Urban Mobility Policies Research Articles

Uncovering freight curbside management effects on cities’ sustainable development goals. A systematic literature review.

Scarce urban space needs to be wisely managed to avoid cities’ unsustainability. Overlooking freight activities in urban mobility policies leads to conflicting scenarios in public space use with negative consequences in congestion, pollution, crashes, and productivity losses. This paper aims at identifying the unsustainable effects of freight parking practices and the solutions reported in the literature to overcome them. A systematic literature review was conducted to collect quantitative evidence of curbside management impacts on sustainability. Key performance indicators from the 11th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG11) were linked to the 55 selected studies. Findings suggested positive impacts from four practices of freight curbside management and the need to include people-centred approaches in the design, implementation, and evaluation of public space policies.

Identification of Pedestrian Preference Pattern for Central Area of Goiânia City in Brazil

The need for establishing urban mobility policies that favor pedestrians, which are the most vulnerable elements in the transit system, is known. In this sense, the study aimed to identify the pattern of pedestrian preferences on sidewalks, using the Walkability Index and Stated Preference technique. The methodology developed to achieve the objective is composed of the following steps: (i) definition of the study area, (ii) Decription of the study area, (iii) definition of variables, (iv) data collection, (v) calculation of the Walkability Index, (vi) data processing of the stated preference survey, (vii) analysis of results and definition of guidelines. A case study was carried out in the central sector of Goiânia (GO) in order to validate the presented methodology. Thus, the study proposes to investigate pedestrian preferences on sidewalks in order to provide subsidies to assist the planning of pedestrian-oriented mobility systems.

Spatiotemporal accessibility by public transport and time wealth: Insights from two peripheral neighbourhoods in Malmö, Sweden

This paper contributes to the understanding of spatiotemporal accessibility inequalities by exploring how the current public transport (PT) provision affects the time wealth of PT users living in two peripheral neighbourhoods in Malmö. The paper investigates time-related resources and constraints that concur in defining accessibility inequalities, identifies forms of temporal disadvantage and privilege and addresses the relevance of recognizing and meeting the multiple time-related needs of (potential) PT users. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, the study integrates results from a thematic analysis of interviews and from a GIS spatiotemporal accessibility analysis of PT schedules to understand whether and how the current PT provision (a) allows users to carry out the desired or needed activities by PT in the time available to them, (b) is harmonized with their spatiotemporal access needs and (c) supports or hinders the users’ ability to control their travel time. The paper suggests that, in the observed cases, the PT provision provides unequal opportunities for faster connections and information, exposing some users to time-related transport disadvantage. Also, the current PT provision does not always seem to be harmonized with the participants’ access needs, especially during off-peak hours. The findings highlight the importance of taking into consideration the time wealth of (potential) PT users with different access needs, resources, and constraints, with the aim to both tackle transport disadvantage and support the adoption of sustainable modal choices. The study provides directions for further spatiotemporal accessibility research and for urban time and mobility policies.

Políticas públicas e mobilidade urbana sustentável: análise comparativa entre Groningen e Campinas

Abstract The National Urban Mobility Policy encourages Brazilian cities to develop a series of actions in favor of public and non-motorized transport, but successful cases of promotion of sustainable urban transport are still scarce in Brazil. This article analyzes the experience of Campinas concerning promotion of bicycle transportation, comparing it with a successful international case, namely, the city of Groningen (the Netherlands). The analyses are based on interviews with public managers and specialists in the two assessed cities. The results show fundamental institutional factors for the success or failure of the cycling policy. It is particularly noteworthy that actions to discourage the use of private vehicles are as important as those to promote the use of bicycles.

