Sustainable Mobility Project Research Articles

Measuring the impacts of participatory citizen science: lessons from the WeCount sustainable mobility project

WeCount was designed to empower citizens in five case studies across Europe to take a leading role in the production of data, evidence, knowledge and solutions for local sustainable mobility. This practice insight aims to explore the suitability and value of citizen science to address sustainable mobility and sustainable transport issues. The evaluation showed that WeCount was able to reach and sustain engagement with broad demographics in society and highlighted the importance of co-design in making citizen science enjoyable and empowering. Statistical significance was found: the more a citizen enjoyed their time, the more likely they were to state they would continue working with the data beyond the project. Moreover, WeCount citizens reported that participation led to action and/or changes in behaviours. While the numbers are modest (24 individual actions by around 10% of participants), this is an important, measurable outcome.

Інституційні та нормативно-правові аспекти регулювання сталої міської мобільності

The article is devoted to the analysis of the institutional and legal aspects of regulating sustainable urban mobility, which is an important element of modern urban policy. Sustainable urban mobility aims to create efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly transport systems that contribute to improving the quality of life of urban residents and ensuring sustainable urban development. The article examines key institutional aspects, including the role of government authorities at the national and local levels, mechanisms for coordination between various stakeholders, and financial institutions that support the development of transport projects. Legal aspects are considered in terms of the legislative framework and regulatory tools governing the transport system. The analysis includes laws and regulations that prioritize environmentally friendly types of transport, regulate emissions, ensure road safety, and set standards for public transport. The article also explores the implementation of innovative technologies in the field of urban mobility, such as electric vehicles, shared transport systems, and intelligent transport systems. The importance of regulatory support for the development of innovations, including standardization and certification of new technologies, is emphasized. Public involvement in the decision-making process is another important aspect discussed in the article. Mechanisms for holding public consultations, taking residents' opinions into account, and ensuring transparency in the implementation of sustainable mobility projects are highlighted. It can be concluded that institutional and legal aspects are crucial for the successful implementation of sustainable urban mobility. They provide the necessary foundation for a comprehensive approach to urban mobility management, coordination of actions by various stakeholders, and the creation of legal conditions for the development of environmentally friendly, safe, and efficient transport systems in cities. These measures contribute to improving the quality of life of citizens, reducing the negative impact of transport on the environment, and ensuring sustainable urban development.

Social Justice at the Centre of Sustainable Projects Evaluation

This article puts into the spotlight a discussion on the transition towards climate change, by placing social justice at the centre of sustainable mobility projects evaluation. Until now, policies that seek to tackle climate change have disregarded the social component of sustainability. By undertaking a thorough literature research, we bring the discussion of Just Transition forward. Moreover, we examine climate actions through different perspectives which have been implemented at different levels: national, regional, or at local level. Through the previous analysis, we call for another vision of project appraisal in terms of just transition model.

Gender-based violence and Women’s mobility, findings from a medium-sized Colombian city: A quantitative approach

Gendered mobility has attempted to understand the way in which mobility and gender are constantly shaped and built through travel choices, behaviors, and transport planning. This study sought to find a relationship between gender-based violence (sexual and street harassment and sexual abuse and assault) in mobility throughout Manizales, a medium-sized Colombian city, considering all modes of transport (walking, biking, driving private cars, motorcycles, and using public transit). Moreover, to measure the changes in travel choice and behaviors caused by violent incidents, a self-reported survey was designed and applied, through a mix of electronic and physical questionnaires, administered to users in Manizales. Furthermore, a chi-squared statistical test was conducted, so as to understand the relationships between variables, especially gender. Women reported higher incident rates of gender-based violence thana men, as experienced in modes of transport such as public transit, walking, and bike riding. Women also tended to use private modes of transport (cars, motorcycles, or taxicabs) because of gender-based violence incidents. Those incidents limit individuals’ rights to the city, as well as access to opportunities. If decision-makers want to implement successful, sustainable mobility projects, they must guarantee users' safety, as violent situations could boost changes in favor of private modes of transport, such as cars and motorcycles. Future investigations should consider minority groups, like LGBTIQ + communities, as they experience more dangerous cases of gender-based violence and discrimination in cities.

