Small is beautiful. May we present 2021 Micro-mobility?

In brief:

Micro-mobility is a category of modes of transport that are provided by very light vehicles such as electric scooters, electric skateboards, shared bicycles and electric pedal assisted, pedelec, bicycles.  The primary condition for inclusion in the category is a gross vehicle weight of less than 500 kg. Additional conditions are the provision of a motor, primary utility use, and availability as a shared service. (Thanks WP.)  Note: Additional graphics below purloined from the net. Creative Commons –

Micro-mobility’s 15,000-mile checkup

January 2019 | Article By Kersten Heineke, Benedikt Kloss, Darius Scurtu, and Florian Weig   Source and full text, graphics and links:  https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/micromobilitys-15000-mile-checkup

Op-Ed Archives: Danijel Rebolj on The Cultures of Mobility

The Cultures of Mobility

What message could a private citizen, an engineer no less, from a small city of a country with barely two million inhabitants send to the Secretary of Transportation of the United States of America? Happily, there is more to transport and social policy than mere size. So if you decide to continue reading, I may have a modest message for you after all.

This evening, 6 February 2009, an interesting event will take place in my city. A thematic event has been organized, dedicated to the “Culture of Mobility”. In this we want to show (again) at the culture of mobility and the culture of the city are one and the same.

Maribor, my beautiful city, the second-largest in Slovenia, is to become the cultural capital of Europe in 2012. Today’s event will start with a documentary film to open up the perspectives of transportation decision-makers in the city of New York, “Contested Streets: a Mobility Tour of Four Great World Cities”. “Contested” takes its point of departure the old habit of automatically building new infrastructure for cars every time a traffic problem arose. The world-famous and world-practiced “forecast and build” culture

Thinking Exercise: What happens when VKT goes up? Down?

This flowchart as it stands  gives us a good idea of what happens in today’s dominant mobility pattern in most cities,  where each year the net impact of transport policy (or lack thereof) is to nudge up VKT .  (Actually that should better read MVKT — MOTOR Vehicle Kilometers Traveled , since that brings us right to the main core of the challenge.

Which, if we turn it around and look at it closely, gives us a number of good ideas and targets for our 2020 Five Percent Challenge .  Figure out how to reduce VKT and all sorts of good stuff happens!

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To contact the editor with your observations and eventual questions, drop a line to Climate@newmobility.org.  We answer our mail. 

Eric Britton
13, rue Pasteur. Courbevoie 92400 France

Bio: Founding editor of World Streets (1988), Eric Britton is an American political scientist, teacher, occasional consultant, and sustainability activist who has observed, learned, taught and worked on missions and advisory assignments on all continents. In the autumn of 2019, he committed his remaining life work to the challenges of aggressively countering climate change and specifically greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the mobility sector. He is not worried about running out of work. Further background and updates: @ericbritton | http://bit.ly/2Ti8LsX | #fekbritton | https://twitter.com/ericbritton | and | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbritton/ Contact: climate@newmobility.org) | +336 508 80787 (Also WhatApp) | Skype: newmobility.)

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THE CLIMATE REVOLUTION MUST BE ACCESSIBLE – THIS FIGHT BELONGS TO DISABLED PEOPLE TOO

 Article by Hannah Dines, Extracts Reprinted from The Guardian ,  15 October 2019  . Picture – Disabled group being helped by caregivers. Reykjavik, Iceland. Thanks to Alamy. 

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has done work on gender equality, using “gender focal points”, people who assist in gender-related decisions about the climate. But there isn’t a list of representatives with disabilities, though the outcomes of climate change negotiations will disproportionately affect us. The Paris agreement makes clear its obligation to disability and human rights, but will people with disabilities actually be involved in the discussion?

Victoria Transport Policy Institute. – Summer 2019 Vol. 19, No. 2

The Victoria Transport Policy Institute is an independent research organization dedicated to developing innovative solutions to transportation problems. The VTPI website (http://www.vtpi.org ) has many resources addressing a wide range of transport planning and policy issues. VTPI also provides consulting services.

Department of Transport and Infrastructure, Government of Iceland

The Department of Transport and Infrastructure is responsible for preparing and implementing the Transport Policy Plan. Thereafter a fully developed proposal for a Transport Policy Plan is submitted to the Icelandic parliament Althingi for debate in the form of a parliamentary Resolution.

DECONGESTION – 7 Steps for Mayors and other City Leaders to cut traffic congestion without the expense of new roads or annoyed residents’

Houston, we have a problem

Our cities are in crisis because they revolve around the car. It’s killing us, our communities and our economy.

