Section: Articles/Feature
Topic: Smart Tech/Mobility
How passenger behaviour can improve city mobility
The growing economic power of cities and the accompanying demand for infrastructure is one of the themes that define today’s global economic and political landscape. The number and scale of cities continues to grow across the globe, driven by rapid urbanization in emerging markets and continued urbanization in mature markets. The United Nations estimates that 54% of the world’s population currently live in cities, and that by 2050, this proportion will increase to 66%. Cities need effective infrastructure investment and sound planning if they are to remain competitive, resilient and good places in which to live and do business.
Effective transport infrastructure is critical to a city’s economic performance. Congestion and widespread dissatisfaction among transport users suggest a clear opportunity to reform systems and policies. Crowding and underutilized transport systems also hint at a challenge that policymakers should address head-on: putting the user — the citizen — at the heart of the solution. A thorough understanding of their behaviour will be the cornerstone of effective transport policy.
The convergence of human, digital and physical in transport changes what it means to be mobile
A new type of individual mobility, and the different behaviours associated with it, triggers the pressing need to change approaches to transport policy planning. Citizens’ experience of mobility is evolving. And this is changing their relationship with transport infrastructure. As users of transport systems, individuals everywhere are now connected to real-time information and transit alternatives, such as ridesharing, ridesourcing, taxi-hailing and multimodal transportation apps.
Connectivity and information support users’ travel decisions, giving them new ways of accessing the city. This is digitalization of consumption. Technology and digital connectivity are enabling citizens to access new transport amenities from outside existing infrastructure. In fact, digital advances are bringing infrastructure to life in a new way, enabling citizens to discuss and plan their own journeys.
Putting citizens in control
It is logical that, if transport planning is to be effective, policymakers should ensure that infrastructure and behaviour work in concert. A renewed focus on the human being as the starting point for transport policy planning is important. Significantly, this means more than just studying ridership. While ridership undoubtedly reflects individuals’ behaviours and mobility choices, it does not properly represent the new “personal mobility.”
What is needed instead is a policy planning focus on transit behaviours per person. How does this one person use modes of transport to get around their city? How do they access work and social opportunities? These behaviours per person ultimately contribute to their mobility, rather than the aggregate number of riders on one mode of transport.
Driven by behaviour
If behaviours per person is the bellwether of effective mobility, transport policy planning needs to focus squarely on residents’ mobility behaviours if it is to drive improvement. It is all the more important for policymakers to tune into behavioural patterns. As the dynamics of human, digital and physical infrastructure are transforming, mobility behaviour is itself changing.
Of course, human behaviour is complex and can be contradictory. For example, individuals and households may believe in environmental conservation, yet still prefer to use their car for routine journeys rather than a public transport alternative. Similarly, individuals may value the health benefits of walking or riding a bike, yet instead make use of ride-sourcing services for more of their trips. Tapping into socially-desirable behaviours and norms can offer important clues on effective behavioural-based reforms.
Mobility must meet the expectations of citizens
With the revival of inner-city areas, city living is growing in appeal both for younger generations and retirees. Travel demands are changing accordingly, with increasing demand for public transit and multimodal travel. While these attitudes may be exemplified by young people, they are certainly part of a broader shift in preferences away from driving and toward alternative and mixed-mode forms of travel.
Current trends suggest the average future user will want to live in dense, community-oriented cities with short commutes, plentiful public transit, and non-motorized, customizable transport options. To best promote mobility, transport policy planning needs to make these trends in attitudes, and the associated preferences and behaviours of the future user, central to design.
Three visions for mobility in the future
How can policymakers grasp socially desired behaviours and harness digital, physical and human interactivity to make progress toward the ultimate goal of more effective, personal mobility? We outline three potential outcomes for mobility for future residents in large cities:
- Mobility is an on-demand, personal service
Digital social channels inform users’ mobility decisions and are an important part of their journeys. At the same time, the increasingly blurred boundaries between the digital world, physical infrastructure and human activity mean that consumers have access to a customizable mobility service at their fingertips. The challenge for policymakers is to convert attitudes, such as residents’ acceptance of autonomous transport services and interest in ridesharing, into behaviours.
- Pedestrian and pedal power rule
More residents are opting to live in inner-city locations and a decreasing proportion of people own cars. Non-motorized transport modes are predominant in city life. The bulk of a city’s residents are active commuters, using non-motorized transport for a portion of their daily journeys.
To achieve the most effective outcome for mobility, the policy challenge is to enable residents to act on their preferences and aspirations for an active commute. The twist on this challenge, in an environment of digital technology and hyper-connectivity, is to design policy that uses the socio-technical transition to enable behaviour.
- There is no peak hour
Worsening congestion is a thing of the past. With many people telecommuting, and non-work trips comprising a higher proportion of travel, residents have flexible transit times. Engaging residents with appropriate incentives and penalties so that they adapt their behaviour is the focus for policy.
Framing what a “commute of the future” could look like — the length of the working week, how people use telecommuting and plan for social gatherings — is the first step. Governments can then use digital technologies to bring it to life, through interactive platforms and effective use of real-time information.
SOURCE: Report by Ernst & Young (www.ey.com)
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