Scenarios just emerged at the end of the workshop. Nothing definitive but already some interesting learning and orientations could be reported. The discussion starts between all the partners and here are some temporary synthesis:

Mobility adviser…
One of the participating families chose a particular school for their daughter because the  educational program is focused on nature and sustainability but this school is far away from where they live and they have to drive 30 km to reach it every morning… Beyond this typical transfer of impact, the question emerges of the simulation of ones personal mobility: moving into a place, changing job, choosing a school… it’s sometimes difficult to foresee consequences in terms of mobility. Some of the games invented by the students for their investigations were recognised as very good exercises to project changes in the mobility scheme of the family playing between time constraints, economic load, personal stress and resulting environmental impact… Could we provide such a ‘mobility adviser’ on line? A website that would indicate approximately how ‘walkable’ each area of Malmö is? Could a public mobility service advise people on their mobility, simulate different scenarios and help citizens to make responsible choices? maybe such a mobility check could be compulsory for any important change in life such as moving into a new logging, changing job or starting in a new school?

Car-free zones…
It is well known that car-free neighbourhoods catalyse many positiv effects that go much beyond the improvement of local air pollution and the increase in safety… The streets are available as playgrounds, gathering points and space for social initiatives. They can also be banned completely and turned into gardens, orchards or vegetable plots. In all these situations, the social life is growing outside. Balconies and external staircases mediate transition spaces between private apartments and public outside creating intermediate places where neighbours meet each other, organise diner or receive the local food network delivery. Bicycles and public transports are the must. Cargo tram services deliver bulky stuff and orders. Car sharing pick up points are available at a walking distance to allow for their use outside the neighbourhood when absolutely necessary. The overall atmosphere is more of a park than a city. 20 % of Malmö has been turn into car-free zones. A call for offer has been proposed to the population. Neighbourhood grouped to advocate for their areas. A dialogue has been established all along the process with the habitants. Now these places attract also people living in classical urban area around enjoying birds signing and reinforcing social cohesion…

The bike city…
The ‘tube’ is emblematic of London and the map of the underground is known everywhere, the metropolitain is part of the atmosphere of Paris, the loop for Chicago but what is the meaning of the public transport system in other cities? Beyond being efficient, safe, sustainable… what do they communicate to their users? What kind of experience do they provide? The city of Malmö decided to be known all other the world as the best town for bike. Where in most cities car is first, it will be the opposite in Malmö. But how would bikes be first? How to show it? The street map is based on bike lane, some of which are allowed for cars. The bike traffic is monitored and a changing lighting systems is implemented to turn the Torso Tower into a gigantic ‘bike-o-meter’ of Malmö. More bike services are invented and provided: a tracking system to reduce stolen bike; fast bike lane; ‘bike-in’ instead of ‘drive-in’; side ‘car-lane’ in bike streets; traffic lights where drivers have to push the button when they want to stop the bike traffic over the crossing… A mix of measures from functional improvement to image generation made Malmö the bike city!

Sustainable living local chains…
Daily practices don’t change through raising awareness, providing more information or calling for responsible behaviours. Practices change and in a more durable way through social network and experiencing. “Try my life” is a local peer-to-peer chain. Its aim is to create an expanding community of practice that experiences a cultural shift towards de-acceleration of life with less mobility and less car dependency. The initiative is promoted by the city of Malmö with local associations. It’s based on a on-line community and off-line gathering and advice. Members’ objective is to explore and support each other in achieving ways of sustainable mobility and living, proceed through mutual influencing and providing of demonstration: switch to sustainable living is a paradigmatic change that requires to ‘reset’ most of the previous habits. “Try my life” most original process is to propose to experience the life of a sustainable family through shadowing, immersive visit, household coaching and many other creative gaming engagement processes. In terms of mobility the website match new visitors with members with similar profiles and mobility requirement. The transformation process goes through emotional experimentation and relational contamination…

New hybrid…
My car is too ‘individual’ but the bus is too ‘collective’… What’s in between? Between public and private? Between personal and shared? Milano experiments some lines of public radio bus on demand. The matatus  in Nairobi –although not a model of safety and reliability– are a network of agile and reactive mini-buses that represent a factor 4 or 6 of reduction compared with most cars driven alone. Could we imagine a network of collective taxis provided with a strong logistic system that allows to group collective orders, optimise trips and reduce congestion? A half-public and half-private transportation service has been promoted by the local authorities. A partnership has been established with mobile service providers so that the service could be directly accessed through specific apps from any smart phone. Worst than a tram but much better than individual cars. Somewhere between private taxis and car pooling… Maybe an interesting transition option for remote areas with difficult access or for people commuting outside the public transport grid?

My public transports…
Environmental impact per person of a bus at peak hours is very good but worst than cars and airplane off peak hours… Exaggerating a bit we could conclude that a comfortable bus with place to move and to sit is an unsustainable bus and reciprocally a sustainable bus is bus where people are packed… It seems that it’s also what many people thinks of buses and it’s a challenging position to revisit their design… This is what the services of transportation in Malmö have done revising completely the traditional way to see busses and trams.
If less cars and more public transports, they imagine different settings for peak hours, trams for shopping with space for bags, slow busses that take time to stop elderly closer to their home.
They challenge the idea that public transport evolved to homogeneous and lean services applying the same corporate image from the bus to its driver and flattening the user experience. The service is impersonal, exchangeable, public which means too often the same for all and with the same taste everywhere… On the contrary they differentiate and personalise public services. “I know my tram driver. It’s his tram and he is my driver” is the motto. Staffs are responsible for the improvement of the efficiency on their line and they explain passengers when and why they are late. All lines are different. They develop their own identity, personalise vehicles, invite artists and decide the music… Every three buses there is a cabin attendant: he helps grand mother with shopping bags and single parents with baby trolley to jump in and my kids can choose these busses if they don’t feel safe…

Car prevention services…
Car ownership is a well known critical factor as people who don’t own a car will reduce their car use considerable (even if e.g. they are subscribed to a car sharing scheme): people who don’t have their own car are mobile with a mix of public transports, biking and walking. As soon as they buy a car and have made a major up front investment in the purchase, they tend to use it heavily (partly because the operating variable costs are relatively low). They turn into ‘drivers’ and cars become their unique mobility option. Therefore Car prevention services operates as a series of measures and support at critical moments in life when people are likely to buy a car (when they marry, move to a new area etc.). The high taxes perceived for the purchase of a first vehicle are used to subsidise car-sharing co-op between young parents, more frequent public transports at night, smart mobility organisers for people with irregular mobility, collective taxis for elderly people…

These 7 tentative scenarios are the state of the art of the exchanges between MAH/K3, WWF, City of Malmö and SDS. The work in the following weeks should bring forward this dialogue: the idea is less to have students developing their ideas alone in a traditional didactic process but to consider that they take part to a collective construction of scenarios for the stakeholder workshop of next 31st March!