The new paradigm in urban mobility should be access

Mobility refers to how frequently you travel, and is commonly measured as the product of the number of persons or vehicles and their distances travelled. Accessibility refers to how easily you travel between activities, or the overall difficulty in getting from an origin to a destination. Accessibility is generally quantified as an aggregate measure of the land-use activity and closeness of land-use activity opportunities of a given type to a particular location.

Traditional transportation planning seeks to improve mobility where accessibility is already high, ignores areas with low accessibility but high mobility, and fails to acknowledge the potentially detrimental impacts of improved mobility on accessibility in the long-term.

Furthermore, accessibility cannot only be improved through interventions in the transportation system, but also through interventions in the land use system as well as in the way services are provided. Thus, while both mobility and accessibility are important, the latter estimates land-use– transportation connectivity and so is a more important measure in determining transportation policy.

Therefore, the philosophy in our proposed national internal transportation planning policy should be on sustainable people travel, and beneficial connectivity to communities through improved transportation accessibility.

So, the new paradigm in urban mobility should be access — the ultimate objective of all transportation — to goods, services, people and amenities thereby bringing people and places together.

The new urban paradigm should have compact city, urban mixed land uses and reduced consumption of non-renewable energy and emission of greenhouse gases.

• A city has to provide for many aspects of urban transport to improve its liveability, such as, • A cyclist and pedestrian friendly city.

• A city with good public transport.

• A city that supports sustainable travel.

• A city with efficient support services.

• A city with balanced parking.

• A traffic-calmed and an accessible city.

• A city with good streets for people.

• Pooling and sharing of cars is better than everyone owning one.

Cities are running out of space and cannot afford to have unlimited parking areas. Fewer cars means less traffic, less pollution, nicer streets, better movement of resources, more jobs.

Many car trips in the morning are school escort journeys. There are many reasons for this trend, amongst the most obvious (in no order of priority) are:
• Parents’ fears about their children’s involvement in road traffic accidents if they walk or cycle to school;
• Parents’ fears about the personal safety of their children if they travel to school unaccompanied;
• Increases in car ownership and use, particularly in relation to multiple cars in a household; and
• Greater parental choice of school (as a resulting of no school zoning districts) and other factors resulting in longer journeys to school.

The consequences of this trend are far-reaching, and include:
• Increase in peak period traffic congestion;
• Increase in atmospheric pollution around schools;
• Children with fewer opportunities to develop road safety and personal safety skills;
• Lack of exercise and consequential impact on general health and well-being;
• Reduced children’s independence and social development; and
• Travel habits developed early in life which are difficult to change.

My newspaper writing has always been for the readers to recognize that we all have a RIGHT to public transport. This should be a common cause by voters from all sides, and we must demand of the political parties the provision of community-connected, safe, scheduled, and convenient public transport service, with an appropriate mix of modes to satisfy the demands for all persons in society. Of course, the pitch could be for a specific percentage in society as a start.

Key elements for improving public transport system are:
• administration of the system;
• knowledge of customer types, where they are coming from and going to, and for what purpose;
• route optimization;
• scheduling;
• location and design of bus stops;
• bus priority and
• vehicle design mix.

Not providing for accessibility and mobility also imposes costs on society, with a loss of independence, selfesteem, and poorer health placing greater costs on health, social and welfare services than if people had independent access.

In general, as a society’s dependence on the car increases, those without cars experience diminishing control over their lives and diminished faith in either markets or the institutions of government to safeguard their interests. The more dependent a society becomes on the car, the stronger the motivation of those without cars becomes to acquire them.

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