Thesis (MPhil (Sustainable Development Planning and Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / Globally, transport and its associated ills are creating urban landscapes that can best be described as unhealthy, unfriendly and unsustainable. The unsustainable nature of current transportation practices are most keenly displayed in four key areas, namely: the pending oil peak; global climate change; environmental degradation and social deprivation. South Africa is no exception to these impacts, but also suffers an extra disadvantage of demonstrating very little knowledge of more sustainable transportation option in terms of its planning regime. This study endeavours to improve the state of sustainability in transportation planning by developing a user-friendly and pragmatic transportation sustainability appraisal mechanism and testing this mechanism on a real-life case. In order to develop such an appraisal mechanism, the theory of sustainable development is firstly examined to provide direction to the study, followed by an attempt to distil the most pertinent principles of sustainable transport from the literature. These principles form the objectives which the appraisal mechanism aims to measure sustainability against. Owing to the poor level of awareness regarding sustainable transport practices in South Africa, a discussion on selected benchmark sustainable transport practices is also included in the study and consequently added to the appraisal mechanism. To test its operability, the appraisal mechanism is finally applied to Cape Town’s Draft Integrated Transport Plan (ITP) 2006-2011. The study indicates that the ITP is a reasonably sustainable transport plan, with the exception of its affordability and public participation aspects. These exceptions are attributed to the ITP either not properly addressing these aspects, or due to the ITP not providing enough information on these aspects. Finally, the study found that the developed appraisal mechanism is operable in the field of transportation planning, but suggests that the mechanism be further developed and refined to improve its value and effectiveness. A transdisciplinary process involving the input of community stakeholders and specialists is identified as major area for such development / Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies