How a systems thinking approach can reimagine urban mobility

Cities are responsible for 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and contributions from the transport sector remain stubbornly high, in large part because of growing demands for car travel and the size of cars. Additionally, cities continue to grow, with seven in every 10 people projected to live in urban centres by 2050.

Annually 6.7 million deaths are attributed to air pollution. As urban population increases, so do nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations. In many cities, traffic is the main contributor to air pollution. Even with fleet electrification, vehicles will continue to emit particulate matter via non-exhaust emissions.

Climate and air pollution strategies perpetrating car dependency miss out on opportunities to enhance health and quality of urban life. Collaboration and systems thinking are needed to effectively implement urban mobility transformations that bring multiple benefits to urban environments.

The benefits of rethinking urban mobility and promoting car reduction will be felt across urban systems. Beyond generating air pollution emissions, current car-centric transport systems negatively impact our physical and mental health, exacerbate social challenges, harm the environment and contribute to climate change. There are several reasons for reducing car usage:

Travelling by bike or foot allows people to integrate physical activity into their daily routines. This is welcome when a third of the global population – disproportionately low-income and minority groups – struggle to achieve recommended levels of physical activity. Active travel has been associated with substantial health benefits, including lowering risks of cardiovascular disease, cancer and all-cause mortality.

It’s also been shown to boost self-rated physical and mental health, a sense of vitality and social interactions. Considerable economic benefits from active travel have also been demonstrated, in particular from accrued physical activity.

The space currently dedicated to cars can be reallocated, providing new opportunities for urban green spaces that have been proven to enhance people’s physical and mental health, including beneficial impacts on cardiovascular disease, low birth weight, sleep quality, physical activity and urban crime.

Green infrastructure will also boost climate and health resilience by reducing heat, controlling flooding, providing food sources and enhancing biodiversity.

Streets with less traffic will likely be quieter and less stressful. Noise contributes to a wide array of health challenges, including but not limited to sleep disturbance, annoyance, cognitive impairment, cardiovascular disease and exacerbated respiratory illness.

Transport is also a major source of urban air pollution, exposure to which can cause premature mortality via cancers and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Moreover, motorized travel is more stressful than non-motorized travel. Research has shown that stress indicators are reduced by up to 11% and 6% for cycling and walking respectively compared with other modes of travel.

Nearly 1.35 million people are killed in traffic accidents annually, the eighth leading cause of death globally according to the World Health Organization (and the main cause for young people aged 5-29 years). Traffic crashes are preventable deaths, partly caused by rapid urbanization. Urban sprawl is associated with greater car dependence, increasing the risk of traffic deaths and injuries due to the increased car numbers. Redesigning cities and transport infrastructure can influence the risk of traffic-related death and injury.

Whether through traffic accident risk (93% of road traffic-related mortality occurred in low and middle-income countries in 2019) or through community severance caused by car-oriented transport infrastructure, vulnerable populations often feel the negative impacts of car dependency. Inequity is particularly prevalent in cities, where economically vulnerable groups are being pushed out of healthy living spaces, increasing their risk of air pollution exposure.

So why aren’t we seeing more car reduction strategies in urban centres? Ambitious solutions are available to reduce the number of cars in cities; why are they not sufficient to promote change?

Such solutions are often controversial or may experience political and public backlash. Many politicians who contend with various powerful competing interests will usually shy away from the potential controversy. Public support is vital to encouraging transformative mobility solutions but there is little research into public acceptance of urban mobility policies. We know little about how to effectively create such positive visions and communicate on the multiple benefits of car reduction strategies to successfully engage society.

The good news is that the multiple arguments favouring car reduction policies create many potential hooks to engage society. Engagement works best with positive messaging and there are huge co-benefits to car-reduced neighbourhoods and streets. The downside is communicating on these multiple and complex impacts is challenging. Misinformation often feeds into oppositions, shapes perceptions of actions, generates anxiety and can thus impact policy decisions.

Many actors need to be mobilized for urban transformations, including civil servants from different government departments, politicians and citizens. Siloed thinking in policymaking also restricts the potential for change; departments are often working in silos to achieve targets or policies, and thus, the potential wider co-benefits of systemic change across departments are not fully recognized.

Car reduction strategies make sense from a systems perspective and transformations require collaboration across multiple sectors. Systems thinking – solving complex problems holistically by considering the interconnections and interactions within a system – can offer the opportunity to reimagine urban mobility by fully exploring the synergies and benefits of actions whilst limiting the unintended negative consequences.

Systems approaches can also overcome some of the challenges of implementing urban transformations by encouraging transparency and inclusivity in decision-making.

If we want to see progress towards transformative urban mobility, we need to embrace collaborative, inclusive and systems thinking in our decision-making. The sooner we work this out, the sooner we can start reaping the benefits of people-centred, liveable, and healthy cities.