Constructing just mobility futures

Scenario planning has become a common approach within transportation research to understand the varying impacts of transportation planning. By examining a range of uncertainties, scenarios can be developed that enable an exploration of alternative future visions of the world. Whilst there has been growing concern over the equity impacts of public transport investments, particularly in relation to accessibility of social and economic opportunities, equity of access considerations remain an underdeveloped area within transportation scenarios research. This has tremendous consequences for realising socially just mobility futures. Utilising the case study of Cape Town, in South Africa several transport scenarios are collectively developed through stakeholder engagement by analysing a number of parameters that have been identified as significant operational factors and policy levers. We develop representative urban network models for each scenario and evaluate equity of access to places of employment using a comparative equity framework. We find that a continuation of past trends leads to greater inequities, whereas alternative participatory future visions focused on the adoption of integrated transport and cycling indicate potential to decrease inequities. Overall the study highlights how the adoption of transportation solutions towards greater accessibility is not only an engineering problem, but a human problem related to institutional capacity, trust, coordination, community agency and political vision.