Notes

These are the definitions, methods and qualifications behind the tables and figures on new.waterroads.global. Each note says where on the site it applies. Nothing here is new — it is the working behind what the pages state.

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Note 1 — What this list is not

Applies to: Cities, What this list is not

Appearing on this page, at any level, is not an offer, an invitation, or an acceptance. A status shown below is a stage in Water Roads’ own assessment process, not a commitment by the city, and a city’s absence from the table means nothing about whether Water Roads would consider it.

Water Roads started with the C40 Cities network because it is a published, credible list of cities with climate commitments — not because it is a boundary. Any city can be put forward through the form, whether or not it is a C40 member.

Appearing on the reference list means a city is a current C40 member and nothing more. The list assigns no status, records no contact and reports no screening result. Tri-City is the working example: not currently a C40 member, yet among the cities under assessment.

Water Roads has opened a candidature for five cities: Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Tri-City and Lagos. The reference list is current C40 membership and nothing more. A status describes where a city’s own assessment stands, so two cities can share a status while only one has a candidature open.

A status shown for a city on this page appears only once that city’s own transport officials have seen it.

Note 3 — How the assessment rank is worked out (method t49-1)

Applies to: Cities, Cities under assessment

Rank is worked out in two tiers, not assigned by hand. Tier one is every candidature with a target date for its first route to start, ranked earliest date first. Tier two is every candidature with no date yet, ranked by level of assessment reached, highest level first, and sits below every tier-one city.

The levels run, lowest to highest: Assessment pending, then Nominated, then Proposal requested, then In negotiation, then In approvals, then Approved by Water Roads. Additional proposal requested is not a level of its own — it is further work a city carries alongside its current level, as Sydney does.

A target start date is planned, not committed, and moves if the plan moves — ranks one and two rest entirely on those two dates. A level of assessment can also change, and a tier-two rank moves with it.

Two cities at the same level of assessment, with no date to separate them, share a rank, shown below with “=”. The rank after a shared one skips ahead by however many cities shared it — there is no tiebreak, and sharing a rank is not a judgement that one city is ahead of the other.