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Upcoming SMART Events (SAVE THE DATE!) |
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Case study briefs |
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SMART news |
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About SMART |
Dear Friend of SMART:Welcome to Issue #2 of SMART’s e-NEWS briefs. This issue focuses on integrated urban transportation, to coincide with the imminent visit of Michael Glotz-Richter, the Bremen-based innovator of the New Mobility Hub Network concept (among other things). For more information on his March 20 presentation in Ann Arbor, click here and for information on the special session for Southeast Michigan transport professionals in Dearborn, click here. We’ll also catch you up with a quick summary of the latest SMART news and events. To learn more about SMART’s mission and activities and how to get involved, please go to ABOUT SMART. We’d like to hear from you. Please send your comments, questions, related research, favorite innovations, case studies, and collaboration ideas to Susan Zielinski, Managing Director of SMART at susanz@umich.edu.
Case study briefsMobil Punkt – Mobility Hubs in Bremen, GermanySomething remarkable is happening in Bremen, a city of half a million people located in the northwest of Germany. Different transportation modes are being seamlessly integrated, turning complicated and cumbersome journeys into easy and pleasant trips.
All these components are important to the transportation experience, but the heart of the innovation is in the integration. In Bremen a single umbrella organization oversees the region’s 35 public transportation operators. For the user this means a straightforward experience with one transaction and one ticket. Bremen’s Mobil Punkt (Mobility Hubs) bring together all of the available modes in a single location, giving the user a seamlessly integrated experience that combines car sharing, taxi, cycling, and public transport. The key to all this integration is a 3-in-1 bank card + car sharing key + transit ticket. The ticket is known as “eierlegendewollmilchsau”, or egg-laying wool-milk sow, emphasizing the fact that you wouldn’t expect to find these services all from the same one place.
For more information, see the following links:
http://www.movingtheeconomy.ca/content/csPDF/BremenCaseStudy.pdf Better yet, give yourself a chance to pose questions to one of the architects of Bremen’s success who’ll be speaking live in Ann Arbor: Click here for more information on the March 20 event and here for the March 21 event. Mobility HUBS in Toronto
• Short and long term bicycle storage By launching this first hub of the network, Toronto is moving toward providing transportation customers with more of what they want. Based on a survey of 1,000 randomly selected Toronto area residents, convenience is an all-important factor: 50 percent of survey respondents indicated that paying a fare twice [versus an integrated payment system] would deter them from taking public transit, and more than 50 percent cited having information and purchase points near work, school, or home as an important factor.
For more information, see: Cases selected and presented by John Gearen
SMART newsMichael Glotz Richter in Ann Arbor
Michael Glotz-Richter, Senior Project Manager of Sustainable Mobility for the City of Bremen, is a leading innovator in integrated, sustainable urban transportation. Among other accomplishments, he has developed the New Mobility Hub network approach in Bremen Germany, and has inspired similar efforts in cities across Europe, in Canada, and world-wide. Mr. Glotz-Richter's success in integrating public transport, car sharing, clean vehicles, bicycles, urban design, new technologies, and urban goods movement won Bremen the CIVITAS "City of the Year" award in 2005. This coming Tuesday March 20, Glotz-Richter will profile innovative, integrated approaches to urban transportation and will offer a somewhat entertaining approach to rethinking and remaking the role of automobiles in our lives. The event will be co-hosted by Professors Carl Simon of the Center for the Study of Complex Systems and Tom Gladwin of the Erb Institute, and a distinguished local panel including UMTRI’s Peter Sweatman and TCAUP’s Dean Douglas Kelbaugh will respond and comment on how some of his concepts and innovations might be applied here in the Detroit region. Refreshments and opportunities for conversation will follow. This event is free and open to the public with thanks to the National Science Foundation for their support. Wednesday March 21, 9:00 – 11:30 am.
A few spaces are still available for the March 21st special session with Michael Glotz-Richter on new options and opportunities for sustainable transportation in the Detroit region. If you work on transportation-related issues in the greater Detroit region and would like to attend, please call Susan Zielinski, Managing Director of SMART, at (734) 763-1190 or email susanz@isr.umich.edu to request a space. South African New Mobility Industry Alliance Ramps Up For World Cup 2010As reported back in January’s e-NEWs, Tom Gladwin and Sue Zielinski met in Johannesburg with key South African industry representatives to catalyze and accelerate integrated sustainable transportation strategies and pilots in nine South African cities in preparation for World Cup 2010 and beyond. This initiative, undertaken by SMART in partnership with the Prince of Wales Business and Environment Program, Barloworld and a broad range of business leaders has as its mission: “…to form a coalition of South African-based businesses that could together generate a suite of sustainable mobility interventions for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, with a view to these interventions leaving a legacy of enhanced mobility for the people of South Africa and a network of expert capacity amongst those companies that could be applied profitably in a range of other countries.” Momentum is building with growing membership, monthly strategy meetings and teleconferences, and an emerging research partnership supported by a multi-disciplinary Masters Project team from UMICH Ann Arbor. Watch future issues of e-NEWS for developments. SMART at LargeThe first quarter of 2007 has meant busy calendars for SMART members, with speaking engagements in Denver, New York, Washington, Minnesota, Toronto, Detroit, Capetown via videoconference, and more. If you’re interested in arranging for a SMART presentation, contact Raye Holden at rholden@isr.umich.edu and don’t forget to allow some lead time.
