Policy Toolkit

What is it?

Achieving climate neutrality in transport in an increasingly tight timeframe is a massive challenge. This requires radical changes in the transport system and the way we move around. Initiating and directing these changes requires a range of tools and instruments at the policy level to create appropriate conditions and support to facilitate the transition.

The MyFairShare Policy Toolkit

The concepts of Individual Mobility Budgets and a Minimum Mobility Standard provide tools for identifying required instruments that can be used to steer the development. Based on the insights and learnings stemming from testing the concepts in different scopes and on different scales in several Living Labs, MyFairShare develops a policy toolkit for applying the concepts for supporting a shift towards climate-neutral mobility.

The policy toolkit encompasses guidelines, strategies, and manuals for developing policies combining different policy instruments, which are typically categorised into different types. In the transport context, regulatory, economic, informational, and planning instruments are usually applied:

  • Regulatory law: This constitutes the most common type of environmental policies. In case of transport policies, examples include vehicle emission standards and speed limits.
  • Economic policies: Vehicle ownership taxes and carbon taxes, parking pricing, and transport-related subsidies are examples of economic policy instruments often considered to be highly cost-effective.
  • Informational policies: These target informed individual decision-making and involve minimal state intervention. Examples are voluntary efficiency labelling and awareness campaigns.
  • Planning policies: Planning policies are of particular importance when addressing transport emissions. Typical measures include cycling and pedestrian infrastructure, parking removal, and proximity planning.

 

Evidence-based support for decision-makers

The toolkit and guidelines developed in MyFairShare offer evidence-based decision support for selecting the most effective instruments. Tools assessing the level of local Minimum Mobility Standards, for example, can serve as indicators for identifying local deficiencies regarding accessibility of everyday functionalities, suppliers, and services. Such accessibility deficiencies can trigger planning policies to improve non-motorised accessibility. For regions with sufficient local accessibility, informational policies can raise the awareness and motivation for local lifestyles and reducing individual Transport Emissions based on Individual Mobility Budgets, which can additionally be supported by economic policies rewarding behaviour change. Depending on the progress and effectiveness of these measures, regulatory policies and economic pricing policies may be required to accelerate the transition to climate-neutral mobility.

In this way, MyFairShare develops a set of easily applicable tools and recommendations which facilitate the selection of appropriate policies to increase their effectiveness and avoid (further) disadvantaging specific population groups.

Further Reading