Methodologies to evaluate the quality of pedestrian infrastructure on the University campus: Systematic Review

Walking is understood as a sustainable and economical means of transport, it promotes benefits such as improving people's health, but this option is chosen especially when adequate conditions are offered. As it contributes to the adoption of a sustainable urban mobility policy, walking should be encouraged in internal displacements carried out by users of higher education institutions. To support the analysis of mobility in this type of institution, this paper sought to identify the main methods and techniques that can be used to evaluate the quality of walking spaces, internal and external, to University campuses, through a systematic review of literature. For this, Scopus, MDPI, ScienceDirect and Sage Journals platforms were adopted to screen articles published between 2005 and 2021, with the following keywords “walkability, campuses, university” and “pedestrian, “campuses, university”. The analysis of 26 papers, which were part of the sample size, made it possible to identify: i) objective, ii) methodology and iii) technique used among the researchers, and showed that predominantly the research carried out in these environments incorporates not only the spaces within the campus, but its surroundings, or users' access to the campus. Thus, several aspects associated with walkability are evaluated, such as the existing infrastructure itself, the most used mode of transport in displacements within the campus, in addition to some scenario in a certain route carried out by the user.

Walkability for utilitarian and leisure purposes: a comparative study on an avenue located in the city of Araçatuba, São Paulo

More walkable cities contribute to building a sustainable city. In the last decades, the increase in the number of urban displacements carried out by foot highlights the importance of developing methods that seek to analyze the quality of this infrastructure to propose improvements for these users. In this context, this paper aims to present the result of the evaluation of the urban mobility infrastructure destined for walkability for practical and leisure purposes in two areas of an important road axis located in the city of Araçatuba, São Paulo, using the Walkability Index of the Macro and Microscale (in Portuguese the acronym ICMME), proposed by Pires (2018). The methodology allows the evaluation of sidewalks and road intersections based on indicators associated with Safety, Security, Comfort, and Attractiveness. The results show that the sidewalks and intersections located in area 2, intended for leisure walking, offer greater Safety, Security, Comfort, and Attractiveness to users. On the other hand, the sidewalks and crossings of area 1, which are used by people predominantly for displacements with utilitarian purposes (study, shopping, and work) are of lower spatial quality, especially in relation to elements associated with Safety and Security (of the sidewalks) and Safety and Comfort (of the intersections) of users. The results made it possible to identify positive and negative points of the pedestrian infrastructure and can be used to formulate public policies for urban mobility aimed at walkability.

Multilevel urban policy mobilities through the City Statute: the spreading of Brazilian urban federal law

ABSTRACT The City Statute is a legal framework that provides Brazilian urban policy with another dynamic. It guides urban policies across the national territory, and hasgained international prominence at a moment when Latin American countries became policy exporters. This paper takes the City Statute to discuss multilevel urban policy mobilities between international and subnational levels, analyzing how its guidelines and contents spread across Brazilian and Latin American territories. The findings suggest that the City Statute has been simultaneously disseminated and questioned at different levels. It is a significant case study for understanding multilevel and South-South policy mobility.

How more data reinforces evidence-based transport policy in the Short and Long-Term: Evaluating a policy pilot in two Dutch cities

Data have played a role in urban mobility policymaking for decades. Especially since the emergence of big data, many researchers have shown how to advance data use to improve understanding transport policy effects, but there is hardly insight in how this is adopted in policy practice. This study aims to address this gap by answering two questions: (1) how is data currently embedded in urban mobility policy- and decision-making; and (2) what are the advantages and limitations of more data use in these processes?We chose two Dutch cities -Maastricht and Groningen-that were both involved in a national programme (BeterBenutten) that trialed (and funded) a more evidence-based policymaking approach. We did ten semi-structured interviews with the people work in the mobility department and analyzed the twenty-one most relevant policy reports to understand how more data reinforces/impedes transport policymaking in practice. We found that data use differed in long-term and short-term policy cycles. In the long-term policy cycle, data was regarded as less important than political and societal trends and developments; in the short-term cycle, data played a major role in prompting traffic regulations and policy adjustments.Policy insights can be derived from this research on how data can be better embedded in policymaking practices (1) The support from national/regional level (i.e. BeterBenutten program): could provide extra opportunities for local governments to do ex-post policy assessments, which has been regarded as valuable resources for evidence-based decision-making by policymakers. (2) Survey data can still play a significant role in urban mobility planning by typically providing more insights in the ‘why’ of traveler behaviors than big data. (3) Transport policymakers need to strength their abilities in selecting suitable data (out of a much larger set) and having more (competent) personnel capacity to interpret data. (4) Promoting sustainable mobility is a strong driving force for the local governments to enhance data use.

