Urban Transport energy efficiency and environmental sustainability continue to present big challenges for city leaders and policy think tanks. As the share of the world's population living in cities grows to nearly 70 per cent between now and 2050, urban transport energy consumption is forecast to double to meet the travel demand in the world's future cities. This urban growth will also dramatically change the scale and nature of our communities, and put a tremendous strain on the built environment and infrastructure that delivers vital services like transport. This book presents a cohesive body of work on the policy principles and practical applications to drive sustainable mobility services in tomorrow's smart cities. Topics covered include policy principles for low carbon mobility; low carbon mobility and reducing automobile dependence; integrated land-use and transport planning for future cities; decarbonising suburban mobility; public transport for the urban millennium; impacts on public health; active transport, health and wellbeing; mobility and the sharing economy; autonomous shared mobility; gamification and sustainable mobility; and digital innovations and disruptive mobility. Low Carbon Mobility for Future Cities will be essential reading for researchers and practitioners in transport engineering, urban planning, transport planning and strategy, government employees in charge of sustainable practices, higher degree students, and the industries involved in offering mobility as a service. About the Editor Hussein Dia is Associate Professor at the Centre of Sustainable Infrastructure at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. He is a Civil Engineer with three decades of experience in Intelligent Transport Systems and transport modelling. He has worked extensively in collaboration with both the public and private sectors, including strong engagement with industry. His research interests are in smart infrastructure systems and the convergence of technology, infrastructure and human elements in urban environments. His current work is focused on disruptive mobility and harnessing digital innovations to unlock low carbon mobility opportunities. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer, Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Fellow of Engineers Australia and Fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.
Inspec keywords: sustainable development; innovation management; public transport; remotely operated vehicles; smart cities; land use planning
Other keywords: sharing economy; autonomous vehicles; urban transport; active transport; automobile dependence reduction; land-use planning; future cities; public transport; low carbon mobility; smart mobility; digital innovations; transport planning; sustainable mobility; decarbonising suburban mobility; gamification
Subjects: General and management topics; Research and development; Social and political issues; Transportation system control; Environmental factors; Telerobotics; Transportation industry; Mobile robots; Transportation; Environmental issues; General electrical engineering topics; General topics in manufacturing and production engineering
This volume examines the state of urban transport and explores the linkages and interactions between urban form, infrastructure, technology and human elements. It also presents the policy instruments that can be used to promote low carbon mobility and accessibility in our cities, with a view to determining the essential conditions for promoting sustainable transport in urban settings. The chapters that comprise this book are principally the product of the intellectual efforts of the contributing authors who have dedicated their careers to researching the complex systems of urban mobility. The authors provide detailed analyses and compelling arguments to support this notion: for our cities to thrive; we must quickly begin to rearrange the priorities and incentives that guide the way we plan and design the built environment. Providing access to jobs, places and services using safe and efficient transport and mobility systems plays a major role in determining how that occurs, and how successful it will be. The actions we take today will affect the liveability of our cities in the future. The authors fully appreciate the importance and urgent need for a paradigm shift to transform how we provide mobility in our cities. In their contributions, they share with the reader much valuable knowledge and insights about how we might get urban transport to correctly align with the challenges of providing the necessary access to our increasingly urbanised planet. This introductory chapter provides a framework for the remainder of the book. It also describes the contents of each chapter and draws linkages to assist the reader in navigating the volume.
This chapter describes the major transport challenges facing our cities. This includes rising urban populations, road crashes and injuries, congestion, environmental emissions, ageing transport infrastructure and limited budgets to maintain and upgrade the urban infrastructure necessary for resilient modern transport systems. The chapter also describes how the traditional approaches to meeting the demand for travel, for example building additional road capacity, have met with limited success. Finally, the chapter introduces the elements of a framework for low carbon mobility which includes strategies for promoting integrated transport planning, public and active transport and the role of digital innovations and disruptive technologies in improving connectivity and efficiency of services.
Achieving low carbon mobility gains requires major policy, behavioural and technological changes. The relevant policy directions available to policy makers can be grouped into four broad categories: those that allow travel to be `avoided'; those that `shift' travel to more efficient modes; those that promote `sharing' of vehicles and rides; and those that `improve' the efficiency of vehicles and infrastructure. This chapter examines these strategic pathways and presents policy instruments that can help decarbonise transport while also addressing urban mobility challenges such as congestion and poor air quality. The chapter relies on best evidence from the literature and presents a broad range of measures that could be used to influence behaviour.
