Abstract
New mobility services, enabled by developments in digital technology, could be the making of sustainability in urban mobility. Alternatively, they could act to increase car dependence and so worsen what are already severe sustainability problems. Governance of new mobility services needs to steer implementation towards sustainability, and this chapter explores what that governance might look like. The stakes are high because of the extent of sustainability impacts of transport, especially the increasingly urgent need to decarbonise the sector. There is evidence that reductions in car dependence are required to address many of the pressing social, environmental and economic transport problems, including carbon dioxide emissions. Uncertainties about the sustainability implications of new mobility services present challenges for governance. Those governance challenges are heightened by the complex landscape of actors, with new developers and service providers joining an already complicated multi-level system. I argue that collaborative and reflexive governance provides a basis for meeting these challenges of uncertainty and complexity. However, its implementation should involve reframing the relationships between transport authorities and developers of mobility services such that innovation is rewarded, but priority is given to responding to evidence on sustainability impacts as they emerge.
Caroline Mullen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK.
This work is supported by U-PASS Urban Public Administration and Services innovation for Innovative Urban Mobility Management and Policy ESRC Grant ref: ES/T000074/1, Co-funder: JPI-Europe.
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Notes
- 1.
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- 3.
Docherty, Marsden and Anable (n 1); Louise Reardon, ‘Ensuring Good Governance: The Role of Planners in the Development of Autonomous Vehicles’ (2018) 19 Planning Theory & Practice 773; Jingrui An and others, ‘Collaborative Governance in the Sharing Economy. A Case of Free-Floating Bicycle Sharing with Visualized Analyzation’ (2019) 22(supp 1) The Design Journal 777.
- 4.
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- 5.
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- 6.
For instance, Caroline Mullen and Greg Marsden, ‘Mobility Justice in Low Carbon Energy Transitions’ (2016) 18 Energy Research & Social Science 109; Stefan Gössling, ‘Urban Transport Justice’ (2016) 54 Journal of Transport Geography 1.
- 7.
Mullen and Marsden, ‘Mobility Justice’ (n 6).
- 8.
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- 9.
Colin Pooley and others, ‘Policies for Promoting Walking and Cycling in England: a View from the Street’ (2013) 27 Transport Policy 66; Caroline Mullen and others, ‘Knowing their Place on the Roads: What Would Equality Mean for Walking and Cycling?’ (2014) 61 Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 238.
- 10.
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- 11.
Pooley and others (n 9).
- 12.
Donald Appleyard, Liveable Streets (University of California Press 1981).
- 13.
Mattioli (n 8); Mullen, Marsden and Philips ‘Precarity’ (n 8).
- 14.
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- 15.
World Health Organization, Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018 (World Health Organization 2018).
- 16.
Mullen and others, ‘Knowing their Place on the Roads’ (n 9).
- 17.
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- 18.
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- 20.
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- 21.
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- 22.
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- 23.
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- 24.
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- 25.
Consider the increasingly acute impacts of failure to decarbonise transport. See also John Bowers, Sustainability and Environmental Economics: An Alternative Text (Longman 1997).
- 26.
CCC Lord Deben (n 23). Note that this letter pre-dates the amendment committing the country to net-zero emissions by 2050: Climate Change Act 2008 (2050 Target Amendment) Order 2019, SI 2019/1056.
- 27.
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- 28.
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- 29.
CCC, ‘Progress Report’ (n 19); Jillian Anable, Christian Brand and Caroline Mullen, ‘Transport: Taming of the SUV?’ in UK Energy Research Centre (ed), ‘Review of Energy Policy 2019: December 2019’ (UKERC, 2019) 10 <https://ukerc.rl.ac.uk/UCAT/PUBLICATIONS/UKERC_Review_Energy_Policy_2019.pdf> accessed 10 March 2020.
- 30.
Mullen and Marsden, ‘Mobility Justice’ (n 6).
- 31.
Wadud, MacKenzie and Leiby, ‘Help or Hindrance’ (n 2).
- 32.
Sendy Farag and Glenn Lyons, ‘To Use or Not to Use? An Empirical Study of Pre-trip Public Transport Information for Business and Leisure Trips and Comparison with Car Travel’ (2012) 20 Transport Policy 82; Jan-Willem Grotenhuis, Bart W Wiegmans and Piet Rietveld, ‘The Desired Quality of Integrated Multimodal Travel Information in Public Transport: Customer Needs for Time and Effort Savings’ (2007) 14 Transport Policy 27; Susan Kenyon and Glenn Lyons, ‘The Value of Integrated Multimodal Traveller Information and its Potential Contribution to Modal Change’ (2003) 6 Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour 1.
