Basic principles of project

This project is defined by the following basic principles:

1. We are losing the climate war in a very big way - and we don't need to.
2. We are losing the fossil fuel, food, and resource wars-and we don't need to lose them either.
3. Transportation accounts for on the order of 20% of the climate problem -- more in the case of some of the others.
4. More than half of the world population today live in cities -- with more pouring in every day.
5. The vast majority of these people are poorly served by the existing transportation arrangements - and most the plans and projects in the pipeline offer zero prospect of the fundamental structural improvements that are needed.
6. A growing number of institutions and programs trying to make targeted contributions to deal with these challenges --some with fair resources and broad backing, most however working on bare bones budgets.
7. These programs and the people who make them up communicate with each other and collaborate with each other in a number of ways - but there is every reason to step up both by several orders of magnitude if we are to have a chance to rectify these fundamental planet and life threatening problems.
8. Communications and computer technologies offers the possibility to better network these programs, institutions and the people working with them - at low cost and very quickly.
9. The more unified, more deeply seated networking and sharing approach that would come out of these greatly heightened communications arrangements would improve their chances, individually and collectively, at getting to grips with the underlying challenges.
10. This project has the mission of opening up the dialogue that is needed to advance this very specific component of the sustainability agenda.
11. Dividend: This deepened and more universally accessible knowledge environment is for sure going to open up new project and service opportunities for entrepreneurs, both public, private and volunteer.

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Project origins - Opening statement

The concept of new mobility or sustainable transportation is gradually gaining credibility as an alternative strategy for the policy, development and management of city transport systems worldwide. Starting from a very different series of basic conditions, premises and priorities to the transportation policies and practices that largely dominated the 20th century, these new approaches are increasingly being supported by a wide variety of leading practitioners, authorities, and institutions -- public, private and participatory -- in many parts of the world.

Despite this undeniable progress however, this approach is still heavily outmatched in many cities and parts of the world, in part because it advocates different approaches which are often regarded with doubt or suspicion by more conservative interests.

Fortunately there are a growing number of programs and institutions in different parts of the world that understand and are leading the charge with these new approaches: strategies and measures which are far better matched with the very different, historically unique and highly stringent requirements of this new century. One of the goals of this first-stage project is simply to identify the leading groups and approaches. For this you will find our latest short-list if you click here.

The goal of this just-starting open collaborative project proposal is to attempt to initiate a constructive dialogue among the people and organizations around the world who know the problems and possibilities best, to see if we can come to some sort of creative vision of what if any best next steps might be.

These first stages are being taken in hand by the New Mobility Partnerships as a public contribution -- and in doing this we note the sense of high emergency associated with this project that is driven by not only the long understood needs for radical transportation reform in our cities, but also and above all by the utmost urgency of the climate issues and just behind them the ever more pressing problems of energy supply, security and prices. It is for these reasons that this project takes on particular urgency and importance.

The project started to take shape in Spring 2008 with a series of exchanges between Sue Zielinski Managing Director of the Sustainable Mobility program of the Center for Advancing Research and Solutions for Society (University of Michigan) and Eric Britton of the New Mobility Partnerships in preparation for a high level brainstorming public/private conference on "New Mobility: The Emerging Transportation Economy" in which the idea was being turned around that our present information and "knowledge recuperation" tools were not keeping up with the urgent challenges we are presently facing. Britton was asked to lead a presentation and discussion on this during the 12 June 2008 conference, eventually entitled "Reinventing the Wheel (But not all by ourselves" .

The discussion was well received and eventually gave birth to this first stage project probe.

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Defining New Mobility - Key words

What you have here are a suggestive net of terms and concerns which taken together differentiate the New Mobility approach from the traditional practices which are giving us so much difficulty in this hew and very different century.

Access, transport, cities, climate, health, carbon, resource balance, emergency, sustainability, choice, consistency, time management, economic viability, social justice, non-car majority, women, children, freight, transport avoidance, land use, demand management, eTransport, digital, sharing, slowth, slugging, full cost pricing, taxes, near term action, international, viral, information, at-hand, organic, complex adaptive systems, seamless.

• For more click here to Agenda home page (own window).

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Thinking about the learning community - key words

These are proposed as clues and thinking points for this exercise and search for solutions. They will be more useful to those who are part of the search for new, better and fairer solutions.

Research-policy-industry-public interest, independent units, focused, high expertise, innovative, data silos, universal search, peer-to-peer, dynamic sub-groups, open stacks, confidentiality, prioritizing, self-organizing collaborative network, swarm intelligence, open networking, layered access, new tools, multi-media, IT, GIS, full media streaming, social/professional networking, gated-access, mobile, always on, Dewey Decimal, DARPA.

• For an earlier presentation (PPT) of the concept click here .

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New Mobility Network - latest round of incoming contacts

As per 11 May 2009: This map, reporting the first rounds of enquiries coming into this project'd website, provides a good visual illustration of where the action is on our topic. That great white swatch that sweeps from south to north from Africa and up through the Middle East and on to the former Soviet countries is notable. And certainly worth a thought or two if, as it is, our problem is a planetary one that cannot be handled on a piecemeal or partial basis.

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Workplan (in process)

Here you have a quick outline of steps taken and underway in the process of vetting this idea for eventual follow-up and action.

First steps - getting underway (2008)

The following offers a rough outline of the main steps taken and to be taken to move this from a round proposal/idea toward a more fully developed mature plan and initial operating demonstrations. Each of these steps is receiving daily attention and it can be expected that they will be both modified and developed extensively over the latter months of 2008.

1. Early 2008. Brainstorming discussions with partners of the New Mobility Agenda discussion group to define problems and eventual paths for solutions
2. 12 June. First concept presentation - To Ann Arbor SMART Conference.
3. July: Creation of the first versoin of this website and the 1.0 Knoogle working model.
4. August Systematically expanding listing of key groups/programs (to more toward a more complete collection of P2P key nodes )
5. First brainstorming on new tools to support new cross-cutting structure (see the New Mobility Agenda discussions via http://www.newmobility.org/, Café)

Next steps: 2009

7. Initiate first round of direct contacts and discussions with identified groups, based mainly on information provided on website
8. Continue to develop and refine web site and PPT presentations
9. Work to define and test new tools toolkit candidates
10. Disseminate preliminary materials widely to seek counsel, suggestions and eventual collaboration.
11. Continue to extend master list of groups and programs to be contacted for their ideas and eventual collaboration in the problem-solving stages
12. Discuss formation of an informal core working group (provisionally 5-10 active collaborating groups)
13. Invite selected colleagues to join International Advisory Council
14. Discuss and decide about organization of the appropriate "discussion/exchange forum": the technology to be used for group discussions and exchanges (the simplest option would be to use either the New Mobility Cafe, to create another basically similar group dedicated specifically to the knowledge site, or possibly something else and quite different and much more powerful. This last of course being the most appropriate chose for a project like this.)
15. Starting summer 2009: : Present project when it is ready to conference, workshops, media, etc. Incorporate feedback into key materials;
16. Start to initiate first linking steps - on limited trial basis first, then when proven extending it to all interested participating groups
17. Seek both short and longer term support, financial and other

This is the way that the process looks today (11 May 2009) and we can expect that it will continue to alter quite quickly as work moves head. Stay tuned.

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