In search of indicators for Sustainable Mobility Guarantee(s)

Abstract

Sustainable Mobility Guarantee (SMG) is an emerging concept in transport policymaking. On the contrary to Classical Mobility Guarantee (CMG), which primarily focuses on ensuring mobility of those who do not own a car or who are not able to drive, SMG focuses on nudging people's mobility behavior towards low-carbon and sustainable modes of travel such as walking, cycling and public transport. Ultimately, SMG addresses sustainable accessibility to facilities, amenities, services and opportunities (FASO) without owning a car or driving. Strategic indicators are important for policymaking in terms of analysis, benchmark, consensus building, planning and monitoring. For CMG, indicators stemming from service provision of public transport such as frequency are typically in use. This remains as a part of SMG indicators, but SMG calls for a wider range of indicators to cover aspects from user's or people's points of view, concerning infrastructure, services and accessibility to FASO. Aspects related to SMGs are already implied in the existing regional transport master plans, but neither in an explicit nor comprehensive manner. There are several spatiotemporal indicators proposed or in use, but they all have their strengths and shortcomings that stem from the origins of the indicators. An ideal SMG indicator has to cover public transport and active modes as access mode to FASO, as well as access/egress path to public transport. This is embedded in some existing compound indicators but not in all, with capability to compare alternative policy scenarios through absolute classes or relative benchmark to mobility realized by automobiles.