نوآوری غیر تکنولوژیکی برای حمل و نقل پایدار

Because they are subject to economic but also to environmental and social pressures, transport companies are forced to innovate. These innovations are commonly focused on technologies to improve fuel economy and ultimately transform the energy basis of transport. Our purpose is to focus on non-technological innovations for sustainable transport, i.e., a more environmentally and socially friendly transport, in order to provide a taxonomy of trajectories of them, which contribute cost-effectively to this transport. To achieve this objective, first, we base this on a conception of transport not only as a manufacturing industry, but also as a service industry. And, second, we use the data from the European project on transport: CANTIQUE. At the end of our study, we conclude that there is not a single trajectory of non-technological innovation for sustainable transport, but a variety and that each of them has a particular logic.

Managing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transport is a priority. According to the European Commission [1], an increase of 74% is projected for GHG emissions from the EU transport between 1990 and 2050. If we examine the global emissions of CO2 by transport mode, we could note that the emissions from light‐duty vehicles dominate and are projected to continue to dominate, but that growth rates in road freight transport and in aviation are equally large. To curb the expected growth in these emissions, transport policies promote innovation but, generally, only technological innovation. For example, the last International Transport Forum [2], which brings together Ministers, leading decision-makers and thinkers, emphasises technological improvements as the core of the climate change policy in the transport sector. The technological innovations that improve fuel economy and transform the energy basis of transport are essential for GHG abatement. But these innovations must not obscure the role of non-technological innovations in reducing emissions. For example, innovations in traffic management or “green logistics” [3] are non-technological innovations that could reduce emissions related to road transport. Compared to technological innovations, non-technological innovations are less visible. Perhaps this is why politicians prefer technological innovations rather than non-technological innovations. But the latter also contribute towards the abatement of environmental problems caused by transport. Moreover, non-technological innovations are generally less expensive than the others. Thus, for example, RAND Europe [4] shows that non-technical innovations may contribute cost-effectively to reducing transport emissions. In consequence, non-technological innovations in transport must be taken seriously. This article will focus on non-technological innovations for sustainable transport. It is not easy to define non-technological innovation. The second edition of the Oslo Manual thus offers a definition of non-technological innovation by stating the negative: “non-technological innovation covers all innovation activities which are excluded from technological innovation” [5]. Technological innovation itself is defined as “the introduction of a technologically new or substantially changed good or service or the use of a technologically new or substantially changed process” [5]. This being the case, the Oslo Manual reduces non-technological innovations to two categories: organisational innovations and managerial innovations. These innovations consist of: “the implementation of advanced management techniques, e.g., TQM, TQS; the introduction of significantly changed organisational structures; and the implementation of new or substantially changed corporate strategic orientations” [5]. The third edition of the Oslo Manual tries to differentiate these two kinds of innovation. Thus it suggests defining a marketing innovation as “the implementation of a new marketing method involving significant changes in product design or packaging, product placement, product promotion or pricing” and an organisational innovation as “the implementation of a new organisational method in the firm's business practices, workplace organisation or external relations” [6]. Even if they are no longer described as such, these two kinds of innovation always refer to non-technological innovations, whereas the other two kinds of innovation, “product innovations and process innovations, are closely related to the concept of technological product innovation and technological process innovation” [6]. Yet classifying all the non-technological innovations into only two categories can prove to be difficult. For example, an innovation in how a company's after-sales service functions has as much to do with commercial innovation as with organisational innovation. Consequently we will not follow the non-technological typology proposed by the Oslo Manual, which we believe is not precise enough, but by one of the typologies offered by studies which deal with innovation in services. These studies naturally address the question of non-technological innovation to the extent that the services sector is a sector of low technological intensity. One could make a particular reference to the functional analysis of innovation, which has two advantages. Firstly, it offers a precise breakdown of non-technological innovations. Secondly, the functional analysis allows a dynamic vision of innovation by combining different functional innovations in a “trajectory”. However, we should add that the existence of an irreducible minimum of technology in the services sector will prevent us from identifying the trajectories of “pure” non-technological innovations. So the expression “trajectories of non-technological innovations” should be understood as “trajectories of mainly non-technological innovations” in the rest of the article. The article's aim is to suggest a taxonomy of non-technological innovation trajectories for “sustainable transport”. By the latter expression, we refer to a transport, “that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, to repeat the formula of the Brundtland Commission [7]. In other words, a sustainable transport is a transport, which seeks to limit its negative effects on the environment and society.1 The innovations in favour of sustainable transport are varied, in particular because of the diversity of transport activity: passenger transport, freight transport… Consequently, a taxonomy of trajectories of these innovations could help the authorities to decide when implementing innovation policies to support sustainable transport. From a methodological viewpoint, this taxonomy will on the one hand rely on a preliminary re-assessment of the concept of transport. Indeed, in order to consider non-technological innovations in transport, it is necessary to re-assess this activity. This should be considered not only as an industrial activity but also as a service activity in order to be able to understand the innovations, which do not relate either to the product or the process. In contrast the taxonomy will be based on the results of the CANTIQUE (Concerted Action on Non-Technical Measures and their Impact on Air Quality and Emissions) project, which assess the effectiveness of non-technical innovations, based on a detailed review of past and present European experiences, and on the analysis and interpretation of results achieved so far. Consequently, the article is structured in several sections. Section 2 will review the literature and explain the theoretical background. After a brief outline of sustainable transport and innovation (Section 2.1), we will look at the foundations of the non-technological innovations for sustainable transport (Section 2.2). Section 3 will draw up a typology of trajectories of transport innovation. Section 4 will present the CANTIQUE project. Section 5 will apply the taxonomy previously set out to the results of the CANTIQUE project and will try to provide reasons for the dominance of some trajectories of non-technological innovation over others in sustainable transport. Section 6 concludes with a summary of the key arguments and a proposed agenda for public decision-makers to develop non-technological innovations in transport.