Traffic congestion is one of the most significant problems and issues facing Governments, Councils and businesses around the world. In Australia, more than 80% of all trips are made by car and in New Zealander 83% of trips less than 2km are made by car. A British Social Attitudes Survey found that 71% of adults never cycle. Only 3% of Brits cycle every day or nearly every day. There are as many as 38 million empty car seats on the UK’s roads every rush hour.

“The problem is we’re all doing the same things – commuting, business trips and the school run – making the same trips by car at the same time, creating gridlock, congestion, queuing and travel delays’ says Transport Planner and Behaviour Change expert Rachel Smith.

Designing for Transportation Management and Operations: A Primer

Abstract:

This primer from the US Department of Transportation  is focused on the collaborative and systematic consideration of management and operations during transportation project design and development. This is termed “designing for operations.” Effectively designing for operations involves the development and application of design policies, procedures, and strategies that support transportation management and operations.

The consideration of operations needs during the design process requires transportation design professionals to work closely with those with expertise in transportation operations, intelligent transportation and transportation technology staff, planning, transit, freight, traffic incident management, and other practitioners from multiple agencies to fully identify, prioritize, and incorporate operations needs into the infrastructure design. This primer introduces the concept for designing for operations and describes tools or institutional approaches to assist transportation agencies in considering operations in their design procedures as well as pointing out some specific design considerations for various operations strategies

SECRET WEAPON?

Challenge Partners (Working draft)

Incomplete working draft of 28 July

(Introductory para here to explain, etc.)

Thus far ( 21/07/2019), eventually with direct link and 2-3 lines of comment + Key Contacts

• World Streets, France – Journal of reference and record
• Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice, UK – two Special Editions: Winter 2019-2020 and Spring 2021
• SOLVED, Finland –
• Ytech Innovations Centre, Netherlands

Plus under initial discussion at this time:

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ON THE OCCASION OF AN EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY: A few words with my friends

The power of a new mobility concept depends not on how well it solves a given, targeted problem. But on how many problems it (partly) solves. –   Marco Te Brömmelstroet

 ON THE OCCASION OF MY BIRTHDAY, A FEW WORDS WITH MY FRIENDS

• Eric Britton,Convener, World Streets Climate Initiative, Paris. 27 June 2019

Dear friends, colleagues, planners, policy makers, students, professors, people working with local government, engineers, accountants, and above all those of you as active citizens and participants in civil society, whom I have met, not met, collaborated, swapped ideas with, argued, modifying my position and then arguing some more . . . Because as you and I know well, nothing ever stays fixed and final in the world of transport and mobility.

EMERGING MOBILITY SERVICES: A WORKING TOPOGRAPHY

A team from the Research Centre for Integrated Transport Innovation (rCITI) School of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney, Australia Emerging Mobility Services offers their own definitions, which includes, but is not limited to, the following topics: *

McKinsey checks out Micromobility

In brief:

Micromobility is a category of modes of transport that are provided by very light vehicles such as electric scooters, electric skateboards, shared bicycles and electric pedal assisted, pedelec, bicycles.  The primary condition for inclusion in the category is a gross vehicle weight of less than 500 kg. Additional conditions are the provision of a motor, primary utility use, and availability as a shared service. (Thanks WP.)  Note: Additional graphics below purloined from the net. Creative Commons –

MxKinsey and Micromobility’s 15,000-mile checkup

January 2019 | Article By Kersten Heineke, Benedikt Kloss, Darius Scurtu, and Florian Weig   Source and full text, graphics and links:  https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/our-insights/micromobilitys-15000-mile-checkup

THE FIVE PERCENT CHALLENGE, COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING (In brief)

 * * Working draft for peer review and comment of 17 July 2019

</b>The basic concept is simple in principle, namely: to identify and put to work a strategic package of proven, street-tested, cost-effective measures, tools and means  to reduce GHG emissions from the mobility sector in a cooperating city or place by a targeted five percent (or better) in a year or less. Realization of the concept on the other hand is highly demanding and requires considerable technical competence, abundant political savvy and leadership by daily example.

The underlying goal is highly ambitious, and perhaps not immediately evident.  It is about people and choices, and not so much about infrastructure or vehicles.  We are talking here about influencing behaviour of individuals and groups in this specific part of their day to day lives. Since indeed the only way that we can successfully make this critical transition in a functioning democracy — is no less than to change behaviour by creating a transformed urban (or rural, or other demographic) ecosystem of  connected realities, time, space, perceptions, awarenesses, values, fears, prejudices, habits and, hopefully in parallel with this an wide array of “better than car” or  at least satisficing mobility choices.  The key to all this being to offer what are perceived as better choices for all when it comes to daily life, climate, mobility, environment  and democracy impacts.  The challenge we now face is to accompany this transition, and this in the teeth of a rapidly degrading environment and still a largely skeptical world.

