Applicability of Existing Public Transport Sustainability Indicators to Norwegian Small Cities and Towns

World-wide, developed countries tend to have a higher share of transport related emissions. In Norway, approximately one third of transport emissions are connected to passenger cars. With most inhabitants living in small cities and towns that have low population densities and high car dependency, and having made passenger transport decarbonization a national priority, there is a need to account for the success or failure of implemented sustainable transport solutions in Norway.Research on sustainable transport and indicators to measure its development tends to focus on large cities raising the question if indicators defined for large cities fit to the realities of smaller urban settlements?The present research challenges the applicability of transport sustainability indicators, selected from international schemes, to the evaluation of public transport sustainability in small cities and towns. The region of Agder, Norway was chosen as a case study and a workshop involving local transport planners was organized for this purpose. The results of the workshop show that many indicators proposed by international schemes were evaluated as having little applicability in small cities and towns. Therefore, a real need of adapting sustainable transport indicators schemes to the realities and requirements of these urban forms exists.