The Landscape of Envisioning and Speculative Design Methods for Sustainable Mobility Futures

Abstract

Urban mobility is facing an increased long-term uncertainty and complexity generated by accelerated technological development. These challenges require radical advancement in planning processes and methods, which could enable breaking out of path dependencies and unlocking alternative, sustainable futures. In order to provide a landscape overview of foresight-focused methods used in the domain of urban mobility, we conduct a systematic literature review. An analytical framework for review is based on planning knowledge taxonomy, including dialectic between knowing how/what and knowing to what end and doing. Such framework formulation is aiming to assess methodological capacity for widening system boundary and holism (object-focus) as well as integration and imagination (process-focus). Results show that the overall trend of methodological development is emphasizing development in object or process-focus domain, but rarely both. In addition to this assessment, we conclude that methodological development should further reflect the moral and democratic dimension concerning public deliberation. Such development should aim to create spaces for shared discussion, reflection, and formation of alternative futures, while allowing spaces for agonistic contestation and conflicting opinions through radical, experimental, and experiential approaches.

Developing disruptive mobility scenarios for rural areas. Participatory mobility scenario building in a Belgian village for the year 2050

“…None of the suggested ideas radically challenged the status quo. While the most often used forecasting methods are path-dependent [4], our findings do not immediately confirm that more creative and participatory methods significantly reduce pathdependent thinking of adults. The wild cards did cause the interviewees to step outside their comfort zone, but most wondered what the added value was of subjecting their vision to wild cards.…”

“…Scenarios show different possible future pathways, whereas a forecast aims to predict only one. Nevertheless, traditional and path-dependent forecasting methods are still dominant [4]. For example, in their analysis of 62 recent future studies papers, Miskolczi et al [5] found that 16 were based on scenario planning, while 46 were based on forecasts.…”

Emerging mobility technologies and transitions of urban space allocation in a Nordic governance context

“…The term scenario is used here as a hypothetical future purposefully built to highlight the policy dilemmas and societal tensions to be expected as the subject under analysis-full automation of road transport-transitions from being a theoretical speculation to becoming a daily reality which individuals can (or have to) directly experience. In accordance with the typologies of scenario building, a mix of exploratory (to think the unthinkable) and backcasting (to identify the critical decisions) approaches (Banister & Hickman, 2013;Stead & Banister, 2003;Sustar, Mladenovi c, & Givoni, 2020) are used. Scenario planning is adopted because of the complexity of the context, the wide range of potential future developments and the diversity of participant perspectives included in technological transitions processes.…”

Bridge over troubled water: managing compatibility and conflict among thought collectives in sustainability science

“…The low-tech collectives consist mainly of urban planning, transportation and mobility scholars and professionals, as well as urban activist groups. These collectives typically argue that more fundamental changes in urban design and planning are needed to reach SDGs 3 and 11 (Banister 2011;Sustar et al 2020). The low-tech view emphasises an overall shift in paradigm from private-vehicle-centred planning to human-centred planning (Gehl 2010) in order to create socially and ecologically more just transportation cultures (Martens 2016;Sheller 2018) Besides prioritizing the development of public transportation networks, urban planning oriented low-tech collectives would tackle the sustainability challenges of mobility by integrating and densifying residential, commercial and leisure districts to decrease the need for mobility (Meurs and Haaijer 2001;Gallo and Marinelli 2020).…”