Moving towards Sustainable Cities: Urban Planning and Policies for the Autonomous Mobility Age
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 12371
Special Issue Editors
Interests: spatial planning; urban planning; impacts of transport infrastructures on land use patterns; future mobility and land use planning and policy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: transport and land use interaction; transport and land use interaction models; spatial econometric models; spatial planning; public transport
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Today, we have a historic opportunity to prepare the advent of autonomous vehicles (AV) in cities avoiding past errors linked to transportation practices. Planners and policy-makers must be ready to respond to new challenges by adapting their planning and policy strategies to achieve each city/region’s goals while supporting these rapid and complex transitions in urban contexts.
Planning should consider the great potential of driverless technologies to change the urban structure of our cities. Road traffic and parking spaces could be highly reduced, as well as retail space requirements, due to the use of AV as delivery vehicles or travelling shops and restaurants, releasing a large amount of land for redevelopment, especially in inner cities.
The relationship between autonomous mobility and the various types of urban morphology is also worth considering. Orthogonal (e.g., superblocks), radial, or curvilinear tree-like patterns influence how people move and what travel modes are used, encouraging either the choice of vehicles or non-motorized modes. Similarly, the way in which the organization and proximity of neighbourhoods to local goods and services is planned has a bearing in mobility systems, as demonstrated in new planning strategies such as the 15-minute city. All these challenges will require transforming land-use planning implementation tools and redesigning public spaces.
There is also a growing concern in urban planning and design disciplines regarding how urban growth and the distribution of land uses can influence people's mobility demand and modal choices to achieve a more sustainable urban future. Compact cities offer good conditions for alternative modes of transport, whereas sprawled urban environments are more car-dependent. Transportation also significantly shapes land use patterns. Due to its potential to increase mobility, the impact of AVs on vehicle miles travelled (VMT) may alter daily mobility patterns and the location of households and activity places, further encouraging sprawl. Thus, growth management policies to control urban expansion, coordinated and regulated by land use planning, should be considered.
At the regional level, an increase in VMT could also lead to substantial changes in the structure and spatial distribution of urban settlements. Spatial planning strategies have the potential to reduce vehicle travel by supporting new policies aimed at enhancing sustainable settlement systems, such as strengthening medium-sized cities and polycentric systems based on concentrated decentralisation.
Therefore, there is a need for more detailed studies of the consequences of these spatial dynamics considering how new mobility technologies can serve city and regional future visions and goals instead of the reverse. This Special Issue aims to contribute to the theoretical and empirical knowledge to better understand and address future urban planning challenges associated with the rise of AV. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Potential impacts of AV on land use and location choices
- Interaction of the transport system with built environments and land use
- Influence of urban form and distribution of land uses on mobility
- Urban planning concepts, methods, and tools for sustainable urban futures
- Land use and other transport, economic and social policies to prepare cities and regions for the advent of AV
- Role to be played by planners, policy-makers, and stakeholders to address the transition to autonomous mobility
- Proactive, adaptive, and collaborative planning
- Urban redevelopment and regeneration opportunities
- Zoning alternatives and other land-use and development regulations
- Rethinking and redesign of urban streets and public spaces
- Parking demand, design requirements, and relevant policies
- AV interactions with other uses and modes of transport in urban streets
- Effects of AV emerging technologies in urban (and regional) spatial structures
- Density, mixed land use, and anti-sprawl policies
- Spatial planning strategies to enhance balanced and sustainable settlement systems
- Future of master planning and urban design practices in a driverless world
- Case studies in urban planning and policies for autonomous mobility
Dr. Soledad Nogués
Dr. Rubén Cordera
Dr. Esther González-González
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- Autonomous vehicles
- Sustainable cities
- Spatial planning
- Urban planning and policies
- Urban design
- Public space and street design
- Urban form and structure
- Land use
- Regional spatial structure