UTTRI associated faculty Professor Steven Farber and Professor Matthew Palm of Worcester State University took part in “New Mobility, Covid-19, and the Future of Sustainable Urban Transport” presented by the Conference Board of Canada’s Roundtable on Shared Mobility on January 27, 2021.
The event brought together six panelists to review the current state of the sustainable mobility agenda and to re-envision this agenda as part of a post-pandemic recovery.
Farber and Palm discussed the uneven impact of the pandemic on public transit users, saying that their research during COVID-19 shows that reliance on a single transportation option for getting around (i.e. transit) has disproportionally strained essential workers and other marginalized communities living in Canadian suburbs. They say that with current options “resilience turns out to be a privilege,” and that increasing “freedom of travel opportunities for all” is a necessity in planning for recovery.
The relationship between new mobility technologies and the transport equity agenda was also examined at the session. Farber and Palm noted that there remains a lot of interest in understanding how emerging mobility technologies can be harnessed to solve pressing problems. They believe that government leadership is needed to foster innovation, to define what problems society needs to solve, and to seek technology partnerships that offer explicit solutions.
About the Conference Board of Canada Roundtable on Shared Mobility
The Conference Board of Canada Roundtable on Shared Mobility aims to provide learning, networking, and research opportunities for individuals active in shared mobility and related fields, with a view towards leveraging these services to help fulfill wider policy objectives in urban, rural, and transportation planning. Learn more at The Conference Board of Canada Roundtable on Shared Mobility.