Abstract
Efforts toward a low-emission economy constitute a common challenge for Polish cities. Solutions are being sought to support Polish, medium-sized cities, that is, cities with about 140,000 inhabitants, to implement and develop low-carbon energy in their public transport systems. This paper proposes and explores a sustainable urban development card for a Polish city, namely, Zielona Góra, the use of which will enable the effects of a public transport system using low-carbon energy to be monitored. This research was based on the two main areas of analysis of a system of low-carbon energy and public transport and were formulated as: (1) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and (2) Indicators of the Satisfaction Rate of Public Transport Passengers (SPTP). This paper used literature studies to determine SDGs as well a questionnaire-cum-survey, which was conducted on a sample of 1022 public transport passengers in Zielona Góra, Poland, to determine SPTP. The results were verified by a real case study of a Polish city, which, in 2019, had the largest fleet of electric buses in Poland; a statistical analysis was also conducted using correlation coefficients. It was determined that the proposed approach allows for low carbon energy public transport to be constantly monitored and analyzed. In the long run, this could be a good benchmark as to how cities might improve their level of sustainability.