Low carbon mobility in our cities will need to be a combination of structural change that reduces automobile dependence as well as technological change. To determine the potential mechanisms for accelerating this transition, the emerging trends in reduced automobile dependence are outlined in the world's cities together with emerging technological trends. The policies outlined can enable 100% oil-free cities by 2050 and 100% renewably fuelled cities by 2100.
Land-use-transport integration (LUTI) is concerned with the development, management and operation of urban transport systems that provide for sustainable outcomes for our cities. LUTI is primarily concerned with the optimal distribution of facilities and services in an urban area so that these are available to all of its inhabitants in ways that minimise adverse environmental impacts, whilst maximising opportunities for sustainable economic development and social interaction. LUTI is a key consideration in low carbon mobility. A major means for achieving this is through the encouragement and use of the active transport modes walking and cycling and public transport, because access to public transport generally requires substantial use of the pedestrian and cycle modes. The key concept behind LUTI is in fact the basic driver of urban development: accessibility. In the planning context, accessibility is about the effort required for people and enterprises to engage in everyday life. Integrated planning of transport and land use can offer high levels of accessibility based on the use of active transport. Amongst the many issues facing planners are environmental impacts, both local (e.g. noise and air quality) and global (climate change and greenhouse gas emissions), economic productivity, conservation of resources (especially the use of land), traffic congestion, social severance and public health. Following the established principles and practices of LUTI - while these may not always coincide with what has been past practices in our cities - offers a systematic path to long-term resolution of these issues. This chapter will explain why and how this can be accomplished.
Greening suburban mobility in low-density cities will require a step change in both the demand and supply sides of urban travel. Supply-side innovation is critical in order that the opportunities and alternatives are established for car-dependent suburban residents to embrace more effective forms of active, low carbon travel. This chapter provides a high-level roadmap of the innovations and planning strategies required for a low carbon transition in each of the key supply-side arenas of urban transport.
Mass transit is the only form of motorised transport that can move large numbers of people to the same destination at the same time without either alienating the space needed for social and economic interaction or allowing cities to encroach further upon vital natural environments or agricultural land. Despite the rapid development and deployment of `disruptive' technologies in urban transport, mass transit will still have a vital role to play in the transport systems of the world's great urban regions in coming decades. This is largely because cities of the future will face increasing competition over space. No urban region has been entirely successful in creating mass transit networks that offer speed and convenience approaching that of the private car, but some have done much better than others. This chapter presents case studies of relative success in the creation of space-efficient transport systems in the urban regions of Vienna, Zurich and Vancouver. It gives an overview of transport system performance including operating costs, infrastructure investments and mode share, together with contextual demographic data. In each case, this is accompanied by a short outline of the political and institutional processes that have enabled these outcomes to be achieved. Common features in all the three cities include consistent and skilful engagement in local political processes by transit advocates and planners and coherent use of transport planning practices that give primacy to meet the needs of mass transit users at the lowest possible cost.
The focus of this chapter is the impacts of urban transport on health: physical, mental, well-being, and livability. Specifically, and besides the traditionally obvious and well-studied subjects of transport-induced crash injuries and pollution health impacts, the chapter presents the modern day non-contagious ailments such as stress, cardiovascular diseases, physical inactivity, and obesity and highlights their links and interactions with urban transport systems. These health impacts are mostly significant in the long term. They are subtle, slow, and pervasive. They have traditionally not been addressed or even identified as transport related; only recently and just qualitatively, these impacts came to the fore of the interrelated subjects of urban form, transport, and modern day health problems. The chapter will identify the needs for research to both further the understanding of the dynamics between transport and urban form on one hand and the identified health impacts on the other. The chapter will also address the question of how to objectively measure and quantify these health impacts with a particular view to evaluating the benefits that can be realized through low carbon mobility solutions.
