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Public participation and urban transport innovation. The European light rail renaissance and user involvement, city revitalization, urban mobility agenda

Final Report Summary - PUBLIC PUT IN MOTION (Public participation and urban transport innovation. The European light rail renaissance and user involvement, city revitalisation, urban mobility agenda)

Light rail and its struggle for public space: research process, findings and products

In the search for more sustainable forms of urban mobility, the increase in the use of public transport has consistently appeared amongst the top priorities of current transport policies. This research project contributed to this task by analysing the tramway renaissance in the European area, focusing particularly on the role played by users and citizens in the planning process, in the implementation programme and in the everyday improvement of the service.

The research focused on six case studies in six European cities where tramways have been reintroduced in the past decades (Barcelona, Dublin, Florence, Brno, Karlsruhe and Nantes). The investigation was conducted through the analysis of archive sources, reports, grey material, and scientific literature. The main case study surveys were also explored through a considerable number of interviews with experts, stakeholders, passengers, activists and official representatives, and utilising participant observation.

The main focus of the research objectives was what can be learned from this case to realise successful public transport policies in the European Union (EU) and elsewhere. What emerges in a clear way from the field-work run for this project is that, often, the implementation has been determined (not necessarily in full consciousness by the policy makers) not only by the desire for a better transport system, but also by several other factors, such as city regeneration, public space transformation and - in a wider perspective - increased urban attractiveness.

This process is usually far from smooth: while tramways can cause dramatic changes in the urban landscape, often the cities here investigated were very reluctant to change their infrastructure. In particular, the Barcelona, Dublin and Florence cases show how the reintroduction of the tram was forced to compromise with the city's previous use of the urban space, due to consolidated mobility attitudes and infrastructural and urban path dependencies. For many urban actors, transport is an emotionally-charged issue, in which the involvement of users and citizens should be at the core of the project, in order to obtain a better understanding amongst the parties involved in large infrastructural programmes. The actual involvements of users and public were, in the case studies here analysed, not ample, and this inevitably led to hostility from large sectors of the public opinion, opening unnecessary and often unjustified clashes between different visions of mobility. The expected projects were developed regardless of tensions, resulting in final implementations of the new tramway systems with unsatisfactory outcomes, due to inadequate compromises.

In order to contribute to an enhancement of understandings among the actors concerned, the dissemination strategy was threefold:

(i) amongst peers,
(ii) to policy makers and
(iii) to urban space users' lobbies and advocates.

Those topics have been largely discussed with policy makers, urban advocates, academic peers and other colleagues, both in the host institution and in numerous conferences the researcher has presented at. As a result of the first analyses and the dialogue with colleagues, many essays, articles, papers and other texts have been developed, with the eventual aim of publishing a book based on this issue.

Finally regarding the career perspectives of the fellow, participation in this project has been very fruitful. As an immediate positive feedback of the fellowship, he was invited to act as deputy project manager of the research group 'RACE2050' funded by the EU within the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) scheme and working on the future of the EU transport industry. The researcher has also been granted a six-month fellowship by the Rachel Carlson Centre of Munich, Germany, which will be conducted in 2014.

In the long term, his participation in the project will be central to his future development as researcher in the area of relations among society / mobility / technology.