With the emergence of new services and products, new information technologies, and innovative public and private partnerships, we are approaching a new age of mobility and accessibility in urban regions. This new age is about moving people and goods in ways that are greener, safer, healthier, more equitable, multi-modal, multi-service, and connected, door-to-door. It's also about moving less, reducing the number and length of trips with the help of telecommunications technologies, smart land use, and urban design. Transcending the quest for a silver bullet, New Mobility takes a whole systems approach to understanding and innovating urban transportation, and engages a wide range of private and public sector innovators, supporting the development of a nascent New Mobility industry cluster that works to address shifting and increasingly urgent urban transportation needs globally. This session will present New Mobility concepts and opportunities with selected case examples from around the world.
- Related Article: S. Zielinski, "New Mobility: The Next Generation of Sustainable Urban Transportation," The Bridge (National Academy of Engineering), Volume 36, Number 4, Winter 2006.
Presentation: "A Day in the Life of New Mobility"
© 2003 Moving the Economy.
- Wikipedia entry on "New Mobility"
Speaker:Susan Zielinski, Managing Director of SMART project at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
For about twenty years, Susan Zielinski has been catalyzing innovative, collaborative partnerships for sustainable transportation and healthy cities. She recently joined CARSS, the Center for Advancing Research and Solutions for Society, as Managing Director of the SMART project at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. SMART stands for Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility Research and Transformation. Just before joining CARSS Susan spent a year as a Harvard Loeb Fellow focusing on New Mobility innovation and leadership. Prior to 2004, she co-founded and directed Moving the Economy, a Canada-wide "link tank" that works to catalyse and support multi-sectoral New Mobility (sustainable transportation) industry development. As a transportation planner at the City of Toronto, she established and led a wide range of transportation, green economic development, and air quality policies and initiatives with a primary focus on New Mobility. Among these initiatives are: the City of Toronto Anti-Smog Strategy, the Green Tourism Association, the City of Toronto Bicycle Commuter Program and the Community Bicycle Network, Detour Publications, the Integrated Mobility Systems (IMS) Consortium, the New Mobility Hub Network project, and the Urban Goods Movement Initiative. Susan has advised on a range of local and international initiatives, including the National Advisory Committee on Energy Efficiency, Transport Canada's Sustainable Development Advisory Committee, the OECD's Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) Project, the jury of the Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities, the Gridlock Panel of the Ontario Smart Growth Initiative, the Centre for Sustainable Transportation, the European Conference of Transport Ministers (ECMT), and the Kyoto Cities Initiative International Advisory Panel. After receiving her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto and a Graduate Fellowship to study for a year in France, she received a Masters in Environmental Studies (MES) from York University. She is a Registered Professional Planner (RPP) and member of the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP).