Increasing the political legitimacy of policies to bring about net zero transport is a core challenge for the transformation of the transport sector. This is the case not least because the policies required will probably imply less and slower mobility, challenging the high-mobility society to which many people have become accustomed. One way to increase the legitimacy of these measures could be by public participation which, however, is often subject to a number of challenges, four of which are discussed in this chapter, namely: Who is the public(s)? How to gain awareness? Does the public(s) possess relevant knowledge? Should consensus be an ideal? We conclude by suggesting representative and deliberative public participation as a way forward that could contribute to solving these and other challenges.

This paper examines one category of contentious transport measure: that which reallocates parking space from cars to other modes of transport. Such restrictive measures are regarded as essential within the broader mix of policies needed to create more climate-friendly cities. The study analyses three Norwegian cases: two involving the removal of curb-side parking to make way for cycle lanes on urban streets, and one involving the removal of parking to pedestrianise three central-city squares. Using a social-justice framework, the analysis reveals three key findings. Firstly, although all three cases involve the removal of parking, the extent and nature of public resistance varied depending on the overall parking policy in place, with this broader policy context helping to explain the different levels and forms of protest. Secondly, the paper highlights the value of a social mobility justice approach in analysing transport system changes, showing that protests stem not just from the distribution of benefits and burdens but also from local values and perceived public-space qualities. Thirdly, diluting a road-space reallocation scheme to reduce opposition - for example, by providing extensive replacement parking - can risk weakening its impact on promoting sustainable transport. This underscores the challenge of balancing opposition management with policy effectiveness.

Contentious transport measures (CTM) are defined in this paper as those which reduce the amount of road space available for, or the cost of using, the private car. These measures have been shown to be necessary if a transition to a more sustainable transport system is to take place. Although they are the key decision makers as to whether such measures should be implemented at city level, there is a dearth of research on local politicians’ views on mobility issues in general, and to CTM specifically. This paper addresses this gap by presenting and analysing interviews with local politicians in Sweden, Norway and Spain. It finds that local politicians can be categorised broadly into three groups: those who do not support CTM as they see them as being incompatible with their ideology; those who will support a gradual implementation of such measures; and those for whom there is an urgent need for CTM and that their task is to respond to their voters and lead society towards the transition by implementing CTM even if they are unpopular with some sectors of the electorate. These findings align with earlier work identifying some politicians as radical and some as incremental in their approach to policy change; and the self-definition of politicians as ‘trustees’, leading change as elected representatives, compared to those who see themselves more as ‘delegates’, representing the views of their voters.

Triple Access Planning (TAP) is the idea that accessibility can be delivered through physical mobility, digital connectivity, and spatial proximity. There is great uncertainty as to how far one of these three elements will substitute for or complement the others in delivering the accessibility we need in future. Sustainable Urban Mobility (SUM) Planning is touted as a relatively new paradigm in local transport planning oriented to the achievement of a wide range of societal objectives. The paper presents a review of how well SUM Plans from eight European countries, and national guidelines from four currently account for TAP and uncertainty in their approach. Our findings suggest that while the concept of physical proximity is well-understood, other aspects of the TAP and uncertainty approach are not. Digital connectivity is largely ignored. The planning future is treated as largely certain, with no consideration of disruptive factors that might alter this future.

This article analyses actor relationships in Transit Oriented Development (TOD) planning in order to better understand the preconditions necessary for planning processes to result in TOD in lower density contexts, in suburbs, or small cities. Empirically, the analysis builds on a comparative case study of TOD planning projects. The focus in the analytical work is on understanding how market conditions in lower density contexts influence the conditions for TOD planning projects, and how this feeds through to planning processes. The overall conclusion is that we should not expect that planning processes in small cities with low to medium densities of populations and activities differ much from those in more 'classic' highly urban TOD locations. Market conditions had an impact on planning processes, but once in the planning stage conditions for implementation depended more on the ability to handle competing interests and less on market conditions. In terms of policy recommendations, it is important for actors to develop a joint vision of the built environment of the site in question that channels organizations' individual actions in a joint direction. The ability to achieve such a joint vision for the design of the site in question may be more important in small towns than in more 'typical' TOD contexts in denser urban areas. This is because all enablers need to work together in a positive way in such location - which may be marginal from a market point of view - for the development to be able to go ahead.

