The Role of Active Mobility for the Resilience of Urban Mobility
2024 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesisAlternative title
Aktiv mobilitets roll för resiliensen inom urban mobilitet (Swedish)
Abstract [en]
This work aimed to understand active mobility's role in urban mobility resilience. It analysed existing attempts to connect the concept of resilience with transport and mobility, focusing specifically on work that underlines the role of active mobility for resilient transport systems. It started with an extensive overview of various definitions of resilience and resilience in transportation. By selecting and comparing the most relevant definitions, this thesis proposed two measurable indicators for analysing resilience in urban mobility. The quantification of these two indicators was improved based on earlier formulations focusing on providing measurement with sensitivity analysis. The two indicators were then applied in a case study where the transport infrastructure was disrupted rapidly and severely by a flood that occurred in 2023 in New York City to assess the role of bike sharing in contributing to urban mobility resilience. Using the metro and the bike-sharing ridership data from the New York City Metropolitan Transport Authority, survivability and robustness indicators were calculated and compared for different intervals of time aggregation. It was found that the Citi Bike sharing system (BSS) appeared to be more robust than the metro infrastructure, recovering faster. On the contrary, the BSS survived less than the metro, sustaining a larger decrease in relative ridership compared to the metro. By varying the aggregation of time interval from one hour to a day, the numerical values for survivability and robustness indicators change, but the outcomes hold. These results suggest that the BSS users are more vulnerable since they rely on the surface transport infrastructure and are directly exposed to weather events. Despite this, active mobility could play a positive role in the resilience of urban mobility by returning to functioning in shorter times compared to the metro system, which can take longer to return fully operational. Although the hypothesis that activity mobility can level up urban mobility resilience is not fully approved in the case study, the thesis highlights the need for further research. The contrasting conclusions from the two indicators also suggest the need for a more diverse and accurate measurement in urban mobility resilience studies. One limitation of this thesis is that it only focused on examining the role of BSS on urban mobility resilience by measuring the survivability and robustness indicators after a single disruptive event in one city. Future research is needed to address this study's limitations to understand better the potential of active mobility to contribute to resilience and guide decision-makers in investing in and designing more resilient urban mobility systems.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2024.
Series
TRITA-ABE-MBT ; 24664
Keywords [en]
active mobility, resilience, urban mobility, extreme weather
Keywords [sv]
aktiv rörlighet, resiliens, urban mobilitet, extremt väder
National Category
Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-352223OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-352223DiVA, id: diva2:1892486
Presentation
2024-05-24, 08:35 (English)
Supervisors
Examiners
2024-08-272024-08-272024-08-27Bibliographically approved