Transformative Scenarios for Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning

Transformative Scenarios for Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning

MEGAPROJECT: SIMPLIFYING SUSTAINABLE LIVING

FOCUS AREA: Transport & mobility

CHALLENGE: Transformative Scenarios for Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning

CHALLENGE DESCRIPTION:

New policy directions for the transport sector are raising in cities worldwide, with a “Sustainable Urban Mobility” goal based on a people-centric planning. The challenge consists in the development of scenarios (mediated in digital tools and formats) that will enable citizens to transform their everyday life towards more sustainable mobility practices in the municipality of Aalborg. Scenarios within planning translate to addressing the “knowledge-action gap” (i.e. people know what could be more sustainable but for various reasons fail to act upon this).

The challenge focuses on concrete issues on what a people-centric planning process can mean when including issues of mobility behavior and social practices. By framing ‘scenarios’ both as a technique of futuring and a participative tool to citizens’ engagement, the challenge consists in developing sustainable imaginary of urban futures that entail both individual and societal mobility practices in urban contexts. The scenario building will develop from an analysis that focuses on how Individuals and communities can be mobilized to develop own imaginaries and practices by the design of frameworks, guidelines, manuals or other low-level organizational tools and devices with a potential impact on guiding and aligning urban mobility societal practice to political planning processes
 

IMPACTED SDGS:

         
 

PROPOSED PROJECT PROBLEMS: 

  1. How can we analyse the tension among individuals’ mobility choices and Denmark’s ambitions to low carbon emissions towards more sustainable urban lifestyles?
  2. How can we develop ‘soft infrastructures’ that would enable people to make more sustainable transport and mobility choices in their everyday life?
  3. How can we design tools that would encourage citizens to prioritize public transport, car-sharing, walking and cycling?
  4. How can we co-produce usable data and align tools to select qualitative data in line with expectations for developing sustainable urban mobility planning processes?
  5. How can we engage neighbourghood communities to participate into transformative planning processes for new urban people-centered mobility policies?
  6. How can we adapt existing urban infrastructures to safer and cleaner micro (or even automous) mobility behaviors and needs without outmatching walking and cycling?
  7. How can we define new inclusive urban governance frameworks able to move from expert evidence-based to planning as the co-production of knowledge with people?
  8. How can we understand obstacles for bicycle mobility and how can bicycle mobility be supported?  

As an inspiration of cases/opportunities the questions can be oriented on the light of scenarios related to:

  • Gamification apps and tools utilized in MUV2020 to gather individual mobility data to co-creation and co-design adopted in several EU cities. The scenario can be developed in terms of critical replicability and scalability in Aalborg.
  • Danish IT tools as car-sharing and carpooling in relation to the connection between the urban center and the outskirt of the city. The scenario can be developed on potentials for accessibility and connectivity also in combination to public transport solutions in Northern Jutland rural areas as based on citizens’ mobility behavior and everyday practices

Scenarios should also include how different local actors and different stakeholders at different stages of the planning process can be embedded by a consideration of the status quo, the critical constrains of institutional factors to orient a sustainable urban mobility planning process and conflicts that can actually be mediated by sharing and producing knowledge by enhancing a participative urban governance based on deliberative democracy.
 

 

Challenge proposer:

Enza Lissandrello
Planning
enza@plan.aau.dk
 

Co-proposers:

Ole B. Jensen
Architecture and Design
obje@create.aau.dk

Hans Hüttel
Computer Science
hans@cs.aau.dk

Hanne Louise Jensen 
Sociology
hannelj@socsci.aau.dk

Niels Agerholm
Build
na@civil.aau.dk

Brady Wagoner
Communication and Psycology
wagoner@hum.aau.dk