A general global wave of public participation is occurring. Students and researchers as well as civil servants, policy-makers, and NGO representatives are encouraged to study, propose, and engage in public participation. New innovative forms of participation are suggested, and experiments in participation are ongoing locally and nationally. Within the transport sector, most studies of participation focus on road infrastructure and other land use changes. However, for other areas within transport, studies are limited and fragmented. Based on this, we see a need for a volume on public participation in transport, aimed at practitioners, students, and researchers, in what are unarguably times of change. The overall aim of the volume is to provide examples of different forms of public participation in transport, which can work as a setting for further analyses and discussions of public participation in transport. Drawing on different cases, eight empirical chapters are presented covering three main themes: grass-roots participation initiatives, participation in unconventional areas, and public participation that throws up unexpected results. In this introductory chapter, we set the scene for later discussions and analyses of public participation in transport. This chapter also provides an overview of the structure and content of the volume.

The governance of public transport is experiencing growing interest as a field of research. Collaboration, contracts, ownership are among the concepts applied in the literature. Outside the specific field of public transport, the term meta-governance and meta-governors - referring to actors and activities that aim to govern and guide a network - has gained increased attention. The point of departure for this article is to study if and to what extent the concept of meta-governance can contribute additional insight to the study of public transport governance, if signs of meta-governance in public transport can be observed in two cases included in the study, and finally, what the nature is of the networks within which it takes place. The cases are the Copenhagen Region, Denmark, and the West Midlands Region, England. In both cases there are signs of meta-governance. It is not clear whether it has increased in scale or level of activity over recent years, but it is likely to increase in the future. The core meta-governor identified in both cases is the passenger transport authority, although in the Danish case there are more actors of almost similar significance and governing capability. We conclude that the meta-governance concept adds to other concepts used in analyses of public transport governance by including more instruments of governance, bringing to the fore the need of a core, nodal actor, and by stressing furthermore the autonomy but also interdependence of other actors in the network.

Public participation is sometimes suggested as a way to establish legitimacy for contentious policies needed to realise a transformation in the transport sector to meet sustainability and climate goals. In this chapter, we first aim to summarise and draw conclusions from each part of the book, not least in relation to the transformative potential of public participation in the sector. The chapter also suggests recommendations for further research in the field. Important topics discussed are the diversity of public participation in transport; limits to participation; the specifics of participation in the field of transport; and the issue of consensus and dissensus. As regards transformation of the sector, public participation is considered a prerequisite, but the book also includes several cases where public participation does not seem to possess a transformational potential. We suggest representative, deliberative forms of participation as a possible solution to overcome dilemmas of representativeness, (lack of) knowledge, and the participation burden. We conclude that public participation is not easy, it has to be prepared and designed carefully to avoid unexpected consequences, and there is currently a need for more experiments and pilot projects on public participation in the field of transport.

Public participation in policy-making can play a fundamental role in improving effectiveness via two mechanisms: strengthening the alignment between public needs and proposed measures, and increasing public consensus (and compliance) about them. It is, therefore, particularly relevant to foster public participation in sustainable mobility planning at the urban scale, as strongly recommended by the European Union, not only to avoid protests and resolve conflicts but also to find the best solutions for the city. Among many different tools and methodologies for implementing public participation, Living Labs have also shown great potential in enhancing the co-creation of strategies and measures for achieving sustainable mobility for both passengers and freight.Through the analysis of the participatory process carried out by the municipality of Rome to support the definition of the Sustainable Urban Mobility and Logistics Plans, this chapter explores different involvement levels, tools and strategies in this field, with a particular focus on the innovative Logistics Living Lab developed in this city. This also contributes to filling a gap in the literature on how and to what extent citizens could or should participate in city logistics planning. The results of the analysis highlight that, despite these efforts, citizen participation in planning urban logistics is still a challenge that deserves additional effort and resources to be properly enhanced and improved and that a Living Lab offers great potential to meet this challenge. In turn, this case study could help policy-makers to identify solutions for more effective and acceptable measures to addressing city logistics and the externalities it generates.

