Methodological Framework for Defining the Sustainability Management Process for Urban Mobility Systems Based on System Engineering

Abstract

Current urban mobility trends go beyond infrastructure investments and integrating new technologies, reflecting new user requirements and regulations, and the increasingly rigorous and sustainable governance. Designing an urban mobility system and assessing its sustainability require a flexible holistic approach considering the complete life cycle of the system and interdependencies between its components. This paper proposes a novel methodological framework based on system engineering tools, aimed at helping public authorities designing and deploying new urban projects, accounting for the entire life cycle of the mobility system, evolving requirements of users, and sustainability. The main goal is to validate the proposed framework by simulations. A realistic case study employing the new framework showed its advantages, consisting of solving problems in a manner comparable to other methodologies, but adding flexibility in managing different data inaccessible to urban managers before allowing for defining effective urban mobility policies.