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Urban mobility

About us

 

Ambition

 

Focus areas

 

Methods & innovation

 

Ongoing projects

 

Completed projects

 

Results & Contact

 

Team

 

Urban mobility at a paradigm change

The uncontrolled growth of urban traffic for the past decades has caused numerous problems affecting the quality of life in cities. These problems include environmental pollution, safety, and social exclusion. Therefore, a new discourse of transport planning emerged focusing on the management of travel demand and the promotion of a modal shift from car transport to sustainable modes such as public transport, cycling and walking. Sustainable urban mobility policy ensures that people can access essential services in an affordable, inclusive, environmentally friendly and safe way. 

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Our ambition

Our ambition is to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable, people-centric and just urban mobility system by supporting stakeholder participation and the shift to more sustainable behaviour.

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Our focus areas

  • Impact assessment of mobility interventions and services
  • Stakeholder-based evaluation of mobility measures
  • Process evaluation and transferability assessment of tools and interventions
  • Participatory foresight (scenario building and visioning) to cope with uncertain futures
  • Policy packaging
  • Designing and conducting a co-creation process with citizens
  • Evaluation of equity and inclusiveness of infrastructure and services
  • Design and analysis of travel behaviour surveys
  • Online and face-to-face trainings for professionals and policy makers
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Collaborative, mixed-methods research and innovation

We work with stakeholders within and outside of academia and engage with citizens in urban living labs.

We conduct fundamental, strategic and applied research and work with policy makers, civil organisations and private companies on innovation projects and trainings.

We combine qualitative (interviews, focus groups, observations, content and discourse analysis, action research) and quantitative (statistical analysis, multi-criteria analysis) methods to investigate all facets of mobility including social, environmental and economic aspects. 

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Ongoing projects

  • Hop&Mop4 + Cityscape - Transitioning towards sustainable mobility through co-creation with children: the case of miniblocks

    Friday 17/05/2024
    This study aims to develop and analyse the co-creation of a prototype of 'miniblocks' around school streets in three Austrian cities. The objective is twofold: first, to analyse technical an socio-psychological conditions, processes and outcomes for/of co-creation; and, second, to analyse conditions under which the effects of co-creation can be sustained.

  • Q-MAP - Beyond Boundaries: Queer Mobilities and Spatial Practices in Brussels

    Monday 29/01/2024
    This project aims to explore and map the mobility experiences and spatial practices of queer people in Brussels through focus groups and visual methods such as mapping and visual harvesting to establish a Brussels case study that can provide comparative insights withe the case studies from earlier research in other cities.
  • DREAMS logo

    DREAMS - Driving Equitable and Accessible 15 Minute Neighborhood Transformations

    Monday 01/01/2024
    The project aims to examine how co-created and user-centric mobility services, mobility and flexible activity hubs can contribute to accessible, sustainable and inclusive 15mC neighborhoods in urban outskirts in European cities and regions.
  • urban transit lab logo

    Brussels Urban Transit Lab

    Sunday 17/09/2023
    It is a participatory media, communication and research project designed to raise awareness about the benefits of sustainable modes of mobility, focusing on walking and public transport as a vital dimension of a walkable city and core feature of sustainable urban development.
  • streetforum logo

    STREETFORUM - Transforming streets into accessible urban oases through consensus building with digital and analogue tools

    Wednesday 01/03/2023
    The project is developing the StreetForum Toolkit to help urban authorities, citizens and civic organisations to build consensus around street transformation projects affecting accessibility in urban neighborhoods.

  • STUNT - Strong Sustainability Appraisal for Transport

    Saturday 01/10/2022
    In STUNT we rethink appraisal through an in-depth exploration of sustainability and justice principles, draw empirical lessons from a systematic study of actual decision making, and experiment with alternative methods in real-world cases.
  • tandem logo

    TANDEM - Just Transition Policies Co-Created with Communities

    Thursday 01/09/2022
    TANDEM's main objective to develop a transdisciplinary approach to identify and analyse emerging inequalities of low-carbon transition policies and co-design equitable, just and effective alternative transition pathways with stakeholders.
  • ssh centre logo

    SSH Centre - Social Sciences and Humanities for Climate, Energy and Transport Research Excellence

    Thursday 01/09/2022
    The project directly engages with stakeholders across research, policy, an business (including citizens) to strengthen social innovation, SSH-STEM (Social Sciences and Humanities - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) collaboration, transdisciplinary policy advice, inclusive engagement, and SSH communities across Europe, accelerating the EU's transition to carbon neutrality.

