This scoping study will report on a literature and practice review of Australian policies relating to urban planning and public health, and provide information on current (ie baseline) levels of active transport usage in Australia’s major cities (using available data from the Household Travel Surveys (HTS) for those cities). This is a first step in the CRCLCL’s research on the development of a cobenefits calculator, which will account for health and associated productivity co-benefits from environmental modifications designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The output from this scoping study will be a comprehensive report on current Australian policies for urban planning and health, at national, state and regional levels and information on current levels of active transport usage in metropolitan areas. The focus of this review will be on the extent to which the current policies indicate the adoption of, or interest in, a co-benefits framework and their potential to do so if this has not yet occurred. This scoping study will provide the basis for future research projects (e.g. RP2013) aimed expressly at determining the economic co-benefits (in improved health and productivity) from low carbon precinct planning and design.