The social effects of the lack of affordable transport options in two disadvantaged areas of Uppsala, Sweden, were examined by multiple interviews with each of seven participants. We focused on how the participants’ everyday mobility was affected by economic and site-specific constraints, before and after receiving free bus passes valid for three months in total. Public transport and walking emerged as central transport modes. Without a bus pass, the participants’ scope of mobility was limited, restricting which trips they were able to make. They also detailed how they felt limited or confined to their neighbourhood. They had to rely more on walking, which was made difficult by long distances to grocery stores and schools in one of the areas and criminality in the other area. Having access to a free bus pass augmented their feelings of freedom as well as their actual freedom of movement. Different participants linked freedom to feelings of tranquillity and assurance, as well as happiness and spontaneity. In several cases, having a free bus card resulted in more trips of social characters being made, with increased social contacts and societal involvement.

This paper combines mobility biography with Social Practice Theory (SPT) to understand whether flexible parking standards (where developers can substitute parking spaces with mobility services) can increase car-sharing and lower car ownership through an investigation of eight blocks of flats in Sweden, using interviews, surveys and car-sharing data. We also study ‘provision practices’ of mobility services by combining SPT with Actor Network Theory (ANT). The use of car-sharing increased in all blocks of flats and car ownership decreased in three of the houses. We draw the conclusion that when some material circumstances intersect with key life events the materiality of flexible parking standards may ‘be the weight that tips the scale’, and make people sell their car. The spatio-temporal sequencing of bundled practices changes over the life-course and our results indicate that the policy reform may facilitate for a prolonged period without cars in the household. For car sharing to recruit practitioners, it is important that the mobility services remain and are adequately administered. Finally, the flexible parking standard policy needs to be well aligned with other policies for car-sharing to recruit practitioners from the private car practice.

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