TOD does not exclusively concern transport planning but also aims to create mixed use and mix-income communities which have a moderate to high density of people living in them.The primary goals for TOD is to have leisure areas and both public and private services within a 10-minute cycling radius of the development and access to public transport within a 10-minute walking radius. These aims, when combined together, can reduce the car dependence of the transport sector, resulting in reduced CO2 output, as well as facilitating a more integrated community through improved local amenities and services.

Such a reduction in car dependence will be necessary in achieving transport related climate targets. Furthermore, building compact urban areas helps discourage sparse development and urban sprawl. The success of this measure will depend on the existing spatial structure of the urban area and the capacity and cost for developmental change. As well as being slower and more costly, TOD will be less effective in an existing, low-density, polycentric city with dispersed travel patterns, than if implemented in a monocentric city with strong radial travel patterns.

This measure is generally implemented at the local authority level. However, given the likely distances travelled between origins and destinations it may be necessary for several local authorities to collaborate, or for a national body to intervene and coordinate. Unfortunately, given that it can take several years for land use developments and transport infrastructure projects to go from the planning stages to the implementation stage, it is likely that any potential TOD policy measures will take some time to implement and for the benefits to be realised. TOD ought to be looked at as a solution and approach for the future development and planning of cities and towns, and provide a framework for how towns should be built rather than a system which can be adopted to patch up issues that currently exist in populated areas. However The National Economic and Social Council, recognize that the construction of Metrolink and BusConnects will make TOD possible in Dublin with Metrolink providing a 2.5km corridor either side of the proposed route amounting to 10,000 hectares of mixed housing and mixed-use development land. (NESC, 2019)

Costs incurred for TOD projects include pre-construction planning and consulting costs as well as investment, and capital costs. While ostensibly expensive, the costs of projects such as the Metrolink are necessary infrastructural investments justified under the National Planning Frameworks (NPF) which has the desired outcomes of sustainable mobility and regional accessibility. The NPF is also targeted at ensuring compact growth and the transition to a low-carbon society. As such, expenditure related specifically to TOD can make the initial investment more efficient and productive.

Benefits of TOD include achieving these NPF objectives, such as achieving a more sustainable commuting design while at the same time cutting down on CO2 emissions through a modal shift in commuting patterns. Other potential benefits include improved health and well-being, reduced urban sprawl, as well as the increased property values of homes local enough to benefit from the transport installation. Peterson (2009) argues that this value can be captured and used to fund TOD through a mechanism of tax or fee-based instruments.