Brazilian megacities: quantifying the impacts of the Brazilian urban mobility policy

Brazil has several problems related to urban mobility. These issues are most evident in big cities where the territorial extension and the complex activities developed in urban space make transportation planning difficult. Therefore, Brazilian cities face challenges to implement the Brazilian Urban Mobility Policy (BUMP) requirements. Since this enactment, in 2012, several studies have been developed to evaluate the impacts of the mitigations proposed by this law. Among these studies, a proposition of a system dynamics (SD) model to assess the effects of this policy stands out. This model allows verifying the impact of different BUMP mitigation measures (individually and together). Therefore, this paper aims to obtain and to compare the results of the application of this SD model in two Brazilian megacities: Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The results show the importance of BUMP implementation to reduce the negative externalities of transportation systems and improve their efficiency. However, the effects of this policy are not the same for the two megacities.

Potential accessibility to the workplace by public transit and its social distribution in Lille, France: A scenario-based equity appraisal

In this paper, we appraise the social equity of urban mobility policy following Levinson and Krizek's (2018) and Zelinski's (1971) principles of “mobility revolution” and “time geography” and building on recommendations from the European Consortium on Transport Equity analysis (TEA COST Action, 2012). From the database of professional trips made within the 85 municipalities of Lille metropole in 2016, we calculate and set the potential accessibility to the workplace by public transport (PT) at the municipal level, as the ‘good to redistribute’. This allows us to identify the municipalities the most lagging behind, based on the household motorisation rate as well as the potential jobs reachable via the PT system. Then, starting from general observations on sociodemographic differences among commuters to access the job market, we aggregate this indicator at the scale of commuter groups – by gender, household structure, educational background, socio-professional category, and immigration status, defining the ‘members of the society’. Lastly, to test our results and in consultation with local transport authorities, we simulate a reduction of the PT commuting times from the least served municipalities of 10% and then 25%. We analyse the effects of our scenarios on the number and value of the accessible jobs gained, per commuter group, as well as considering different subsets of the municipalities (targeting those with low levels of car ownership). Interpreting results in the light of our decision rule, an extension of the Sufficiency approach, we conclude that transport-oriented policy alone is not the panacea to address social equity and that cross-sectoral solutions are needed, particularly when considering impedance factors and car dependent households.

Up around the bend? How transport poverty can lead to social exclusion in a low-income community in Lagos, Nigeria

Well planned and executed urban mobility policies are essential for economic, social, and environmental development. Cities in developing countries, in particular, face serious problems involving infrastructure, traffic congestion, and services accessibility. These factors, made worse by poor planning, lead to social inequality. This paper conducts a multidimensional analysis of how travel times and the related opportunity costs lead to transport-related social exclusion (TRSE) situations in Ajegunle, in Lagos, Nigeria. Our contribution to the literature is to extend and quantify the TRSE framework in the case of a low-income community in a developing country. The methodology applies an interdisciplinary research design that uses open-access remote-sensing and route planning web applications (Google Maps, Google Earth, and Lara.ng) and a critical literature review, embedded in a TRSE framework. Thereby we obtain the difference between the estimated and the ideal travel times that residents of this community take to reach locations offering five different services – education, work, shopping, leisure, and health – distributed in seven locations across the city. Based on the difference between the estimated and ideal travel times, which on average is between half an hour and two hours, we calculate the opportunity cost based on local living wages as benchmark, which results in an average between 7.6% and 27.4% of the daily wages. This concept captures a temporal and spatial valuation, expressed in monetary terms, of the impact of an inadequate public transport system on poorer residents' everyday lives. This analysis using the TRSE framework shows that poor public transport, and consequently high opportunity costs, translates into social exclusion in this low-income community. Finally, we recommend a set of practical transport, urban-planning, and social policies that can remedy this predicament.