  • Optimizing the design of a hybrid urban mobility system

    Saturday 01/01/2022
    The project focuses on the design of a hybrid mobility system through the integration of demand-responsive transit (DRT) and public transport. The project takes the perspective of an urban mobility department that wants to facilitate the development of a coherent, cost-efficient and high-quality system.
  • remobilise logo

    Remobilise - Resilient Mobility Strategies for Uncertain Futures in Brussels

    Friday 01/10/2021
    The goal of Remobilise is to build scenarios, visions and a strategy-building tool to foster the robustness of Brussels mobility policy making to these systemic uncertainties and shocks. ​
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Completed projects

  • mastercom

    MASTERCOM - Mastering Sustainable Commute Plans

    Monday 30/10/2023
    The MASTERCOM training provides the necessary knowledge and tools to mobility managers to create sustainable commuting strategies and travel plans for their companies, based on the latest academic and practice-based knowledge.​

  • MAAS - Developement of an evaluation methodology for a sustainable Mobility-as-a-Service

    Friday 23/12/2022
    This study investigated the possible societal impacts of three possible MaaS business models in the context of Belgium. Utilizing the Stakeholder-based Impact Scoring (SIS) method, we engaged 21 stakeholders to collect their insights on impact factors and their relative importance.

  • Vogelenzang - Co-creating a school street zone in Anderlecht

    Monday 01/08/2022
    The aim of the project was to develop a methodology for the co-design of a school street zone that takes into account the needs and priorities of all affected stakeholders, namely the schoolchildren, parents, schoolteachers, and local residents.
  • smarthubs logo

    SmartHubs - Smart Mobiltiy Hubs as game changers in transport

    Saturday 01/05/2021
    The main objective of the projects was to assess if a co-designed, user-centric development can enable mobility hubs to act as a game changer towards inclusive sustainable urban mobility and accessibility.
  • oetingen2050 logo

    Oetingen2050 - Mobility vision Oetingen

    Monday 01/03/2021
    The goal of the project was to develop mobility scenarios and a vision for the village of Oetingen by 2050, explicitly considering disruptions in the scenario building. In this project, we engaged both adults an children.
  • Rail 4 Brussels - Etude en vue de la traversée et de la desserte ferroviaire de la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale dans un contexte multimodal

    Rail 4 Brussels - Etude en vue de la traversée et de la desserte ferroviaire de la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale dans un contexte multimodal

    Friday 01/01/2021
    The saturation of the Brussels north-south connection is acute, but creating new infrastructure is very expensive and long-term. In Rail 4 Brussels we studied possible pathways for the development for rail in Brussels, both in terms of rail infrastructure, as with the consideration of alternative modes.

  • Evaluation of the 'Brussels on Vacation' initiative

    Saturday 18/07/2020
    The 'Brussels on holidays' program was launched by Brussels Mobility through which it awarded funds to 45 projects from governmental and non-governmental organisations to give residents a holiday feeling in their own city. The initiative had two aims: to make the summer of the inhabitants of Brussels as enjoyable as possible and to promote the new regional mobility plan called Good Move.
  • Cairgobike

    Cairgobike - Clean Air GO cargo bike

    Wednesday 01/07/2020
    The project aimed to improve air quality by creating an integrated ecosystem of complementary nudging strategies: 1) exploiting growing citizen concern about air quality to convince people to change their habits, 2) creating services and tools to facilitate cargo bike use.

  • Traveller's multitasking activities on public transport in Brussels

    Saturday 18/01/2020
    The aim was to identify if the mode of transport, travel distance, level of crowdedness, the proportion of underground sections and demographic characteristics of passengers have an impact on the type of activities performed on board with special attention to the frequency of the use of information and communication technology (ICT) devices.
  • INDIMO logo

    INDIMO - Inclusive Digital Mobility Solutions

    Wednesday 01/01/2020
    The project aimed to enable researchers, operators, developers and policy makers to include the user perspective and co-creation approaches into the entire development process of digital mobility solutions.
  • Sprout logo

    Sprout - Sustainable Policy Response to Urban Mobility Transition

    Sunday 01/09/2019
    The aims was to generate new, city-led, and innovative policy responses to the challenges presented by the emergence of digitally enabled business models, new mobility patterns, and corresponding travel behaviour.
  • looper logo