Rapid cuts needed to protect billions of people from rising emissions due to increased use of cars and coal.

PROFILE: Cambridge City Council’s Climate Change Strategy

Cambridge drivers spend a whopping 23 days a year queuing in traffic

Cambridge has been named the congestion capital of the UK – weeks after the council announce ‘peak hour’ parking charges

ANNUAL CLIMATE CHANGE STRATEGY, CARBON MANAGEMENT PLAN AND CLIMATE CHANGE FUND UPDATE REPORT

Transport and Climate Change: 2006 Perspectives

Here we are, it’s 2019, but how did all this look a dozen years ago? In this broad-based overview article published in 2006, Professor Lee Chapman of the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science at University of Birmingham,  reviews the impact of various modes of transport with respect to climate change inducing greenhouse gas emissions and discusses ways in which society can adapt to reduce the impacts. Let’s take a look and see what has changed, what has been done, and what has been learned..

This paper reviews the impact of various modes of transport with respect to climate change inducing greenhouse gas emissions and discusses ways in which society can adapt to reduce the impacts.

COSTS, BENEFITS AND HIATUS OF THE ORIGINAL PENANG TRANSPORT MASTER PLAN

Credit: Simphewe Nkwali (Eco-Mobiliy Johannesburg

* * * COLLABORATIVE THINKING EXERCISE (DRAFT 1) * * *

– Government of the people, by the people, for the people

Please have a look and, if interested, may we have your thoughts about these and other impact areas that in your view need to be taken into consideration in order to have a full and shared understanding  of these impacts of the proposed and latest SDS Penang Transport Master Plan.

We need to be clear about this. The objective here is not to criticize or belittle the State’s efforts at improving the short-comings and potential of today’s transportation arrangements in Penang.  Rather the goal is to provide open citizen feedback to their proposals to all levels of government, civil society and the public at large.  As President Abraham Lincoln put it at a hard moment for history  in America: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”.  Your responses are welcome here or to penang@ecoplan.org. Thank you.

ON A SCALE OF 0-10: please show us your views concerning how the proposals, measures  and their potential set out in the  SDS PTMP do in the following legitimate areas of citizen interest and concern. Some of these are quite specialized as you will see as your work your way down the list, but don’t let that bother you.  Just share your views with the items that strike your attention. With a careful eye to both long and short term impacts (say in the coming three years, 2018-2020).

* * * For latest version of SDS MP : http://pgmasterplan.penang.gov.my — See below the listing of the principal infrastructure projects proposed by the plan.

The Future of Mobility 3.0. (Report)

Reinventing mobility in the era of disruption and creativity

Arthur D. Little has just released the third edition of its Future of Mobility study, including an updated version of its Urban Mobility Index, which ranks 100 global cities based on the maturity, innovativeness and performance of their urban mobility systems. The study, “The Future of Mobility 3.0 Reinventing mobility in the era of disruption and creativity”, was launched at the UITP Asia-Pacific Assembly in Taipei.

Arthur D. Little highlights what is holding cities back, and, together with its partner the UITP – the International Association of Public Transport – identifies three strategic directions for cities to better shape the future of urban mobility. The study also describes 25 imperatives to consider when defining sustainable urban mobility policies and case studies of cities demonstrating good practice.

This report is a good read and test ground for your own ideas. A copy of the study can be downloaded from   https://bit.ly/2qrDDH4 . Now let’s see if we can get you started. 

HOW MOBILE ARE WE AND HOW DID WE GET HERE? (2018 New Mobility Master Class: Draft for comment)

The mobility/growth paradigm (or the mobility complex)

– By John Whitelegg, extract from his book MOBILITY. A New Urban Design and Transport Planning Philosophy for a Sustainable Future, Chapters 2 and 3. For more on the New Mobility Master Class program click here –  https://goo.gl/BB2pPE

Mobility is most commonly measured, if at all, as total distance travelled per annum per capita in kilometres and/or total distance travelled per day per capita. There are other important dimensions e.g. number of trips made per day or number of destinations that can be accessed by different modes of transport in a defined unit of time but these are not generally measured in a systematic way or included in data sets. Usually mobility is not defined. It has become a rather vague concept associated with quality of life or progress and it is invoked as a “good thing” and something that should be increased. This is very clear in most national transport policies and at the European level where major transport policies and funding mechanisms are increasingly framed.

A recent EU research and development document (European Commission 2013a) begins with the main heading “Mobility for growth.” It does not define mobility. The document is an undiluted manifesto accepting and promoting the growth of mobility and advocating the importance of this growth for the success of wider economic policy objectives, asserting the unquestioned importance of endless economic growth and ignoring the voluminous literature on the impossibility of endless economic growth and of ecological and resource limits to growth (Douthwaite, 1992, Schneidewind, 2014).