A Multidimensional Concept of Mobility — A New Approach to Urban Transportation Research and Planning

Abstract

Whenever one speaks about urban ecology and sustainable cities, it very quickly becomes clear that traffic is a central cause of ecological and social strain in cities, as well as of “urban unsustainability”. This has resulted in the emergence of the idea of “sustainable transportation”, or “sustainable mobility”. In this chapter, we look at the social process of shaping a “more sustainable urban mobility”; we will concentrate on some aspects of this process rather than providing a normative description of “sustainable transportation”. Initiating a process aimed at shaping a more sustainable mobility implies the need for a critical assessment of existing approaches and conventional methods of transportation research and planning. With respect to this conceptual reorientation, our first claim is that the ultimate failure of strategies and policies supporting more environmentally viable modes of transportation can, among others, be attributed to shortcomings in current transportation research.