    Looper - Learning Loops in the Public Realm

    Thursday 15/06/2017
    The aim of Looper was to develop new ways of decision-making that bring together citizens, stakeholders and policy-makers by building a participatory co-creation methodology and platform that demonstrate 'learning loops'.
  • Impact assessment of the pedestrianization of the city centre

    Impact assessment of the pedestrianization of the city centre

    Friday 01/01/2016
    Mobilise studied the impact of the pedestrianization of Brussels' central boulevards on people's mobility and their appreciation of the city centre.
  • Mobility4EU logo

    Mobility4EU - Action Plan for the Future of Mobility in Europe

    Friday 01/01/2016
    We developed four scenarios, a vision and an action plan for transport and mobility in Europe in 2030. The methodology combined scenario building and participatory evaluation (multi-actor multi-criteria analysis) as well as series of participatory workshops.
  • flamenco logo

    Flamenco - Flanders Enacted Mobile Citizen Observatories

    Friday 01/01/2016
    In this project we investigated how citizens can be empowered to collect and analyse data from their surroundings by setting up and testing a citizen observatory for mobility.

  • Companies and sustainable mobility. The company car debate and beyond

    Saturday 18/07/2015
    The aim was to generate a broad, scientifically substantiated approach of company mobility based on cross-community and multidisciplinary academic research focusing on different geographic scales and cases, with a particular interest in the Brussels metropolitan area.

  • MOBRU - Rethinking transport infrastructure investments and mobility management across the Brussels metropolitan area: from critical analyses to cooperative policies

    Saturday 01/11/2014
    The project studies evaluation and decision making in politically complex transport projects, using interregional transport projects between Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia as a test case.
  • NISTO logo

    NISTO - New Integrated Smart Transport Options

    Friday 01/03/2013
    The project developed and tested an evaluation framework and toolkit for small-scale mobility projects that applied multi-criteria analysis (sustainability assessment) and stakeholder-based multi-actor multi-criteria analysis (MAMCA) to assess the potential impacts of project options.
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Results

PhDs
 

Publications
 

Projects

Want to know more? Contact us!

Prof. dr. Imre Keserü

Deputy director
Email address
Imre.Keseru@vub.be
Telephone
+32 (0)2 614 83 23
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Team

Prof. dr. Cathy Macharis

Director
Email address
Cathy.Macharis@vub.be
Telephone
+32 (0)2 614 83 03

Prof. dr. Imre Keserü

Deputy director
Email address
Imre.Keseru@vub.be
Telephone
+32 (0)2 614 83 23

Prof. Dr. Geert te Boveldt

Senior researcher in equity issues in transportation and energy
Professors
Email address
Geert.te.Boveldt@vub.be
Telephone
+32 (0)2 614 83 44

Dr. Samyajit Basu

Senior researcher in urban mobility
Senior researchers
Email address
Samyajit.Basu@vub.be

Dr. Maria Luisa Lode

Senior researcher in Local Energy Systems
Senior researchers
Email address
Maria.Luisa.Lode@vub.be
Telephone
+32 (0)2 614 83 25

Dr. Sara Marie Tori

Senior researcher in the use of scenario building in urban mobility
Senior researchers
Email address
Sara.Marie.Tori@vub.be
Telephone
+32 (0)2 614 83 36

Juliana Betancur Arenas

PhD researcher in urban cycling mobility and logistics
PhD Researchers
Email address
Juliana.Betancur.Arenas@vub.be
Telephone
+32 (0)2 614 83 75

Simon Bothof

PhD researcher in urban mobility
PhD Researchers
Email address
Simon.Bothof@vub.be

Hannes Delaere

PhD researcher in inclusive digital mobility sollutions & MaaS
PhD Researchers
Email address
Hannes.Delaere@vub.be
Telephone
+32 (0)2 614 83 15

Lotte Luykx

PhD researcher in participatory methods for street transformation
PhD Researchers
Email address
Lotte.Luykx@vub.be

Seyedehsima Madani

PhD researcher in urban mobility
PhD Researchers
Email address
Seyedehsima.Madani@vub.be

Lluis Martinez Ramirez

PhD researcher in the inclusivity of new solutions and the involvement of users and citizens
PhD Researchers
Email address
Lluis.Martinez.Ramirez@vub.be

Charlotte van Vessem

PhD researcher in sustainable and inclusive urban mobility
PhD Researchers
Email address
Charlotte.van.Vessem@vub.be
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Pleinlaan 2
1050
Brussel
02/629.20.10
info@vub.be

info.mobilise@vub.be

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