The health and well-being of individuals and the communities to which they belong is strongly affected by travel behaviour, especially in car-dependent cities where sedentary lifestyles and social isolation are direct outcomes. Our chapter focuses on these issues, examining how planning policy, practice and design can facilitate health promoting, low carbon active transport such as public transport use, walking and cycling. We discuss the potential co-benefits emerging from the adoption of such mobility policies. The co-benefits are largely found in the areas of environmental impact, public health, social cohesion and economic productivity. A framework for identifying and assessing potential co-benefits is provided, as are case studies of planning and policy interventions to encourage low carbon active transport forms.
Shared mobility-the shared use of a vehicle, bicycle, or other mode-is an innovative transportation strategy that enables users to gain short-term access to transportation modes on an “as-needed”basis. Shared mobility includes various forms of carsharing, bikesharing, ridesharing, for-hire driver services, and microtransit. In addition, smartphone and mobile “apps”aggregate and optimize these mobility services and are critical to many shared mobility modes. Courier network services connect couriers using their personal vehicles or bicycles with freight and seek to disrupt the existing package and food delivery industry. The emergence of automated vehicles into shared mobility could further transform the passenger and freight transportation system, with greater emphasis on shared mobility. This chapter describes the different models that have emerged in the shared mobility space and reviews research that has quantified the environmental, social, and transportation-related impacts of these services. The authors also project future trends as automated vehicles begin to emerge.
The fast pace of development of automated vehicles is being driven by a number of converging forces including self-driving technologies, mobile computing, and ondemand vehicle and ride sharing. The coming together of these powerful trends is shaping an urban mobility future inspired by a vision of zero road injuries and low carbon living. The introduction of self-driving vehicles will have major socioeconomic impacts on our society - some good and some bad. Although self-driving vehicles are expected to pave the way to drastic improvements in road safety and urban mobility, they can potentially have adverse impacts on the liveability of our cities if they are not planned as part of a holistic approach to promote low carbon mobility. This chapter provides an environmental scan and an objective review and analysis of the technological, social and economic impacts and trends surrounding (ultimately) autonomous vehicles, and how they are likely to influence the transport and mobility industries and marketplace now and into the future. The chapter also outlines the technological, societal and regulatory challenges that must be overcome before widespread adoption and deployment. The chapter gathers and collates information from a wide body of literature to help city planners, infrastructure engineers and other stakeholders in responding to the likely needs and impacts of this disruptive technology and to inform their policy positions in shaping the future of urban mobility.
Motivating people to change their mobility behavior toward more sustainable ways to travel is one of the major challenges in transportation. Nowadays, with information communication and technology solutions and especially the smartphones, it is possible to deliver accurate mobility-related information to users to make smart travel decisions with the aim to reduce congestion and air pollution or improve safety. However, delivering mobility-related information is necessary, but not sufficient condition for initiating behavioral change. The last can only be achieved, if the communicated information targets to influence the attitudes, and motivators of road users. But, how we can persuade users to change their behavior? This chapter will attempt to shed light to the drivers for success of gamified applications dedicated to mobility. Gamification as a tool to trigger behavioral change is analyzed and critically discussed. Recent applications are reviewed with emphasis on their effects to traffic operations, urban mobility, and environmental conditions in cities. Finally, the opportunities stemming from the advances in technology and communications and the potential of gamified mobility solutions for engaging citizens in sustainable mobility are discussed.
The continuous waves in digital innovations over the past few years, and the sweeping changes anticipated by disruptive mobility, have inspired visions of a very different future as well as a good deal of hype. To distinguish between the hype and reality, this chapter discusses the role of disruptive technologies within low carbon mobility networks and describes how digital innovations are changing the urban mobility landscape, enabling real-time measurement and analysis of urban mobility, and promoting sustainable smart cities. The chapter maps the value of data-driven innovations in mobility and draws on practical applications, case studies and modelling results to demonstrate the benefits. The chapter also describes the major behavioural and technological changes, and the new mobility business models that would be required to achieve the desired targets and outcomes. Finally, the chapter provides a reflection of the value derived from typical smart mobility `use cases'. It then identifies the policy principles which are central to the success of smart mobility, and how it will give our cities an opportunity to modernise transport systems and help drive economic growth and create jobs for the twenty-first century.
This chapter provides a summary of the key themes arising from the individual chapters. It also outlines a framework for rethinking urban mobility and identifies the broad strategies for triggering policy changes. The chapter also provides a research agenda for future work in this area guided by the findings and recommendations from the individual chapter contributions.