Dimensions of urban mobility cultures – a comparison of German cities

Abstract

In the context of the immense economic and social challenges urban transport faces in the near future, the analysis of city-specific differences in supply and usage of urban transport systems is a promising approach for identifying potential strategies for establishing more sustainable transport systems and mobility patterns. This study aims to address such differences by a comparative approach and is, to our best knowledge, the first one capturing the subjective dimension of urban mobility by integrating satisfaction and perception-related indicators at a city-level. Drawing on the sociotechnical concept of urban mobility cultures, which combines socio-economic and urban form characteristics, mode-specific infrastructure supply, as well as the travel behaviour and underlying attitudes of a city's inhabitants, we collected a set of 23 indicators from several sources, mainly from the early 2000s. These data have been applied to a sample of 44 German cities. As a result of a factor and cluster analysis we identified six groups of cities ranging from relatively mature and homogenous sociotechnical settings, referred to as 'cycling cities' or 'transit metropolises', to urban mobility cultures such as 'transit cities with multimodal potential', whose forthcoming development is not yet directed towards a specific future and, therefore, is open for political debate. The mismatch between objective and subjective indicators of urban mobility culture that has been shown for some city groups is another starting-point for changing urban mobility cultures in terms of taking people's perceptions and evaluations of the local transport system more seriously.

European mobility cultures: A survey-based cluster analysis across 28 European countries

“…Additionally, our study adds the value of comparison across countries and the identification of country clusters in the EU, which to the authors' knowledge has not been achieved in any previous study. Previous quantitative studies comparing regions with regard to predominant mobility patterns or cultures, either focussed on cities not countries (Klinger et al, 2013) Our analysis of the 27000 Eurobarometer respondents suggests that the EC population can be divided into eight mobility clusters: Convenience drivers (46.6% of the EC population), Busy green drivers (10.6%), Price-oriented PT-users (17.0%), Green PT-users (3.6%), Practical cyclists (5.4%), Green cyclists (2.6%), Price-oriented pedestrians (10.5%), and Green pedestrians (3.6%). The clusters differ with respect to everyday travel modes and with respect to the importance of speed, costs and environmental concerns -indicating different degrees of dependency and deliberateness.…”

“…they are defined by both the material and the socially-constructed dimensions of the transport system (cf. Deffner et al, 2006;Klinger et al, 2013). The concept of mobility cultures can be useful in trying to understand why specific mobility segments are well represented in one region but not in another.…”

“…Carstensen & Ebert, 2012;Sheller & Urry, 2000), Klinger et al (2013) have operationalized "urban mobility cultures" based on both subjective (e.g. cycling perceptions) and objective factors (e.g.…”

Destabilising automobility? The emergent mobilities of generation Y

“…Stephenson et al (2010) In this paper, the Energy Cultures Framework is adapted to examine mobility behaviours. This framework has been adapted to mobility research previously 2016, and the concept has also been used to describe the specific material and immaterial, socially constructed aspects of mobility, which includes travel patterns, the built environment, and mobility-related discourses (Klinger et al 2013;Haustein & Nielsen, 2016). The 'mobility cultures' approach is particularly useful in foregrounding (1) the physical and the symbolic dimensions of mobility practices, (2) the structures that operate to influence behaviour, and (3) the spatial and temporal specificities of particular practices.…”

From ‘freedom of the open road’ to ‘cocooning’: Understanding resistance to change in personal private automobility

“…Embedded within socio-technical transitions analysis is the recognition that behaviours, practices, norms and values are all shaped by and in turn help shape technologies -and indeed can be an important part of the selfregulating dynamic stability exhibited by socio-technical systems (Klinger et al, 2013). However, while issues of governance, regulation, technology, political contestation and market framing are given attention in the literature, the cultural meanings and normative practices with regard to material objects are rather less well developed (Marletto, 2014;Walks, 2014).…”