Bike mobilities, democratic revival and the local fix

This article explores the local political strategies associated with the implementation of sustainable bike policies in southern European cities. It combines geographical concepts and methods , on the one hand, and sustainable policy studies on the other hand, with the aim of highlighting the specificities of the Mediterranean political context of mobility transition. Using Valencia as a case study, it shows that tactical urbanism is being used to put sustainable mobilities on the local agenda. This justifies and embodies a change in municipal policy and politics after a decade of crisis. Sustainable mobility projects materialise and spatialise, in various ways, democratic values within public space. The article therefore studies the strategies employed to mark the urban territory with green mobility infrastructures (part 1); it reveals the construction of a discursive space that polarises local debates (part 2); it describes the symbolic reintegration of Valencia into a network of model cities (part 3). Such a strategy does not create an effective Mediterranean model of the cycle-friendly city, because it does not modify the structural organisation of space or the social representations that underpin current mobility practices (part 4).

A scenario simulation approach for sustainable mobility project evaluation based on fuzzy cognitive maps

Sustainability evaluation of new urban mobility projects is a challenging decision due to the presence of multiple objectives (social, economic, environmental), limited data availability, presence of multiple stakeholders, and specific context of each city. Scenario modeling and simulation is a useful tool to address such situations. In this paper, we present a fuzzy cognitive mapping-based scenario simulation approach for evaluating sustainable mobility projects. Linguistic assessments and fuzzy set theory are used to address the uncertainty arising from lack of quantitative data. The criteria for sustainability evaluation are obtained using fuzzy Delphi technique. A numerical application is provided for the city of Luxemburg. The strength of the proposed approach is the ability to aid in decision-making of new sustainable mobility project evaluation and selection under limited or no quantitative data availability. In addition, it is able to deal with multiple, co-related and conflicting criteria in evaluation.

A goal-oriented approach based on fuzzy axiomatic design for sustainable mobility project selection

ABSTRACTSustainable mobility project evaluation is a challenging problem for transportation decision-makers. The specific context of each city, involvement of multiple objectives of stakeholders, governmental priorities, uncertainty about evaluation process and metrics combined with lack of quantitative data make the problem challenging. Existing techniques for project selection often ignore proximity of criteria scores to targets values (or goals) which can lead to sub-optimal solutions. In this paper, we propose a goal-oriented approach based on fuzzy axiomatic design for prioritising sustainable mobility projects. The criteria (attributes) for sustainability evaluation are generated using affinity diagram technique. Fuzzy Delphi technique is used to rate the criteria and the alternatives. The final rankings for the urban mobility projects are generated using fuzzy axiomatic design and the best project(s) are chosen for implementation. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to determine the influence of variation in input parameters on stability of model results. A numerical application for ranking of three sustainable mobility projects in the context of city of Luxembourg is provided.

The Enhancement of the Urban Environment: Sustainable Mobility in Reggio Calabria

The proposal of a sustainable mobility project for the use of assets requires evaluations regarding the balances that regulate the territory and its functions that necessarily involve the introduction of the concept of quality. The efficiency of public transport and collective services, the well-kept historical center, the suburbs integrated and connected with the entire city, a strong morphological and cultural identity of the settlement, are, on the whole, the results that a careful project of the territory should be able to achieve. This contribution intends to deal with the issue of public mobility and accessibility in a view of territorial development linked to the use of the urban area asset of Reggio Calabria.

Development and Implementation of an Audit Tool for the Pedestrian Built Environment

This study presents the development and implementation of an audit tool for the pedestrian built environment in the framework of walkability and sustainable mobility. The audit tool was implemented across eight main, collector and local streets in the city of Volos, Greece. The audit tool consists of two checklists: one for the road segments and one for the crosswalks. Four suitably trained auditors formed the auditor's team. In the first step of the study the auditors charted the pedestrian infrastructure, took photos of the built environment and created a drawing where they noticed the photos with their identification codes. In the second step, they implemented separately the audit tool for each road segment and crosswalk for both sides of the streets during normal traffic flow and under good weather conditions. In the third step, the auditors formed a join checklist, wrote the audit report and noticed on the drawing the pedestrian mobility problems according to the join checklist codes. The final step of the study was the proposition of remedial actions in order to improve the pedestrian mobility and walkability across the examined streets. This audit tool can help engineers and decision makers not only audit the pedestrian built environment but also design and construct one. Especially in municipalities with low budget available in sustainable mobility projects, this low cost audit tool can upgrade the walkability level of their city.

Policy options for transport to reduce CO2 and tropospheric ozone

The Sustainable Mobility project, a national program conducted in Belgium in 1991-2001, focussed on the possibilities to reduce carbon dioxide and tripospheric ozone. Discussed are the twelve policy options within transport that were selected and evaluated on their effectivity to reduce emissions, and for their techno-economic and social feasibility. This paper considers assumptions being made and final results of the above project.