Urban mobility: preparing for the future, learning from the past - CREATE project summary and recommendations

Abstract

Transport decisions, and their resulting impacts on land use patterns, fundamentally shape and define a city, both physically and through the daily living patterns of its citizens and visitors. As policy priorities change, so do the types of measures that are introduced, with resulting shifts in travel behaviour and lifestyles. What at one point in a city’s history is often seen as the ‘inevitable’ need to adapt the urban fabric to accommodate the growing use of the motor car, may later be replaced by a focus on people movement and sustainable mobility, and a growing interest in urban quality and vitality – a city of places for people. CREATE (Congestion Reduction in Europe: Advancing Transport Efficiency) charts these changes in policy priorities and travel behaviour through the experiences of five Western European capital cities over the last 50 years, noting the policy tensions and competing city visions, the triggers leading to change and the evolving governance arrangements that have facilitated, or sometimes retarded, such developments. As policy priorities change, so do measures of success; in a car-focused city congestion is the dominant concern, but this becomes less important as more people travel by rail or on foot or by cycle, and when cities put a greater value on high quality places. Alongside this there have been technical changes, in the types of methods used to model behaviour and appraise schemes, and in the ways in which these tools are used. This document provides an introduction to the CREATE project, focusing on findings and lessons of value to practitioners, and those developing or updating their Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans. It is underpinned by extensive qualitative and quantitative research, which is fully documented in several deliverables, and summarised in a series of Technical Notes. A more comprehensive set of Guidelines is also available.

Original document

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

• https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10058850,

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10058850/1/Jones%20et%20al%202018%20Preparing%20for%20the%20future%2C%20learning%20from%20the%20past.pdf