Mobility is a key dynamic of urbanization, and the associated infrastructure invariably shapes the urban form – the spatial imprint defined by roads, transport systems, spaces, and buildings – of cities. By 2005, approximately 7.5 billion trips were made in cities worldwide each day.  In 2050, there may be three to four times as many passenger-kilometers travelled as in the year 2000 (infrastructure and energy prices permitting). Freight movement could also rise more than threefold during the same period.

Learn more by participating in UN-Habitat's online classroom “Taking Sustainable Urban Mobility to the Next Level,”  developed in collaboration with Doppelmayr Seilbahnen GmbH.

Addressing the mobility challenge calls for a paradigm shift in urban planning, encouraging compact cities and mixed-land use as a way to increase accessibility and to reduce the need for transportation altogether. Understanding that the purpose of mobility is to gain access to destinations, activities, services and goods, urban planning should therefore be resident-centered, so that functional endpoints – the reasons for travel – are as close as possible to each other, in effect reducing distances and transportation needs.

Thus, urban planning and design should focus on how to bring people and places together, by creating cities that value accessibility, rather than merely adding urban transport infrastructure to increase the movement of people or goods. Simply put, city residents should be able to address their needs using as little travel as possible.

Likewise, the current global bias towards private motor vehicles needs to change in favour of more sustainable mobility concepts, such as public transport systems that have high passenger capacity and area coverage and are low in energy use and carbon emissions. To cut reliance on private motorized transport, cities need to develop attractive, accessible, and affordable public transport systems that are within geographical and financial reach of all residents, especially the urban poor.

Because most trips involve a combination of several modes of transport, cities need to provide multi-modal transport systems and address modal integration as a major component of any urban mobility strategy. For example, high-capacity public transport systems  – metro, light rail, or bus rapid transit (BRT) – need to be integrated with other forms of public transport that serve as feeder services to ensure full utilization of their conveyance capacity. Emphasis is therefore to be placed on “last mile access,” to allow residents easy access to the public transport system.

The urban space needs to be rethought in order to optimize flow of traffic, but also to increase and encourage the use of non-motorized transport, such as pedestrian movement or cycling. Streets need to be adapted, with walkways, crossings, and cycling lanes. Transport junctions need to be established to create connection points between different transport modes, thus facilitating access to and extending the range of a public transport system, on both the macro level – the city, the region and beyond – and micro level – the neighbourhood.

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