Expert View: Karen Vancluysen on Transport Development in Moscow and Worldwide
1. Ecology, environmental protection and clean air is a very important topic for modern Europe. How can we involve more city residents in this issue? When do people start to worry about ecology? Should the city authorities be the first to start a dialogue and launch projects on the topic of ecology? What successful cases are there?
There is often an inherent friction between what individual citizens want and what the city and society as a whole needs in terms of mobility. Introducing policy measures that discourage and disincentivize car use in city centres often meet with resistance and require political leadership. A number of approaches can help in getting citizens on board:
Linking environmental concerns to personal health concerns (the impact of air pollution on our children, the personal health benefits of active travel) can make people feel more engaged and directly concerned.
Make sure to involve your citizens in the planning of new projects and measures from day 1. Stakeholder consultation and citizens engagement will help to make sure you take citizens’ concerns into account, while allowing policy makers to explain why certain measures need to be taken, sometimes in spite of popular opinion. Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans help cities to systematically build in this step in their policy and planning. Co-creation approaches up to the neighbourhood level are also gaining more and more ground and improve buy-in.
Trial and pilot new solutions: letting citizens experience the positive impact of a measure, which might otherwise meet with resistance, is a very powerful way to win people’s hearts and minds. The congestion charge scheme in Stockholm, where the measure was piloted first and then approved through a referendum is a famous example of that.
2. When do you think the majority of all city rides will be made by eco-friendly transport? What electric public transport or transport on other alternative fuels are currently the most efficient for cities and why?
We still have a long way to go, but through their Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans, cities are setting clear targets in terms of modal shift and climate neutrality. By 2041, London aims for 80% of all Londoner’s trips to be made on foot, by bike or by public transport. By 2035, Gothenburg want 35% of trips to be done on foot or by bike, and 55% of motorised journeys by public transport. Paris wants to be carbon-neutral by 2050 and the recently launched European Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy calls for having at least 100 climate neutral cities in Europe by 2030.
In terms of alternative fuels, we see that the focus of cities is predominantly on electrification. Many cities and regions are forerunners in the roll-out of charging infrastructure to accelerate the take-up of electric vehicles. At the same time, it is important to look at electromobility from a multimodal perspective, with a priority for modal shift away from the private car in urban cores, electrifying captive fleets such as public transport, urban freight and shared mobility services, and electrification of the remaining private vehicles. Accompanying measures such as urban vehicles access regulations, including low and zero emission zones, are also gaining more and more ground and incentivize the shift to clean transport. I also strongly believe there is tremendous potential for the e-bike, whose sales is booming. It extends the range of cycling beyond the typical 5 km, and if also offered through shared schemes and combined with cycle highway infrastructure, it could become a very important mode for commuter traffic, which is still a heavy burden on many cities in terms of incoming car traffic.
3. Transport experts are now talking more and more about mobility as a service convenient for everyone. Please tell us if there are already successful examples of using MaaS and transport-on-demand. Are there any challenges of implementation?
MaaS is being talked about a lot indeed, but in comparison to the buzz around it, the current level of deployment remains limited. Whim in Helsinki is a famous example of course, but you also have public-sector driven MaaS initiatives being rolled out in the Ile-de-France region and Madrid for example. MaaS is often talked about, especially by the private sector, as the Holy Grail that will make urban mobility more sustainable. However, it is not because you offer people a nice app where different mobility services come together, that they will miraculously switch to more sustainable transport modes. It also wouldn’t be fair to expect that from any single measure.
As always, we need integrated approaches, packages of different measures, and carrots as well as sticks. For MaaS to work we first of all need good mobility services to be in place that can be digitally integrated. But digital integration also requires physical integration on the ground: stations, interchanges, mobility hubs where the different transport modes come together and you can easily switch between them.
We also have to make sure that the mobility modes that are being prioritised in a MaaS environment are indeed also the most sustainable ones. That’s why it is instrumental to build public sector oversight into the MaaS ecosystem. A purely commercially driven MaaS might nudge users towards modes that are generating the most revenue, rather than being the most sustainable ones. The most typical example is walking, a very valuable mode from a sustainable mobility policy perspective, but not generating income for commercial MaaS actors. Cities are not looking for a modal shift from walking to e-scooters for example, that won’t help them reach their public policy goals.