Co-producing urban expertise for SDG localization: the history and practices of urban knowledge production in South Africa

ABSTRACT The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are used as an entry point to consider issues and questions surrounding the forms of urban expertise that are required to achieve transformative and sustainable urban development. The article builds on the authors’ experiences as researchers working co-productively with South African municipalities through the African Centre for Cities, an interdisciplinary research hub at the University of Cape Town. Insights from the literature on urban policy mobilities are deployed alongside those from an emerging literature on transdisciplinary research and knowledge co-production for global policy implementation. The aims are, first, to identify emerging kinds of urban expertise that are produced and mobilized by constellations of actors involved in the advancement of global development policies at the city scale and, second, to examine the role of city-university partnerships in producing particular forms of urban expertise to support SDG localization. Locating this work within a longer genealogy of urban governance reform in South Africa, it is shown that the conditions under which effective co-productive relationships can be built and institutionalized are highly context specific and geographically uneven. Understanding and assembling such conditions will enable cities to benefit from the forms of expertise these can engender.

Decision support for sustainable urban mobility: A case study of the Rhine-Ruhr area

• A framework for integrated innovation policy of sustainable urban mobility is set. • A multi-actor and multi-level approach is considered. • Transformation process is step-wise guided. • An interactive scenario-simulation tool for the decision makers is developed. • Mobility demand and supply must be balanced to transform sustainable urban future. Sustainable urban governance considers the simultaneous reduction of traffic-related pollution, social equity for mobility access, healthy market competition among the service providers, and convenient use of multi-modal transportation enabled by digital technologies. However, the rise of more complex urban systems challenges decision-making processes to design and implement environmentally sustainable, economically viable, and socially acceptable urban mobility systems. The paper sets an innovative and collaborative decision-making framework for integrated sustainable urban policy design. Firstly, schematic integration of urban flows from disintegrated operation systems toward fully integrated, inclusive, and sustainable urban systems is conceptualized. Based on this concept a multi-level decision-making process within urban mobility policies is designed relying on a Multi-Criteria Decision Aid (MCDA) for resource allocation decisions at the micro, meso, and macro levels. Thereby, a range of urban futures is adequately addressed, be it smart, sustainable city concepts, peri-urbanization, and business as usual scenarios. The integrated model for a pilot case of the metropolitan region of Rhine-Ruhr is tested in this paper. If Sustainable City scenario is the desired one, push and pull measures should be equally weighted. Based on MCDA sensitivity analysis, policy recommendations and a practical hands-on tool for urban planning are derived.

Identifying urban features for vulnerable road user safety in Europe

One of the targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is to substantially reduce the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic collisions. To this aim, European cities adopted various urban mobility policies, which has led to a heterogeneous number of injuries across Europe. Monitoring the discrepancies in injuries and understanding the most efficient policies are keys to achieve the objectives of Vision Zero, a multi-national road traffic safety project that aims at zero fatalities or serious injuries linked to road traffic. Here, we identify urban features that are determinants of vulnerable road user safety through the analysis of inter-mode collision data across European cities. We first build up a data set of urban road crashes and their participants from 24 cities in 5 European countries, using the widely recommended KSI indicator (killed or seriously injured individuals) as a safety performance metric. Modelling the casualty matrices including road infrastructure characteristics and modal share distribution of the different cities, we observe that cities with the highest rates of walking and cycling modal shares are the safest for the most vulnerable users. Instead, a higher presence of low-speed limited roads seems to only significantly reduce the number of injuries of car occupants. Our results suggest that policies aimed at increasing the modal share of walking and cycling are key to improve road safety for all road users.

The space of ideas: Public art policy and the concept of urban model spaces

ABSTRACT The urban policy mobility literature describes the widespread circulation of policy ideas while highlighting their mutations along the way. At the same time, the literature often analyzes the localization of such ideas by examining their adoption in one or several cities. To better understand policy replications and mutations, we develop theoretical and methodological strategies that provide sensitivity to both local distinctiveness and global variability. We build on the Urban Policy Mobility literature and combine it with ecological theories of conceptual spaces to develop the concept of Urban Model Spaces—a matrix of discursive possibilities evolving from the accumulated replications and localizations of a model. We articulate it via three core properties central to Urban Policy Mobility—Temporality, Scale, and Position—and test how they shape the emergence of policy discourses. To demonstrate the concept we analyze public art policy and the funding mechanism of the Percent for Art ordinance from 26 cities combining Structural Topic Modeling and regression analysis.