About SMARTSMART (Sustainable Mobility & Accessibility Research & Transformation) is an inter-disciplinary project of CARSS (Center for Advancing Research and Solutions for Society *) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It focuses on sustainable transportation and accessibility in city regions of the world. This is both timely and relevant as the global challenge of urban mobility becomes rapidly more vexing and complex. The accelerating pace of urbanization, population growth, globalization, and demographic shifts is leading increasingly to transportation systems that threaten climate, environment, biodiversity, energy security, social equity, productivity, and urban competitiveness. Yet the vital role of mobility and accessibility to meeting our daily personal and business needs cannot be denied. SMART takes a unique systems approach to understanding and transforming the future of urban mobility and accessibility. Moving beyond the technical fix alone, it "connects the dots," bringing together the various disciplines and sectors, the players, the theoretical approaches and the practical applications required to tackle urban transportation's growing complexity, sophistication, impacts, and opportunities. Through collaborative, trans-disciplinary, multi-sectoral research, through on-the ground projects, and through academic programs, SMART concentrates in four main research and action areas: • Systems-based analysis and solution-building • Accessibility-based planning and policy making • Sustainability – environmental, social, and economic • New Mobility markets – identifying and developing new markets and business models for integrated urban transportation SMART's innovative, integrative, applied approach carves a unique niche for whole systems solution-building that works to address the mobility and accessibility challenges of the 21st century. SMART brings together the efforts of a wide range of academic and industrial partners: the Center for the Study of Complex Systems, the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning (TCAUP), the Ross School of Business, the School of Natural Resources & Environment (SNRE), the Institute for Social Research (ISR), the department of Applied Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering (and Wu Manufacturing Research Center), the Ford School of Public Policy, the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP), the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), the school of Literature Science & the Arts (LS & A), and the Ford Motor Company, and others. * CARSS was established in January, 2003 to extend and strengthen the intellectual and methodological foundations of social and behavioral science, and the degree to which that science is applied to addressing society's most pressing problems and abiding dilemmas (http://www.isr.umich.edu/carss/).
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Most of the transport modes available to Bremen residents are familiar around the world: trams and buses, bicycles, cars, taxis, and of course walking. In Bremen, though, most of these modes are modified to create a better user experience. Trams and buses have accurate waiting times electronically updated at each stop [shown at right], so travelers know if they have time for a cup of coffee before boarding; traffic lights respond to trams, giving them right-of-way. Travel by bicycle is much easier as well: First, all streets are two-way for bicycles, even those that are one-way for cars; second, Bremen’s main train station contains a full service bike station with options for rental, supplies and repairs, secure storage, and even bike washing. Bremen’s twist on driving is to offer car sharing as an alternative to ownership: users can reserve one of the fleet of 100 vehicles using a cell phone, and then with a quick swipe of a card the car is ready to go, without any of the messy maintenance that comes along with ownership. Nearly 3,000 people use the service: 33% of users replaced car ownership with car sharing, and 55% of users decided against a car purchase because car sharing was available. Less space reserved for cars has meant more space for cyclists and pedestrians throughout Bremen.
For Bremen, all this innovation has encouraged residents to choose low-emission modes of transportation [see pie chart, right]. These modes are favored not merely for their ecosystem impact, but because in Bremen, they’re the best way to get around.
A nascent success story closer to home is Toronto, where the HUB concept a la Bremen is getting off the ground thanks to the work of 
Where from here? With travel times predicted to increase in the Greater Toronto Area by 45% in the coming decades, the hub network movement in Toronto is poised to become an increasingly critical part of getting around the city. With lessons learned from the Exhibition Place hub [shown at right], Phase II calls for the addition of one to three new hubs by December of 2007. These new HUBs can improve on the signage and branding seen at the Exhibition Place HUB, while continuing to offer the core HUB benefits of quicker transfers and better access to more transportation modes.
Michael Glotz Richter (left)