Transitions of Mobility Systems in Urban Regions: A Heuristic Framework

Abstract

This article examines the possible contributions that transition studies can make to better understand the problems that hinder attempts to deliver co-ordination between transport and land-use planning and better integration between modes of transport in urban regions. Recent publications focus on barriers of co-ordination between transport and land use and methods to overcome them. Obdurate social and material structures are the dominant obstacles for change. For this reason, transition studies are considered to conceptualize the mobility system. In the article, key theories in transition studies are first considered. Following this, the ways in which these concepts can be used to characterize the system of transport and land-use planning are explored; it is demonstrated that the system and the challenges facing it can be better understood by using these concepts. This has resulted in a conceptual model for the development of the mobility system. A focus-group session in the Noordvleugel region of the Randstad in the Netherlands has been used to test the usability of this model in practice, gauge the participants' reactions to it and to supplement it, if necessary. By combining insights about how to conceptualise change in socio-technical systems and more specific knowledge about transport land-use planning, this article gives new insight into how a transition towards better co-ordination between transport and land-use planning and the transport network could occur, as well as how it could be hindered. It also provides interesting indications of research options examining cases where such transitions have taken place or been attempted.

Keywords:

• Transition
• mobility
• transport land-use
• multi-level

Acknowledgements

This research has been made possible by financial support from the Sustainable Accessibility for the Randstad research programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). We wish also to acknowledge the insightful and challenging comments of two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

Institutions are understood here as relatively coherent sets of rules and resources.

We define an actor as an acting individual, group or organization; the actor may exhibit more or less agency.