Case Study:

SPARTACUS

Context

The SPARTACUS project was initiated in 1996 by a consortium of regional planning agencies and consultants in Europe. Its purpose is to assess the sustainability implications of urban land use and transport policies. The approach taken by the SPARTACUS project team was to develop a modeling system for forecasting various indicators of sustainability, and to apply this modeling system to three typical European cities. Their objectives were twofold: first, to compare the effects of similar policies in different cities; and second, to demonstrate technical methods that can be applied locally to test policies in other cities.

Funded in part by the European Commission under its Environment and Climate Programme and in part by local agencies, the SPARTACUS projects reflect a growing interest in Europe in developing indicators of sustainability and measuring progress on those indicators. Consistent with the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, all European Union member states have committed themselves to preparing national strategies for sustainable development and to submit progress reports to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.

The SPARTACUS project team measured "sustainability" through a variety of environmental, social, and economic indicators. The team recognized that they could not measure the sustainability of an urban area in an absolute sense. Nonetheless, they could measure progress on a variety of indicators. From this perspective, progress toward sustainability can be viewed as maximizing social and economic benefits while at the same time minimizing negative environmental impacts and meeting desired social objectives.

The range of indicators (or impacts) tested by the project is relatively comprehensive and includes:

Travel times and accessibility;
Emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases;
Exposure to pollutants and noise by socioeconomic group;
Traffic deaths and injuries;
Land coverage and land use by area;
Resource consumption; and
Economic impacts.

The range of policies tested in the SPARTACUS project includes:

Different types of transportation network and other investments;
Demand management;
Various automobile and transit pricing strategies; and
Land use strategies such as restrictions on outlying land development and redistribution of commercial activities.

Three test cities were selected: Helsinki, Finland; Naples, Italy; and Bilbao, Spain. These areas were selected because of the interest of local partners, the availability of data and modeling tools, and because they represent a diversity of environmental and policy settings. The test city, or regional or national authorities, participated in the project by financing a portion of the work or by participating as a Client-Partner. Client-Partners contributed to developing the system, formulating the indicators, selecting policies for testing, and participating in the definition of weights and value functions for the indicators.

The consortium that conducted the project includes LT Consultants Ltd, Finland; Marcial Echenique & Partners Ltd, UK; Marcial Echenique y Compania SA, Spain; TRT Trasporti e Territorio srl, Italy; and the Institut fur Raumplanung, Universitat Dortmund, Germany. Further work is now underway to expand the SPARTACUS methodology to additional European cities.

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