This paper analyzes strategies that can be successfully pursued to implement measures to reduce car traffic in what has traditionally been a very car-centric planning praxis. Analytically, the paper use path dependency theory to provide an understanding of why certain types of measure are not implemented in cities on as widespread a basis as policy objectives may require, and to understand how transport planning path dependence in urban authorities might be changed. Empirically, the analysis builds on a comparative case study of transport and land use planning in Swedish cities. The most effective strategies do not appear to be radical policies leading to fast implementation of goals about sustainable transport, for example by implementing very car restrictive measures, even in the face of resistance from the public and from within the city administration. The results support an approach that from a strategy making perspective can be understood as an institutionalizing process by which internal organizational and external public support for car restrictive and potentially controversial measures are built. Implementation may be achieved by building new institutions within city administrations, where routines and norms gradually change so that car restraint measures gradually become part of the normal way of doing transport planning. This then starts to lock-in certain patterns of travel and make further car restraint measures more feasible and institutionalized as part of a standard menu of measures that cities use, and not something out of the order.

Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) are a new approach to local transport planning strongly promoted by the European Commission and increasingly adopted around Europe. They exist, however, in a largely national legal and financial framework, one which varies greatly between countries. In recent years many countries have developed national programmes to support the development of SUMPs within their national framework.The paper explains the role of SUMP national supporting programmes by relating them to key factors that are critical to the success of SUMP development. It also seeks to understand how the national programmes that exist are improving; challenges related to development of SUMPs in complex multilevel governance contexts; and the degree of support provided by the programmes within this context. To answer these questions a two-stage methodology was used. The first element was a questionnaire survey focused on the existence and state of national SUMP programmes in several EU/EEA member states or regions. The second element was interviews with SUMP experts in four countries selected to represent the experienced, the new and active, and the new but less active, in terms of their activity with SUMP national programmes.The results show that the national SUMP supporting programmes in the countries surveyed and interviewed do not fully address the factors which have been identified as being critical to the success of SUMP development and implementation. The overall picture of national SUMP supporting frameworks is one where most of such frameworks are still in the early stages of development. On the other hand, the relatively small impact of the national SUMP supporting programme was seen as less of a barrier to SUMP implementation in most of the countries than lack of funds and public opposition to contentious transport measures.

Much research surrounds the move from publicly owned and operated bus markets to publicly controlled and privately operated markets, or in the case of Great Britain, a fully deregulated market. Little research however exists concerning the counter move and the issues that this may raise. Such a step would be consistent with Gwilliam's regulatory cycle, which suggests that a combination of self seeking behaviour of suppliers and unrealistic aspirations of politicians leads to instability in the regulatory arrangements for the provision of bus services. Consequently, the associated structural and institutional arrangements go through a cycle of private/ public ownership and competitive/regulated markets.The paper discusses some of the practicalities at the regional level of introducing the measures provided by the Bus Services Act 2017 in England and the Transport Act 2019 in Scotland, both of which offer the option of a partial or full economic reregulation of bus services. Theories of radical policy change are examined and applied in the context of the issue through interviews with key informants in regional authorities in Scotland and England. The overriding conclusion from this analysis is that whilst deregulating the market does not actually break Gwilliam's regulatory cycle, it makes it very difficult to 're-connect', and thus a further long term consequence of bus deregulation in Britain in the mid 1980s is that future policy options may have been severely restricted in the very long term.

