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Universal Design as a Way of Thinking About Mobility

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Towards User-Centric Transport in Europe

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Mobility ((LNMOB))

Abstract

The concept of universal design in reference to a strategy to counter social exclusion was first coined by the architect Ronald Mace. He defined Universal design (UD) as “the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design”. This paper will look into the use of UD as a policy objective for transport policy, using Norwegian experience as an example. UD was adopted as one of the four major policy objectives in Norwegian transport policy in 2009. However, from 2018 onwards UD is no longer a main policy objective. This experience with UD as a policy objective is used as an empirical backdrop for a more principal discussion on the usefulness of UD in transport and mobility. I conclude by pointing at UD as a useful vision, but difficult policy objective.

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Notes

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Acknowledgements

Sections of this paper draws on the work of Aarhaug and Elvebakk (2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Transport Economics, Gaustadalleen 21, 0349, Oslo, Norway

    Jørgen Aarhaug

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  1. Jørgen Aarhaug
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Correspondence to Jørgen Aarhaug .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Future Mobility and Europe, VDI/VDE Innovation und Technik GmbH, Berlin, Germany

    Beate Müller

  2. Future Mobility and Europe, VDI/VDE Innovation und Technik GmbH, Berlin, Germany

    Gereon Meyer

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Aarhaug, J. (2019). Universal Design as a Way of Thinking About Mobility. In: Müller, B., Meyer, G. (eds) Towards User-Centric Transport in Europe. Lecture Notes in Mobility. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99756-8_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99756-8_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-99755-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-99756-8

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