6.1. Summary of results Innovations for sustainable transport are plural: technological but also non-technological. It is the latter type of innovation on which we focus and which we try to reclassify. To do this, we proceed in the following way. First, in Section 2, we review the literature on sustainable transport and explain the theoretical foundations of the non-technological innovations for sustainable transport. Because of the service specificities of transport, in Section 3, we draw up a typology of forms of transport innovation based on the economics of services. Thanks to this approach, we are able to address the question of non-technological innovation in the transport sector, on the one hand in a more detailed way than that proposed by the Oslo Manual, and on the other hand in a dynamic way through the concept of “trajectories of innovation”. In Section 4, we present the results of the CANTIQUE project. Finally, in Section 5, we identify several non-technological innovation trajectories. Because they mainly are organisational, these trajectories of innovations consist of reorganising the routines and procedures for the behaviour of transport users. This typology of sustainable transport trajectories of innovation gives a coherent description of the changes that the freight and logistics sector has undergone in the past 25 years — from moving heavy goods from A to B to managing complex logistic systems, including a rising share of information flows. 6.2. Policy implications and further research We focus on the non-technological trajectories of innovation, because they seem to be the most promising for sustainable transport and thus they would be taken seriously by public decision-makers. However, that does not mean that the authorities should neglect technological innovations. These two types of innovation should be combined. Yet public decision-makers will doubtless still continue for some time to favour technological innovations to deal with the environmental and social problems posed by transport today. It will be difficult to change the situation just by using the argument we have observed of the correspondence between the innovation trajectories and the current development of transport. But, linked to the argument of a lower monetary cost, it will certainly elicit a favourable response from public decision-makers. Because of the innovations contained in the CANTIQUE project, the taxonomy was applied to non-technological innovations, of the top-down type, focused on the environmental dimension of sustainable transport. It would be interesting to broaden the range of innovations to the economic and social aspects of sustainable transport and to apply the taxonomy to a lot of innovations of a bottom-up type. What would be the trajectories followed by the bottom-up innovations? One could suppose that the prevailing trajectories of these innovations are of organisational form again. This form is an answer to the pressure from shippers and the transformation of modes of production, in particular the development of more flexible modes of production, which rely heavily on flexible logistic systems and information flows [88]. However, it is not obvious that the companies are committed to innovations that seek to promote the different facets of sustainable transport. Admittedly companies can consider the objective of sustainable transport to be a commercial argument, which allows them to improve their profitability, and for this reason it can be pursued by the private sector. However, these innovations, which have a private origin, only necessarily affect some aspects of sustainable transport. It is not in a company's interest to develop major innovations, which respond to the environmental and social problems posed by transport. Only the State, driven by public interest, can develop such innovations. Examining the different non-technological innovations reveals the predominant significance of organisational innovations. By their nature, these innovations seem to be well adapted to the complex character of sustainability. But these innovations mean long processes that are likely to encounter many obstacles. These obstacles include costs but also resistance to change, a lack of time (notably management time), or the lack of qualifications. As shown by the works of Mohnen et al. [89] and Galia et al. [90] these barriers can be interdependent and can reinforce each other. It is also against these organisational inflexibilities that the authorities must fight. What also emerges from this typology is that the share of informational and relational innovations remains still too weak. Let us take the second innovation. It is surely not easier to develop an innovation consisting of dealing with the behaviour of a passenger or a freight transporter. However, there are several relational innovations, like the establishment of a new policy of freight logistics (new method of traceability launched…), that are in favour of sustainable transport, insofar as they involve the creation of new partnerships within the supply chain. Thus, the relational innovation that may be a source of non-technological innovations capable of promoting sustainable transport, that remains unexploited by the authorities. The latter could make more use of the individual transport user or the company to be the very support for innovations. For example, it would be a question of developing new user behaviour, a new offer of logistical services upstream and downstream of the supply chain. This source of innovations would merit all the more attention since it is cost efficient, as it involves technical mediums to a certain extent.