An integrated sustainability appraisal methodology for transportation in rural tourism pressure areas

Rural tourism pressure areas like Geirangerfjord, Flåm and Lofoten represent a unique challenge in transportation planning due to high seasonal fluctuations in requirements to transportation systems. These remote but honeypot areas have the combined problem of peripherality and congestion. In peak periods, traffic jams and visible local pollution are imminent problems. In a broader time-perspective, degradation of the environmental quality and scenic beauty of the areas are critical concerns. Policymakers and other stakeholders need to consider possible measures connected to sustainable transportation systems in these areas, seeing various modes of transportation in context and assessing both social, economic and environmental impacts. The aim of the SUSTRANS project has been to assist decision-makers in improving transportation systems in rural tourism pressure areas, using the Geiranger World Heritage area as a case study. The project has resulted in new analysis and decision support models to evaluate transport systems in nature-based tourist destinations. Models have been developed in close collaboration with decision makers, stakeholders and experts to explore current transportation system decision problems. The project has been led by NTNU and done in collaboration with Volda University College, Sintef and Bonn University. The has been financed by The Research Council of Norway under the Transport 2025 program and was performed in the period 2017-2020. The project outputs encompass key performance indicators (KPIs), portfolio of improvement measures, transportation model and decision models for rural tourism pressure areas. By combining social, environmental, engineering and economic sciences, a complete decision support tool has been provided to support sustainability appraisals in transportation system planning. The project has been executed in three phases. The first phase of the project produced a rich problem structure to understand and organize challenges in the current transportation system, possible improvement measures and performance indicators to evaluate problem solutions. This was done through document analysis, stakeholder and decision maker interviews, video-based traffic counting and two surveys to map travel behavior and preferences for visitors during peak season. The second phase of the project produced new decision support models for evaluating impacts of sea- and land-based traffic in nature-based tourist destinations. The models permit evaluating alternative transport system measures with respect to multiple sustainability impacts. A parameterized land-traffic model is used to compute transport work from tourism activities, and furthermore obtain transport generated emissions as well as identify congestion on road links in the system. The model also has a sea-traffic module, which estimates transport work generated on land from sea transport such as e.g. cruise activities. Multi-criteria decision models are furthermore developed for comparative sustainability evaluations of transport system measures. Two models are developed i) an index-based scoring system for port authorities in sea-traffic planning, and ii) two stochastic multi-criteria analysis models to collectively appraise multiple measures in the entire transport system. The third phase of the project models have been combined and applied to explore real-life case studies in the area. This has been done to test and validate models and further generate new knowledge to support transportation planning. An analysis of alternative scenarios for achieving zero emissions in the Geirangerfjord UNESCO World Heritage Site by 2026 was performed in digital decision laboratories during 2020. In addition, a digital twin visualization of the scenarios was developed to support communication of the case study to stakeholders and decision-makers during the case study.

Den akademiske virkning av prosjektet er bedre forståelse for transportsystemer i områder som karakteriseres av i) store fluktuasjoner i transportbehov over tid og ii) dynamikk mellom transport på sjø og land. Videre har også prosjektet generert ny kunnskap rundt håndtering av bærekraftsaspekter ved transportplanlegging i sårbare områder ut fra perspektivet til ulike interessentgrupper. Prosjektet har også bidratt til økt tverrfaglig samarbeid for bærekraftig samfunnsutvikling, blant annet gjennom etablering av forskningsarenaen Sustainability Analytics ved NTNU i Ålesund. Gjennom prosjektperioden har en rekke sentrale aktører fra lokalt, regionalt og nasjonalt næringsliv og forvaltning blitt direkte involvert. Gjennom dette samarbeid har prosjektet bidratt til å utvikle en helhetlig forståelse for bærekraftig transportplanlegging. Samarbeidet videreføres i flere nye prosjekter.

Rural tourism pressure areas (like Geiranger, Flåm and Lofoten) are a challenge in transportation planning as requirements to the transportation system has seasonal variations and may thus not be considered properly through classical rural nor urban models. In these icons of Norwegian tourism, traffic congestion and local pollution are immanent problems. Policymakers and other stakeholders need to consider possible measures connected to sustainable transportation systems in these areas, seeing various modes of transportation in context and assessing both social, economic and environmental impact. There is however currently little agreement between multiple stakeholders at different levels, neither about the nature of the problem nor about expedient solutions. With this background the primary goal of the project is to develop an integrated sustainability appraisal methodology for transportation in rural tourism pressure areas. This will be achieved through the integration of stakeholder involvement, transport modeling and systems engineering The appraisal methodology will result in models, methods and tools that enables decision-makers to evaluate the impacts of transportation improvement measures on various aspects of sustainability. It will link these impacts to various stakeholder groups and also illustrate the attractiveness of various measures. Furthermore, it will elaborate on uncertainties and potential long-term effects of transportation measures and interventions based on scenarios and stochastic models for technological, regulatory and market developments. Geiranger World Heritage area is used as a case in the project, thus pressing challenges for Norwegian tourism are directly addressed.