Future-proofing mobility: the Remobilise approach
Transport planning has historically followed a ‘predict and provide’ approach, using growth forecasts to building frastructure. Thisreliance on forecasts renders our mobility systems vulnerable to disruptions. Therefore, to complement these forecasts, transport planning increasingly uses exploratory scenarios. One of the core challenges is then to formulate strategies that adequately respond to these scenarios. We present a novel approach based on cross-impact balance analysis (CIB), a system-dynamics approach to exploratory scenario development. CIB generates scenarios by looking at the direct interrelations between external factors of uncertainty. In our research, we build further on CIB by incorporating internal (i.e., policy) factors, to assess the adequacy of different policy measures in the face of changing external factors. In this way, CIB will not only be useful to develop consistent exploratory scenarios, but also scenario-strategies. Through our methodology, we will be able to discern between optimal strategies (i.e., most adequate in the face of one specific scenario), and robust strategies (i.e., adequate in responding to multiple different scenarios). We demonstrate our methodology by developing policy packages to adequately respond to exploratory scenarios for the year 2050 for mobility in Brussels, Belgium. We involve stakeholders to prioritize policy areas, and the assess the adequacy of these policies in the face of four different exploratory scenarios.