Mobility Management - A New Approach to Transport Planning

Panel: Panel 5: Land use,Transportation and infrastructure (urban and regional planning, approaches to change in well entrenched systems)

Author:
Ruth Bradshaw, Transport Studies Group, University of Westminister

Abstract

In recent years there has been much concern about society’s ever increasing reliance on the private car and the associated costs of the growth of road traffic in terms of congestion, pollution, safety and CO2 emissions. This concern has contributed to the development of several new approaches to transport planning which are aimed at encouraging the use of alternative modes, such as public transport, walking and cycling and the multi-modal distribution of freight.

One of these new approaches is mobility management. Mobility management can broadly be described as strategies aimed at reducing the amount of road traffic by encouraging changes in behaviour on the part of organisations and individuals. An important feature of mobility management is that it involves key new players, such as site owners and employers working in partnership with local authorities to develop appropriate solutions to transport problems.

This paper reports on the results of a European Union (DG VII) research project, MOSAIC (Mobility Strategy Applications in the Community), which has studied mobility management applications in a number of European countries. It focuses particularly on the UK demonstrator in Nottingham where a mobility adviser has been appointed to encourage large employers in the area to adopt strategies aimed at reducing car commuting by their staff (Green Commuter Plans). The paper gives a brief description of the work of the mobility adviser and presents the results of surveys of employers’ attitudes to staff travel issues and an assessment of how successful the work of the mobility adviser has been. This is followed by a brief review of how Green Commuter Plans and other mobility management initiatives have developed in the UK and an examination of the associated changes in central government policy. The paper finishes with a discussion of the role which mobility management can play in achieving CO2 reductions.