Managing Car Traffic by (Smart) Mobility Hubs

Abstract

There is an ongoing trend of urbanisation, and cities are becoming more and more crowded. In 2014, 46\% of the population of the OECD countries lived in urban areas. Whereas the growth of cities was previously mainly an expansion, the growing population is now increasingly leading to densification. Since 2007, more than half of the constructed houses in the Netherlands has been placed within the existing built area. In the most recent period (2016 to 2018), the share even was 56 per cent. There is a controversy between the individual desire to have a car and the contrasting desire to remove cars from the outdoor space in inner cities. Moreover, land-use policies positively contribute to the environment by managing car use and improving accessibility. Identifying success and failure factors regarding the used strategy and implementation provides feedback to evaluate the strategy. The hub can combine different aspects of mobility, help remove cars from the streets, promote car-sharing and electric vehicles and therefore be an important part of the solution. However, the set-up and implementation of a mobility hub is a complex endeavour where many stakeholders are involved, and sound policy is crucial. In the structured search performed to identify success and failure factors of mobility hubs, an important finding was that the literature is heterogeneous. The gaps found between theory and practice concern the financial feasibility, the incentives for alternative transport, good relationships and clear responsibilities of stakeholders and attention for increasing the utilisation rates of transport modes. Concerning the barriers, competing goals of modal shift and EV adoption need attention, and again, stakeholder responsibilities were not completely clear.