Studying Two-Wheeler Usage in the Context of Sustainable and Resilient Urban Mobility Policies in India

The rapid growth of two-wheeler usage in India is a pertinent issue that has not so far received the attention it requires. Two-wheelers serve as a cost-effective transport solution in the Indian scenario; however, this mode is afflicted with several externalities, including congestion, air pollution, and road fatalities. This study extends the existing sustainable policy and planning literature by investigating the possibility of a new policy vision to regulate, monitor, and promote sustainable two-wheeler usage in India. The procedural framework includes assessing the role and attitude of current two-wheeler users (stratified into men and women) through an online questionnaire survey, reviewing the existing policy framework of India and two international cities, examining the critical barriers to sustainable, green, and inclusive urban mobility, and recommending a set of policy interventions and reforms. The proposed reforms and strategies can improve the policymaking processes of governing agencies and the sustainability of Indian urban transport.

The long, winding road to sustainable mobility in Spanish cities

This paper reviews forty years of urban mobility policies in Spain, identifying four main stages in a process that, while delivering improved and more sustainable mobility conditions to citizens, has also raised new challenges. Four stages are considered: institutional reconstruction (1979-1985), cautious infrastructure expansion (1986-1995), the big-construction bubble (1996-2007), and the grumbling sustainability turn (2008-2020)

The role of data in sustainability assessment of urban mobility policies

AbstractData have played a role in urban mobility policy planning for decades, especially in forecasting demand, but much less in policy evaluations and assessments. The surge in availability and openness of (big) data in the last decade seems to provide new opportunities to meet demand for evidence-based policymaking. This paper reviews how different types of data are employed in assessments published in academic journals by analyzing 74 cases. Our review finds that (a) academic literature has currently provided limited insight in new data developments in policy practice; (b) research shows that the new types of big data provide new opportunities for evidence-based policy-making; however, (c) they cannot replace traditional data usage (surveys and statistics). Instead, combining big data with survey and Geographic Information System data in ex-ante assessments, as well as in developing decision support tools, is found to be the most effective. This could help policymakers not only to get much more insight from policy assessments, but also to help avoid the limitations of one certain type of data. Finally, current research projects are rather data supply-driven. Future research should engage with policy practitioners to reveal best practices, constraints, and potential of more demand-driven data use in mobility policy assessments in practice.

Designing urban mobility policies in a socio-technical transition context

The fast-changing behaviour of people in metropolitan areas is creating several challenges to local authorities in managing the urban space. These changes are strongly related to the evolution of technology and its adoption by companies and citizens. Current regulations need, therefore, to be rapidly updated to respond to the new urban dynamics. However, the gap between local authorities and citizens and the communication difficulties are increasing as urban centres grow, creating obstacles to innovation and hindering the deployment of new mobility solutions. The low levels of participation in public consultation actions decrease the quality of new policies, as well as their acceptance by the community. Not only do cities need to be reinvented, but local authorities also need to rethink how to interact with citizens, competing for attention in a digital world. Although digital tools are easily accessible, they are not available to everyone, and municipalities need to consider both digital and non-digital interactions to ensure that all citizens can participate. In this work, we analyse and compare a set of measures that municipalities have been adopting to increase citizens’ engagement, and we develop a methodology to help local authorities increase public participation and improve citizens’ commitment towards the city.

Are We Satisfying the Right Conditions for the Mobility Transition? A Review and Evaluation of the Dutch Urban Mobility Policies

Global climate agreements call for action and an integrated perspective on mobility, energy and overall consumption. Municipalities in dense, urban areas are challenged with facilitating this transition with limited space and energy resources, and with future uncertainties. One important aspect of the transition is the adoption of electric vehicles, which includes the adequate design of charging infrastructure. Another important goal is a modal shift in transportation. This study investigated over 80 urban mobility policy measures that are in the policy roadmap of two of the largest municipalities of the Netherlands. This analysis consists of an inventory of policy measures, an evaluation of their environmental effects and conceptualizations of the policy objectives and conditions within the mobility transitions. The findings reveal that the two municipalities have similarities in means, there is still little anticipation of future technology and policy conditions could be further satisfied by introducing tailored measures for specific user groups.