Evaluating economic feasibility and technical progress of environmentally sustainable transport scenarios by a backcasting approach with ESCOT

The aim of the System Dynamics Model for Economic Assessment of Sustainability Policies of Transport (ESCOT) is to describe a path towards a sustainable transport system in Germany and to assess its economic impacts. ESCOT was developed within the environmentally sustainable transport ( EST) project of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that was designed to set up the ecological and technical framework of a transition towards sustainable transportation. ESCOT comprises five models: macroeconomic, transport, regional economic, environmental and policy. The economic assessment for environmentally sustainable scenarios shows that the departure from car- and road freight-oriented transport policy is far from leading to an economic breakdown. By expanding the period for the transition, even more encouraging economic results were derived. For the economic assessment, it is important that ESCOT considers not only first round effects, but also secondary effects. This ability makes ESCOT a powerful instrument for the assessment of such large system transitions.