Kitchen Talks 2023

Mobility challenges via an app – incentives for sustainable travel?

How have the co-researchers Living Lab Riksten responded to their mobility challenges?

In this Kitchen talk researchers Jessica Berg, Malin Henriksson and Greger Henriksson discuss the mobility and citizenship challenges that the Living Lab Riksten resident co-researchers have been working on since November last year.

Living Lab Riksten has been in place from autumn 2022 to 2023 and during the year researchers have been able to follow co-researchers and test mobility solutions. The resident co-researchers in Living Lab Riksten were given different challenges and offered sustainable mobility solutions.

The talk will present how the co-researchers have responded to the challenges and how their citizenship is visualised in their responses. We also invite a discussion on how an app can be used as a trigger to change travel habits and the app as a research tool.

Can Demand Responsive Transport increase accessibility in suburban environments? The different perspectives of urban planners and citizens

Albin Reinhardt talks about the results from his Master's thesis on the Living Lab SAMSAS shuttle.

Read Albin Reinhardt's Master's thesis here 

In this Kitchen talk Albin Reinhardt presents the research that he conducted within the Mistra SAMS Living Lab Riksten, for his Master's thesis on the Living Lab SAMSAS shuttle. The thesis was published June 26 2023, within the master’s program in Strategic Urban and Regional Planning at Linköping University.

Albin Reinhardt's his qualitative case study examins how the concept of accessibility is interpreted by strategic urban planners in the two suburban municipalities of Botkyrka and Huddinge and how it is experienced by a group of "low-skilled" workers in an area where there are identified shortcomings in traffic planning.

In his thesis Albin Reinhardt studies how this group experiences accessibility in their daily commute before and after testing a Demand-Responsive Transport service. Thus, the study addresses different perspectives on the potential of Demand-Responsive Transport services, to increase accessibility in areas where there are challenges in traffic planning. The thesis is centered on the concept of accessibility and includes two perspectives - that of strategic urban planners, and an individual perspective of citizens.

Future of worklife: how flexibility and technology are changing the Way We Work with Patrik Hedlund, Ericsson.

For this Kitchen Talk we welcome Patrik Hedlund, Industry Insight Manager at our partner organisation Ericsson.
The report "Future of Work Life" is available here

New actors' perspectives with the municipality as a catalyst: third place dilemmas and digital infrastructure to meet climate challenges with Katarina Larsen, researcher at the Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH.

Work hubs bring many different expectations from various actors in the public and private sector. This in turn creates new roles for city players to act as catalysts in the process of developing new ways of traveling as well as non-travelling through work hubs combined with digital services.

At this seminar, we will discuss experiences from a workshop held with municipal actors about the emergence of new roles in relation to work hubs. Some themes are: prerequisites and expectations for creating new ways of working in a third place (outside home and work); reducing traffic jams and congestion; flexible solutions for employees; dialogue about digital infrastructure and the future innovative solutions to meet climate challenges

Welcome!

Kitchen Talk x 2. By Erika Kriukelyte & Hampus Berg Mårtensson, PhD-students KTH.

Talk #1: "Public Policy Instruments and Mobility Providers’ Business Models – Are Sticks and Carrots Leading to Climate-Neutral and Just Transport?", Erika Kriukelyte, KTH

The first presentation is based on the conference paper written by Erika Kriukelyte, Jana Sochor and Anna Kramers on the interplay between business models and public policies. The impacts and implications of policy instruments explored and discussed in shaping conditions for sustainable urban mobility. The qualitative research comprising case studies of two new mobility service providers (Bolt and Tier) operating in three Northern European cities (Oslo, Stockholm, and Berlin) show that their business models are influenced by legitimization on the national level, the local authorities’ approach, and policy instruments related to the right to operate, including caps, geographic coverage, parking, geofencing, and data sharing. Utilizing sustainable transition perspectives, the findings are discussed in relation to the use of public space and accessibility.

Talk #2: "How policy shapes the mobility service business, and how to understand the services from an Avoid-Shift-Improve systems perspective", Hampus Berg Mårtensson, KTH.

The second presentation introduces how mobility and accessibility services could come to affect passenger car-travel in an urban context, from a systems perspective based on the Avoid-Shift-Improve principles. The effects of mobility and accessibility services are thus explored with regards to their effects on avoiding transport altogether, shifting to modes other than passenger cars and improvement of environmental performance when cars are used. In addition, the effects are categorized with regards to their being direct, enabling and systemic. The work is based on workshops together with researchers and stakeholders concerned with mobility and accessibility services, as well as a literature study.

There is a need for visions of the better life with less and slower mobility with Claus Hedegaard Sørensen, Senior Research Leader, VTI.

For the transport system to meet planetary boundaries the consequence will be less and slower mobility for most people in Sweden as well as for a large global middle class. ‘Less’ implying shorter and more seldom travel, and ‘slower’ implying train rather than plane; walking, cycling, public transport and other shared modes rather than the car; and slower speed when going by car. However, this contradicts completely with the high mobility society of fast, comfortable and cheap mobility options that for most people is conceived as an advantage, and makes it difficult for politicians to suggest measurs that reduce and slow down mobility. Such policy instruments lack policy legitimacy in the population.

There are however, some ways to gain legitimacy, including building of positive visions of the better life with less and slower mobility. The need for such visions is also stressed by the recent general elections in Sweden, Italy and the US. where climate hardly played a role despite heavy drought in Europe, 1/3 of Pakistan flooded this summer, and the hurricane Iain in the US. This underlines that the assumption that climate catastrophes will make citizens require action, seems to be wrong, and that the negative threat of disasters has to be complemented with positive visions of the better life in a society with less and slower mobility.