Mobility as a driver of accessible, liveable and inclusive cities

Mobility choices affect the entire city

Policies on parking, car-low areas, public transport, shared mobility, mobility hubs and automated transport not only influence how people travel. They also affect health, land use, liveability, economic development and access to jobs and essential services for different population groups.

The consequences of these interventions are difficult to anticipate. Traditional transport models are not always equipped to assess new mobility concepts, low parking capacities and changes in activity and travel behaviour, for example as a result of remote working and online shopping. Nor do these models automatically show how benefits and disadvantages are distributed across areas and population groups.

Decision-makers therefore need to do more than assess individual measures. They must also be able to understand how interventions interact, which groups benefit or are adversely affected, and which combination of measures makes the greatest contribution to the desired societal objectives.

From assessing individual measures to designing better mobility systems

TNO does not only aim to predict the effects of a mobility measure. We also want to show how future mobility systems contribute to social, economic and sustainability objectives. To achieve this, we are developing a new generation of mobility models that represent behaviour, activities, spatial factors and differences between population groups more realistically and at a higher level of detail.

Using activity-based modelling and traffic simulation, we analyse how daily activities, choices between modes of transport and individual trips collectively shape the mobility system. This enables us to investigate interventions that are difficult to assess with traditional models, such as low parking standards, car-low areas, shared mobility, mobility hubs and new forms of automated transport.

We connect these models with broad-prosperity indicators, spatial analyses and optimisation methods. This provides insight not only into the effects of an individual measure, but also into which combinations of interventions contribute to accessibility, liveability, inclusion, sustainability, safety and efficient land use.

Clients gain insight into assumptions, uncertainties, system-level and distributional effects, and alternative solutions before policies, investments or spatial designs are finalised.

Our solutions

Working together on a mobility challenges

TNO supports ministries, provinces, municipalities, transport regions and transport authorities in designing and assessing mobility policies and future mobility systems. We model system-level and distributional effects, compare alternative scenarios and help substantiate mobility and spatial choices in an integrated way.

We work with mobility service providers, software developers and consultancies to improve and scale up products and services. TNO develops platform-independent knowledge and technology, including innovative model components, behavioural and impact models, enriched datasets, optimisation methods and independent validation approaches.

Would you like to understand how mobility measures contribute to accessibility, liveability, land use and inclusion? Or would you like to work with TNO on the next generation of mobility models and applications? Contact us to discuss your mobility challenge.