On the launch of the Mobility Assessment Framework, Kim Smith, our Head of Smart Mobility, draws on her experience forecasting our future transport needs and evaluating competitive tenders to explain the rationale behind this useful new planning tool…

Before joining DG Cities, I spent twenty-five years working in transport planning, delivery and shaping policy in local government. As the lead on transport strategy, I had to review tenders that were worth huge sums of public money, yet I had to develop and rely on my own matrix to judge the bids. We developed the Mobility Assessment Framework (MAF) to give transport planners in a similar position the ability to assess and compare different modes, but also a means to evaluate them against each other and a set of KPIs. Equally important, this tool gives them a quantitative basis to validate their decision. For FOI requests and transparency, I know that having this clear, auditable format to the decision-making process can be really useful.

During my career, I have also worked with developers on major, long-term projects, which were built in phases over decades. Right now, our mobility options are changing so rapidly – it would have been hard to imagine just two years ago the extent to which we have seen e-scooter hire services rolled out, for example. How do developers know which modes of transport to incorporate? Invariably, the travel plan in year one will look very different to what is needed in year twenty-five. If a site has limited space and the developer wants to put in a mobility hub for residents, do they integrate electric bikes, or do they save space for car clubs or private electric vehicles? How do they lock in the level of flexibility required to incorporate innovation? The MAF was devised to aid this kind of decision-making and identify the most spatially and environmentally efficient solutions, which can deliver the greatest benefits to users.

When I was working on these projects, I did a lot of future-casting based on behavioural change, trends in mobility, modal change and the potential impacts of demographic change, as well as exploring the potential of new technologies and innovations in the sector. This has all informed the development of the MAF and its KPIs. Importantly, the tool helps us to evaluate different transport options quantitatively and with flexibility; developers can revise their mobility assessment every five years and input what has worked, what hasn’t and forecast the next advance on the horizon that might influence planning.

When our team at DG Cities started to develop the MAF, it was a standalone product, but we soon saw the advantage of using it in a very tailored way and working with local authorities, developers and mobility service providers to adapt it very precisely to their needs. It has a dataset with fifty variables, which can be benchmarked against eleven KPIs. At its most basic, we can simply plug in the data and draw direct comparisons. But I think one of the most interesting aspects is the ability to calibrate it – to give weighting to different indicators according to circumstances and strategic priorities. In this way, it’s a very clever tool to help planners focus on overall targets, whether financial or environmental. I’m really looking forward to working with our clients to put it into practice in a range of different contexts. 

To find out more about the Mobility Assessment Framework, you can download our summary report or get in touch.