Exploring impacts on city, regional and national levels

Aims and research questions

The aim of this work package is to study how the ASI and integrated accessibility services may fit in a wider systems perspective, on city, regional and national levels. To that end we analyse the potential effects of these ASI in specific contexts, e.g. the Stockholm region, Malmö and a countryside location. We will also develop images of future sustainable Swedish transport system incorporating selected sets of ASIs.

Research questions addressed:

• How may the (integrated) accessibility services from work packages 4 and 5 play out in specific urban and rural cases, regarding traffic flows and sustainability characteristics?
• How can planning of the built environment and allocation of scarce urban (road) space supplement the use of the more sustainable accessibility services that emerge from work packages 4 and 5?
• How may the (integrated) accessibility services from work packges 4 and 5 fit in an overall Swedish accessibility and mobility system that reaches climate targets etc, given different external developments from work package 2.

Context of this work package

This work package analyses how the proposed ASIs and integrated services may fit in a wider transport system, and how complementing urban planning and other measures should be designed in order to best meet sustainability targets. Of particular interest is to explore how the Swedish goals of establishing a fossil-free vehicle fleet by 2030 and the goal of Sweden becoming one of the first fossil free welfare countries, could be achieved.

Relation to other work packages

This work package will use the results of all the previous work packages. In particular it will use the outlook on global and national external factors from work package 3 and the analysis of promising ASIs from work package 4 and 5. The output from work package 6 will be a point of departure for the analysis of relevant planning and policy recourses carried out in work package 7.

Work package leader

Tasks

Task WP6.1 Case applications in Stockholm, Malmö and countryside region

The aim is to apply statistical analysis, simulation models, forecasting tools and other methods to provide quantitative analysis and assessment of the impacts of different proposed accessibility service innovations (ASIs), including modifications and combinations thereof. The impacts to be studied include changed travel patterns, changed traffic flows spatially and between modes, reduced environmental impacts and modified allocation of road space. The research questions also include the possibilities to improve the overall effect by adapting physical planning and land use.

The following research questions will be addressed:

• How may the (integrated) accessibility services from work package 4 and 5 play out in specific urban and rural cases (Stockholm County), regarding traffic flows and sustainability characteristics?
• How can planning of the built environment and allocation of scarce urban (road) space supplement the use of the more sustainable accessibility services that emerge from work packages 4 and 5?

The task works with the case of greater Stockholm. One part of the task is to apply the various tools mentioned above to fine-tune the design of the most promising ASIs and integrated accessibility services, for these specific geographical contexts, to make them as attractive as possible for different user groups. This will be studied from an accessibility perspective and with respect to their environmental impacts. To this end quantitative analyses of the mobility effects of the ASIs (including their effects on untravel, pre-scheduled, on-demand and self-organised accessibility services) will be carried out. It will also be relevant to study how the ASIs will interact positively and negatively with land use planning and other policy actions including economic instruments such as fuel taxes, congestion charges, parking and fare policies. A second equally important part of the task is to make a quantitative assessment of the overall effect of a successful penetration of the transport sector of the most promising ASIs on accessibility, mobility and the environment.

To answer the research questions of this task a number of quantitative studies have to be carried out. The research team is well familiar with, has access to and has actually designed and developed several transport demand and simulation models. Although these models can be very useful as a starting point, they are not immediately applicable to the present task. This is because (1) most of the new ASIs are not encompassed in the models at all and (2) the preferences for the new ASIs are generally not known. For instance, car sharing services, electric bikes or virtual meetings are not adequately modeled.

So there are two great challenges here. The preferences will to some extent be explored in other parts of Mistra SAMS. The second challenge, model development, will be undertaken in this task. Attempts to accomplish this will be made either by modifying the use of the national transport demand model Sampers, developing the meso-level model Mezzo and/or making an available prototype activity-based model operational. It should, however, be emphasized that this is a very complex task and this WP will most likely not fullysucceed in such an inclusion of the new ASIs.

User value and users participating

In this task representatives from greater Stockholm will participate. The units responsible for physical planning, strategic infrastructure development and traffic planning will be especially concerned and involved in the more detailed set-up of the proposed analyses and studies.

International co-operation

Our international partners and the Advisory Board will support the task with relevant inputs from the international research community.

Task leader: Daniel Jonsson, KTH.

Task WP6.2: Images of Sustainable Swedish accessibility and mobility 2030/2050

The aim of this task is to explore how the promising sets of ASI, and the integrated accessibility services, may fit in the wider Swedish accessibility and mobility system, and how national sustainability targets can be achieved, e.g. climate targets until 2030/2050.

The following research question will be addressed:

• How can the climate targets for 2030 and 2050 be achieved with the help of the ASIs identified in Mistra SAMS?

This task explores hhow the promising sets of ASIs, and the integrated accessibility services, may fit in the wider Swedish accessibility and mobility system, and how sustainability targets can be achieved. To this end, researchers in the task will develop a couple of images of the entire Swedish accessibility and mobility system which reaches the sustainability targets. A backcasting approach will be used. Special emphasis lies on the target of a fossil independent vehicle fleet in 2030 and the target of no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050.

The task will draw substantially from previous scenario studies made by partners in the consortium. Key examples are Åkerman et al. (2007) , Höjer et al. (2011)  and Åkerman et al. (2014) . The ASIs which in Mistra SAMS have been found beneficial for the sustainability targets are important but they do not constitute the whole transport system. This task will therefore outline a couple of images of entire Swedish accessibility and mobility systems, in which the ASIs are connected to each other and to the rest of the (transport) system, to ascertain an overall internal consistency as well as target achievement for the whole system.

For instance, one key issue concerns how the energy use and the emissions generated by the ASIs and other parts of the system (like aviation and long-distance freight) can be kept within the targets set up. Efficient utilization of the national road and railroad infrastructure, as well as possible new investments in infrastructure, will also be dealt with in this task. In these images consideration will also be taken to different external developments, for Sweden and globally, which will have an impact on the possibilities to achieve sustainability targets. Examples of such developments are demography of the Swedish population,development of social trends, effects of climate change and supply of carbon neutral energy. The aim is to find robust (or flexible) solutions for ASIs, integrated services, infrastructure and the built environment, that may cope satisfactorily with many external outcomes.

There are no backcasting studies covering the Swedish accessibility and mobility system in which ASIs like the ones treated in this program are included. Swedish backcasting studies without most of the ASIs have been carried out by Mistra SAMS researchers (se above). Other recent scenario studies covering the Swedish transport system are for instance Gustavsson et al. (2011)  and SOU 2013:84 .

User value and users participating

Since this task covers the entire Swedish accessibility and mobility system it concerns almost all actors. Users are directly involved in earlier work packages which this one builds on, but they will also be given the opportunity to comment on drafts reports from this task.

International co-operation

With the help of our international partners and Advisory Board we will be able to transfer relevant results from abroad.

Task leader: Jonas Åkerman, KTH.