More than a dozen collaborative @New Mobility programs have thus far been developed. To access them refer to the menu to your left, which shows the currently active projects at the top of the listing.

If you have ideas for yet other concepts that can make good use of this approach, this is the place to turn with your suggestions.

Origins and Perspectives (1988)

The @New Mobility program was first established by EcoPlan in 1988 as an independent international collaborative and support program aimed directly at the challenge of first defining and then implementing sustainable transportation systems. The orignal sub-title of the program is as above: "Toward an Alternative Framework for Transport Policy & Action in Cities" The program builds on more than three decades of international collaboration, cross-disciplinary research, advisory work with the interlinked problems of transport, the economy, energy, environment, industry and quality of life, and more generally with the broader challenges of managing technology in society. (See the List of past @New Mobility reports here.) The following descriptive statement is exactly as it was set out in the 1988 opening manifesto annuncing the program.

The problem of cars in cities is, in truth, part of a much broader set of social and technology management issues which are coming into increasingly high relief. The links to pressing environmental and energy concerns are obvious and critical, as are impacts on quality of life, safety, urban form and economic efficiency. More subtle are the links between cars and human behavior, including such problems as urban isolation, alienation, violence, rejection of responsibility, and loss of human vitality, intimacy and neighborliness. A great deal of good work is going on in many places around the world aimed at parts of this complex problem, but much of this is not widely known. And there is a requirement for altogether new approaches which has yet to be met.

It was against this background that Access was established, with the goal of developing a long term (ten year), independent and vigorous international collaborative effort, untrammeled by bureaucratic requirements and run on an open basis with creative inputs and support from a wide variety of co-operating individuals, sources and institutions. Five objectives have been set for the period 1989-94:

1. Provide concrete evidence showing how modern communities can work without today's overwhelming and damaging dependence on cars -- drawing attention to leading techniques, groups and places that have successfully tackled parts of the problem.
2. Encourage the development of much broader agendas of issues and approaches to the problems of transport in cities -- thereby bringing into the discussions and solution process actors and interests beyond the limits of traditional transport agencies and specialists.
   
3. Contribute to improving international communications, co-ordination and exchanges of information and expertise in the full range of disciplines and approaches involved -- so that each new project is able to build knowledgeably on the experience and accomplishments of the past.
4. Work to stimulate further research, tools development and problem solving as needed to improve our collective knowledge and mastery of these issues -- and find the means to inform and involve the public in both the debate and the decision process.
5. Encourage and contribute to exemplary projects and programs in leading cities and communities, working in close collaboration with highly qualified local partner groups and sponsoring institutions.

Initially, as it was getting underway in the latter eighties, the @New Mobility program made only limited use of electronic media (email, file transfers, etc.). The main products of the program were its various reports and working papers, sponsored working groups, advisory assignments, organization and participation in conferences, and a small but increasingly interesting set of on-site demonstration projects. In 1993 the first steps were taken to make fuller use of the quickly expanding array of electronic communications aids: several news groups were set up Internet on a trial basis and toward the middle of the year the first @New Mobility Forum was establishment, in cooperation with the European Commission Telecommunications Forum under Compuserve.

The @Forum which you see here in its latest version has been built up in careful steps over the last years on that first foundation. Go to Access on the ECTF to see how the original Internet site was organized back in 1993.

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Is The @ccess Forum For You?

Hard as we have tried to make it an easy place to be and to get around in, this bit of assembled 1999 content and electronics that we call The Commons is not for everyone (at least not yet, but give technology a few years and...). On the one hand, it is only going to be potentially useful for people who care about the issues that we have set up to broach -- which can more or less be summarized as the management of technology and its impacts as they effect people in their day to day lives. Since this is such a very wide brief, we have tightened the focus with the various programs and projects, each of which has its selected area of competence and concentration.

There are however three other non-trivial practical constraints that serve to keep this from being a tool set which is equally useful to everyone, and which you may wish to consider before taking this further. Thus..

• Having the right equipment and technical competence is critical.
• High speed communications links are important if you are to be a comfortable and efficient user (56k or faster).
• Patience and a certain turn of mind are also important. If you are not patient with technology, this is surely not going to be an agreeable place for you).

A quick visit to the Start Here section, as well as those pages of the Help Desk here (see top menu) which set out the technology, software and skill requirements for full and easy participation may help you make up your mind on this. No sense on climbing on board if you are going to be unhappy and unproductive. On the other hand, if you have been waiting for an excuse to make the break into these new technologies and work methods, this may be about as good a way as you can find to negotiate the transformation. And of course if we can help... well, that's precisely what we are here for.

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