The challenges that slow down the implementation of MaaS are manifold. There’s the complexity of having to build partnerships among very different types of stakeholders, private and public, including framework conditions and agreements for integrated ticketing. There’s the need to create a trusted environment, taking into account privacy and commercial concerns of the different parties concerned. There’s the risk of walled gardens between different commercial operators, who would rather see their own app become the standard than buy into a third-party solution. Then there is the cost and business model behind: who is going to pay for the additional integration layer that MaaS offers? The user? The operators? The public sector? From that perspective, equity is a concern as well. We should make sure MaaS makes mobility options more inclusive and easier to access, and not the opposite. We still have a way to go in resolving these challenges, but if we strike the right balance between public and private sector interests, MaaS can become an important incentive for citizens to become more multimodal and less car-dependent.
We will need this to go hand in hand with disincentives as well however, such as internalising the external costs of car traffic and introducing polluter pays principles, and reallocating space in our cities in favour of more sustainable transport modes.
4. During the COVID-19 pandemic bicycles have seen high growth in popularity in almost every city. But at the same time, many residents began to choose private cars more often. Will the growth of car travel slow down after the pandemic? How to convince citizens to use public transport more often?
The current health crisis is bringing along threats as well as opportunities. It has been great to see the bike boom and the respacing of city streets in favour of active travel. At the same time indeed, public transport use collapsed and we face the threat of going from lockdown to gridlock, with people perceiving the car as the ultimate ‘safety bubble’. We will have to be pro-active in making sure we capitalise on the opportunities offered by the crisis, i.e. locking in the reallocation of space in favour of active travel but also of public transport, and make it permanent — this was long overdue anyway. But we also have to actively invest in the recovery of public transport and avoid ending up in a situation even worse than before. We simply cannot afford that to happen, because all of the other crises we have been trying to tackle in our cities, which may be less tangible than COVID-19 right now, but are not any less serious in terms of their negative impact on people, society and our planet: air pollution, congestion, safety, climate change. If we want to address these major challenges head on and not compromise on ambitions set, we need public transport — and active travel — to remain the backbone of the urban mobility ecosystem. There is no other mode combining sustainability, efficiency and affordability like mass transit. And affordability, leaving nobody behind, will be crucial as the health crisis leaves us with an economic crisis as well. Cities and public transport authorities are working hard on rebuilding trust in public transport and have invested a lot in health and safety measures to guarantee that using public transport is indeed safe. Awareness raising and campaigns will be important to inform citizens, but also — again — disincentivizing unsustainable transport. Pricing measures are politically sensitive, but it is a misconception that they hit the most vulnerable and economically disadvantaged people in society the hardest. In fact, those groups are often exposed the most to the adverse impacts of cars in cities, in terms of noise and air pollution for example, and in many cases they don’t own a car themselves.
It is of course also important to make sustainable alternatives more attractive, to ensure they are of good quality, and to reward sustainable mobility behaviour. That is why we also need to move beyond the traditional definition of public transport and work towards a better integration of mass transit and shared mobility services, in a way that the latter complement the former and address service gaps that can never be met by mass transit (off-peak periods, suburban areas, target groups with specific needs, etc.).
We have a unique window of opportunity in front of us. Let’s not waste it and build back better!
5. In your opinion, what experience can Moscow share with other cities? What competitive advantages do you see for the Russian capital that will allow it to improve the transport system in the future?
Your transport systems shows the right mix of making sure all fundamentals for a comprehensive and multimodal mobility ecosystem are well in place, with embracing innovation to further enhance your transport services in a way it supports your policies. What you have accomplished with your 2010-2020 strategy is impressive and today we see a diverse transport network in place with high-quality infrastructure, including digital infrastructure, that can cater to the different needs of users, while addressing sustainability concerns. When looking at your new transport strategy for the coming years, this also shows you got your priorities totally right with the five key focus areas you will work on: affordable and comfortable public transport, safe roads, healthy streets, digitalisation of mobility, and new modes of transport. These priorities are fully aligned with what is high on the agenda of European cities, so I am confident there will be a fruitful exchange that can inspire many. We are delighted to welcome you to the POLIS family!