are essential to highlight sustainable transport's contribution to issues like air pollution and the curbing of GHG emissions. The implementation plan of the UN Decade is expected to "serve as a strategic framework to coordinate actions, mobilize resources, and monitor progress towards sustainable transport worldwide,"⁷ intended to make the decade a revolutionary one for the transport sector. It goes without saying that the UNDESA has the perfect opportunity to establish the most vigorous data collection and tracking framework for such an undertaking.

The ATO experience highlights the effectiveness of a flexible yet rigorous monitoring approach, which involves integrating data from both official and unofficial sources, benchmarking progress against similar regions and sectors, and combining national and urban insights. By linking this data with relevant policies, countries can create a strong foundation for learning and adaptation. To ensure the integrity of the process, reporting should be regional, independent and unbiased.

As the SDGs, the UN Decade and the EST forum come together in this unique amalgamation, the role of a monitor becomes ever more significant. For example, ATO's 2024 report⁸ on transport in relation to the SDGs highlights the importance of certain opportunities that will benefit the 2030 goals, including increased investment in transport infrastructure, effectual policies to reduce fossil fuel subsidies and promote energy efficiency, adoption of reneweable energy and cleaner fuels, better data collection and monitoring of transport-related emissions, and ensuring that climate change and sustainability considerations are built into transport investment and planning from the very get-go.

Conclusion

Reliable data and analyses are key components in the growth of any industry. For a sector like transport, responsible for physically moving the whole world, data gathering and tracking becomes undeniable; an inevitable exercise on the basis of which the sector can effectively formulate policy and attract the necessary investments. Access to the right transport data can form the difference between a thriving, sustainable transport system and a congested, inefficient, and environmentally damaging one. The transport sector-shaped yawning hole in the SDGs cannot be filled, but its goals can be achieved via peripheral means. The EST forums and the Aichi 2030 Declaration will continue to do the work necessary to achieve their goals and support the SDGs, but the UN Decade presents the perfect opportunity for the UNESDA to learn from its regional colleagues and create a strong knowledge and tracking base to achieve the UN Decade's goals.