- 33.
See Tim Chatterton and others, ‘Flexi-Mobility: Helping Local Authorities Unlock Low Carbon Travel?’ (University Transport Studies Group (UTSG) 47th Annual Conference, London, January 2015).
- 34.
This also raises questions about data protection which are largely outside the scope of this chapter.
- 35.
See, for instance Christina Pakusch and others, ‘Unintended Effects of Autonomous Driving: A Study on Mobility Preferences in the Future’ (2018) 10 Sustainability 2404.
- 36.
John M Barrios, Yael V Hochberg and Hanyi L Yi, ‘The Cost of Convenience: Ridesharing and Traffic Fatalities’ (2018) Becker Friedman Institute Working Paper No. 2018-80 <https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI-WP-2018-80.pdf> accessed 10 March 2020; Bruce Schaller, ‘The New Automobility: Lyft, Uber and the Future of American Cities’ (Schaller Consulting, 2018) <www.schallerconsult.com/rideservices/automobility.pdf> accessed 9 January 2020.
- 37.
Pooley and others (n 9).
- 38.
ibid.
- 39.
See for instance, Sustrans, ‘Our Position on Micromobility’ (sustrans, 1 January 2019) <www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/policy-positions/all/all/our-position-on-micromobility> accessed 10 January 2020.
- 40.
Alan Andrews, The Clean Air Handbook: A Practical Guide to EU Air Quality Law (Client Earth 2014).
- 41.
See Jonathan Andrew, ‘Challenges to Locational Privacy: The Transformation of Urban Mobility’, in this volume.
- 42.
Docherty, Marsden and Anable (n 1).
- 43.
Campaign for Better Transport, ‘Buses in Crisis: a Report on Funding Across England and Wales 2010-2018’ (Campaign for Better Transport, June 2018) <https://bettertransport.org.uk/sites/default/files/research-files/19.04.12.bic-2018.pdf> accessed 10 January 2020.
- 44.
Marsden, ‘Planning for Autonomous Vehicles?’ (n 2); Pooley and others (n 9).
- 45.
Barrios, Hochberg and Yi, ‘The Cost of Convenience’ (n 36).
- 46.
Road Traffic Act 1988.
- 47.
Marsden, ‘Planning for Autonomous Vehicles?’ (n 2).
- 48.
Docherty, Marsden and Anable (n 1).
- 49.
An and others (n 3).
- 50.
Chatterton and others (n 33); Mullen and Marsden ‘Mobility Justice’ (n 6); Greg Marsden and others, All Change? The Future of Travel Demand and the Implications for Policy and Planning: the First Report of the Commission on Travel Demand (Commission on Travel Demand 2018).
- 51.
For instance, James Bohman, ‘The Coming of Age of Deliberative Democracy’ (1998) 6 The Journal of Political Philosophy 400; Hrelja, Rye and Mullen, ‘Partnerships Between Operators’ (n 4).
- 52.
Charles F Sabel, ‘Learning by Monitoring: The Institutions of Economic Development’, in Neil J Smelser and Richard Swedberg (eds), The Handbook of Economic Sociology (Russell Sage Foundation 1994). Van Slyke (n 5); Lenoble and Maesschalck, Democracy, Law and Governance (n 5); Vincent-Jones and Mullen, ‘Collaborative to Genetic Governance’ (n 5); Hrelja, Rye and Mullen, ‘Partnerships Between Operators’ (n 4).
- 53.
Sabel (n 52); Van Slyke (n 5); Hrelja, Rye and Mullen, ‘Partnerships Between Operators’ (n 4).
- 54.
Onora O’Neill, Question of Trust: The BBC Reith Lectures 2002 (Cambridge University Press 2002).
- 55.
Sabel (n 52); Van Slyke (n 5); Hrelja, Rye and Mullen, ‘Partnerships Between Operators’ (n 4).
- 56.
A point made over a decade ago by Nicholas Stern, Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review. (Cambridge University Press 2007).
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Mullen, C. (2020). Governing a Risky Relationship Between Sustainability and Smart Mobility. In: Finck, M., Lamping, M., Moscon, V., Richter, H. (eds) Smart Urban Mobility. MPI Studies on Intellectual Property and Competition Law, vol 29. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-61920-9_2
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