1. Dr. Clemence Cavoli, UCL, London
Scope for accelerating sustainable mobility and reducing car dependency in growing economies
CREATE conference
Dr. Clemence Cavoli, UCL, London
@ClemenceCavoli
Thank you. I am going to focus on the following topic: What are the challenges and opportunities for growing economies to accelerate their transition towards sustainable mobility?
May 2018

2. Can this evolutionary/learning process be short-circuited?
Time – Development Cycle
Emphasis on meeting the needs of motor vehicles
Number of motor vehicles (esp. cars)
Car-oriented
Stage 1
Stage 2
Sustain-ability
Stage 3
Liveability
Short-circuiting in terms of policy really mean leapfrogging the first stage primarily focused on accommodating the needs of car users
Stage 4
Integrat-ion

3. CREATE Partner Cities
London
Paris
Berlin
Copenhagen
Vienna
Amman
Adana
Tallinn
Skopje
Bucharest
The CREATE project involves 10 cities across Europe and the Middle East. Most of them are capital cities. The five Western European cities highlighted in this graph have benefited from decreasing car use levels whereas the five Eastern European and Middle Eastern cities, Tallinn in Estonia, Bucharest in Romania, Skopje in the Republic of Macedonia, Adana in Turkey and Amman in Jordan are all facing rising levels of car use and congestion
CREATE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under
grant agreement N°636573

4. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” George Santayana

5. Which factors contribute to car-oriented developments?
Unplanned population growth
Horizontal growth
Increase in GDP
Decreasing Fuel prices
Increase in car use
Highway investment
Lack of investment in PT, Walking & Cycling
Lack of integrated land-use & transport plan
Car-dependent development?
Cultural & Behavioural factors (e.g. social status)
Macro factors (e.g. import of second hand cars)
Qualitative and quantitative research undertaken in our 10 cities indicates that several factors have contributed to rapidly rising levels of car use and traffic in cities.
Unless we understand the roots of a problem we cannot solve it
It sounds like the following elements, not necessarily in this order, and with other variables missing, could have led to congestion.
The question I would like to ask you, experts and policy-makers in the room, is to what extent those issues should be addressed and tackled by SUMPs. For example, should a SUMP or planning policies at the local level address issues emanating from the national level, such as fuel prices. Or issues at the regional level, such as density requirements?

6. What are the current barriers that prevent transitions towards sustainable mobility in those cities?
Most common urban planning issues
Lack of updated urban plans
Lack of regional/metropolitan urban plans
Lack of integration between land-use and transport plans
No density requirements
Here I am going to highlight two of the most problematic issues highlighted that have emerged from the research we undertook.
The first one is related to urban planning, or more precisely the lack of urban planning. The key issues include: the lack of up-to-date plans that do not adequately reflect the changes cities have undergone. Then the …
Does it really make sense to have a SUMP that does not include the metropolitan area?
Tallinn

7. Current barriers that prevent transitions towards sustainable mobility
Contradictory policy priorities & investments
Tallinn 'main street' project. Source:
Although a growing number of cities have started investing in collective transport, active travel and place-making (such as Skopje or Tallinn). ..
… public authorities still invest substantially in highway building and parking facilities to accommodate the demand for car use.
Amman's Abdoun Bridge, photographed from the en:4th Circle. April Source: Ldud at English Wikipedia
“We have a mixture of policies, on the one hand the use of motor vehicles is being encouraged by the construction of highways, and on the other end the city tries to encourage alternative mobilities”.
Skopje participant
Cycle Lane in Skopje. Source: Skopje's local authority

8. There is still a belief that adding highway capacity (by building elevated highways, bridges, expanding roads and parking facilities) will solve congestion by relieving the network and dispersing traffic. Whereas we know, as illustrated by Prof Page in 1995 that…
Plane, D. A. (1995). Urban transportation: policy alternatives. In Hanson & Giuliano (Eds.) The geography of urban transportation. (2nd ed.) New York ; London: Guilford Press. "Initial investments in improved highway facilities result in greater ease of travel and hence altered travel patterns, including an increase in average trip length and in the number of trips being made. Over time, as shown in Figure 18.1, this increased demand stimulated by the initial investment in increased transport supply fuels the need for even more facilities, and the feedback process repeat itself. This familiar phenomenon has been called the black-hole theory because some people claim that investing in highways is like throwing money into a black hole"
Plane, D. A. (1995). Urban transportation: policy alternatives. In Hanson & Giuliano (Eds.) The geography of urban transportation. (2nd ed.) New York ; London: Guilford Press.

9. “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein

10. Opportunities & Recommendations
Develop a wider city vision
Full integration of transport and land use planning, at the metropolitan level
Re-prioritise to achieve sustainability & liveability objectives
Broaden the debate about congestion:
Ensure it is carefully measured
Use wider indicators of urban mobility and city liveability
Develop a wider city vision, in which sustainable transport plays a key role – this will encourage place-based thinking
City shaping depends on a full integration of transport and land use planning, at the metropolitan level
Foster cross-sector, multi-level governance, for more effective policy making and delivery
For effective policy delivery, invest in institutional capacity: broader skills base, better enforcement, delivery capability, etc.
Invest in enhanced data collection and data analytics, for a stronger evidence base
Be bold: today’s radical policy can become tomorrow’s orthodoxy – but only with strong leadership
Introduce trials and demonstrations – ‘seeing is believing’
Run awareness raising, marketing and behaviour change campaigns
As long as core principles for sustainability, liveability and integration are respected, each city can follow a different transition path

11. Street classification policies in Tallinn
Finally, I will leave you with an inspiring example that illustrate the usefulness of EU projects:
In the context of CREATE the city of Tallinn chose to implement a “Street classification” policy with the support of Transport for London, the first authority to implement this policy (initially developed by Prof Peter Jones). What is street classification? It is a method to classify streets based on their use and function as transport node but also as place. The aim is to improve urban planning procedures and to use the street classification as a tool in preparation of Tallinn Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP)

12. Street classification policies in Tallinn
In Tallinn Street Classification is being implemented to improve urban planning procedures. It is also being used as a tool to support the preparation of Tallinn Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP)

13. Thank you! Dr. Clemence Cavoli
CREATE:
Parting thoughts or question to you is. How are YOU, as knowledge ambassadors and promotor of evidence-based policy-making, are you going to influence policy-making processes within your cities?
CREATE has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under
grant agreement N°636573

14. Overview What factors have led to increasing car-use levels in cities?
What are the current barriers that prevent transitions towards sustainable mobility in those cities?
What are the opportunities that could help cities accelerate their urban development processes?
Innovative policies in in Tallinn