On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…. six triple access futures, and a mental model in a pear tree.

Daniela Paddeu and I are pleased to share our new paper (free to access) which sets out how systems thinking can be used to make sense of the Triple Access System we live in and how it might evolve in the future. This is part of our approach to Triple Access Planning.

Planning is about intentions to shape a system of interest. Having a shared understanding of that system is an important starting point to the planning process. Now is the time to move away from transport planning in the predict and provide paradigm into Triple Access Planning in the decide and provide paradigm. This recognises the interplay between the transport, land-use and telecommunications systems, a vision-led approach to the future of the Triple Access System, and a need to accommodate the uncertainty about future change to that system.

Our paper includes the creation of a causal loop diagram of the Triple Access System. This involved participants from our pan-European project ‘Triple Access Planning for Uncertain Futures’. This helped us itentify nine critical factors as a basis for creating a set of plausible triple access futures:

Climate change concern
Economic performance
Perceived importance of car ownership
Need for Variety / Changed milieu
Cost of motorised transport relative to income
Urban land use diversity
Population density
Utility of online activities
Attractiveness of walking and cycling

The resulting six 2040 scenarios and their narratives are presented in full in the paper.

Here are two of the scenarios in overview:

TOO SLOWLY GREENER – Persistently high consumerism and slow-to-recede dependence upon car use, ‘greener’ though it is, are awkward reminders of past behaviours in a world in which climate change is still a major concern. This is despite an ever more depended-upon digital world of access, a richer urban mix of land use, and complementary appetite for active travel to compensate for sedentary, digital lifestyles. Motorised mobility is convenient, with increasing rates of electrification and shared mobility options.

UNECONOMICALLY NET ZERO – High taxes and restrictions have been imposed by governments to reduce carbon emissions, with a related decrease in people’s level of consumption. Strong and effective efforts to tackle climate change in the 2020s and 2030s have come at some cost to economic performance and public finances and contributed to a reshaping of economic and social activity. Motorised multi-modal mobility is affordable and accessible but in a society in which digital activity dependence is much greater and urban land use less diverse. 

The other scenarios are:

IN A FIX
BYE BYE CAR
HAPPY GREEN DISPERSAL
and
TECH INNOVATION BONANZA

Place your bets now on where we are heading.

#scenarioplanning#foresight#futures#tripleaccessplanning