Background Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is key to the success of public transport and for sustainable urban and regional development. Previous research has often focused on delivering TOD in urban areas with high population and building densities. This highlights the need to broaden the scope of TOD approaches to also include less densely populated areas located outside the immediate urban cores as a key concern for policy. Purpose The aim of this paper is to increase the knowledge of how to deliver TOD in such low-density contexts. Methods Three case studies of attempts at delivering TOD in sparsely populated areas in three Swedish city-regions are made. The data for the case studies consist of planning documents and 13 interviews with key stakeholders involved in the planning processes of the three cases. Results The results show that many of the barriers and enablers are rather similar to those identified in research on TOD in much more urban contexts in other parts of the world, but the relationships between them are differently nuanced in low-density contexts. The lack of clear quantified definitions of what TOD is (or is not) allows a more flexible, site-specific understanding of TOD to emerge in this context. Results It is important that a shared vision of TOD in each location is developed by the organizations involved—and such a shared vision appears to be crucial for the development to have a good chance of being delivered. Informal definitions, and individual perceptions (including those of the public) are important; and in locations that are quite “marginal” for TOD, all enablers must interact together positively for the development to have the maximum likelihood of going ahead as planned.

The paper presents the results of the application of a practical approach for collecting data, which provides a simple, cost efficient, and easily reproducible method that was applied to obtain the necessary data for the status analysis of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) for Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. Important data for the estimation of the existing condition of the traffic system were collected through desk research from the appropriate institutions and organizations. Several surveys and focus group interviews were conducted, in which about 5000 residents of Podgorica participated. In addition to answering questions, residents made numerous suggestions, confirming the correctness of a participatory approach in the new traffic planning paradigm that provides the SUMP with crucial advantages. A manual cordon count of traffic on five bridges for the traffic of the motor vehicles, as well as on two pedestrian-only bridges, was performed by students from the study program Road Traffic, and there are plans to repeat this in the coming years in order to enable more reliable monitoring and evaluation of the obtained data. Contemporary quality management tools such as BYPAD and ParkPAD were also used to assess the status of cycling and parking policy, respectively. It is especially important to emphasize that Podgorica is the first city in the West Balkans, and the fourth city in Europe, in which the ParkPAD tool was applied. A wide range of negative phenomena and trends was identified, like a rapid increase in the number of registered vehicles, an increase in the motorization rate and the number of traffic accidents, increased non-compliance with traffic rules, excessive use of passenger cars and auto-taxi vehicles, insufficient use of unattractive public transport, walking and cycling, etc. Based on the data collected, key challenges in status analysis in Podgorica were identified, which the SUMP should try to overcome.

The paper presents results of an analysis of measures implemented in various European cities that have been effective in reducing the share of trips by car and increasing the shares of active mobility and public transportation. Ten cities with a significant modal shift from cars to public transportation and/or active mobility in a period of several years were analysed. For each city, an interview was conducted with a local expert. The questions focused on the reasons for successful changes in travel habits and the existence and relevance of the SUMP in bringing about these changes. The results show that all cities analysed have some form of SUMP, and many have additional, more specific documents. Most cities have been developing these documents and implementing the measures in them for many years. Furthermore, the modal shift was always the result of a combination of several push and pull measures. Cities implemented restrictive measures for cars as well as improved conditions for alternative modes of mobility and often focused on road space transformation.

Transport accounts for 40 % of global emissions, 72 % of which comes from road transport, and private cars are responsible for 60 % of road transport emissions. In cities, self-service bike sharing systems are quickly developing and are intended to offer an alternative and cleaner mode of transport than the car. However, the sustainability of such schemes is often taken as a given, rather than thoroughly evaluated. To address this gap, in this paper we undertake a life cycle assessment (LCA) of a public self-service bike sharing system in the city of Edinburgh, UK, modelling the production, operation and disposal elements of the system, but discounting additional food intake by users. Our results show that the bike sharing scheme is saving carbon dioxide equivalent emissions compared to the modes of transport by which its users previously travelled, but it is essential to optimize rebalancing operations and to manufacture bikes as near as possible to the point of use to further reduce carbon emissions; and that the overall emissions impacts of the scheme are critically dependent on how public transport providers respond to reductions in demand as users shift trips to bikeshare, since most trips transfer from walk and public transport, not private car. The policy implications for authorities seeking to use BSS as a GHG reduction intervention are not straightforward.