Introduction to the Handbook on Transport and Urban Transformation in China

Abstract

starts by a series of questions about contributing factors to China’s remarkable achievements in transportation infrastructure development, the resulting economic, social, and environmental effects, the existing problems and emerging challenges in transportation, as well as the implications for transnational learning and policy transfer. He then provides a summary and synthesis of the key findings presented in each of the four thematic parts of the book, and suggests that these findings can help address many important questions and inform transportation planning and policymaking in China. He also identifies some significant topics omitted from this edited volume, and provides a number of relevant thoughts and observations for interested readers. Qing Shen ends the chapter by offering exciting prospects for future research. He expects transportation researcher to play a critically important role in designing appropriate policies to steer the future development and deployment of technological and service innovations, as well as in exploring complemen-tary land use and travel demand management approaches for promoting sustainability. In light of China’s increasing prominence as a global citizen, he urges Chinese transportation researchers to become originators in transportation scholarship, creative designers of policy experiments, and effective facilitator of knowledge transfer.