Welcome to our 12 Days of Mobility series, which celebrates the launch of our Transportation Cost-Savings Calculator, a tool that measures the return of investment from transportation demand management (TDM) programs. Click the image to see the entire series.
At our staff retreat earlier this summer, we started by asking ourselves a simple question – one that we should’ve known the answer to immediately. (You know, because we’re Mobility Lab.)
What is mobility?
It turns out it’s not a simple question after all. (Even though there’s this great video from the Utah Department of Transportation where employees explain what mobility is, set to the jazziest 1980s techno track available.)
So here’s what we came up with:
We take the word “mobility” for granted, but it’s not synonymous with transportation. Transportation is basic: moving stuff and people. Mobility is more than that.
To have mobility is to have access. Getting to places necessary for living a healthy life – your job, school, doctor’s offices, community centers, parks – is possible.
But living by a bus that comes once an hour isn’t mobility. And owning a car in a city with congested highways isn’t mobility, either.
So mobility isn’t just having access to one mode of transportation. Mobility is having transportation options, and the quality of those options.
Our team defined quality transportation options with these three necessary ingredients:
- Time. If it takes you forever to get there, you don’t have access to it. You might not always go to the nearest grocery store if the bus that runs past it is always stuck in traffic – you might just run to the convenience store across the street, even though they don’t sell fresh food.
- Affordability. Transportation options need to be affordable. If your only option is to drive but you can’t afford a car, you don’t have mobility.
- Safety. If it isn’t safe to walk, bike, or drive, you don’t have mobility. You won’t use modes that are dangerous.
So in short, mobility is access. Mobility is having transportation options that you can count on to get you where you need to go.
Without mobility, transportation is meaningless. Improving people’s mobility should be the goal of any transportation project.
Photo by Sam Kittner for Mobility Lab.