The ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems is a prime event for presenting computational methods - among others also towards improving mobility. At this workshop on Sustainable Urban Mobility, we are especially interested in lifting the conventional discussion on the impacts of mobility improvements to their actual impact on the complex system of access in a city. What makes this workshop distinct from other workshops on mobility at this conference is: it explicitly asks for research contributions studying greenwashing, adversarial consequences of efficiency improvements, and the complex system of access in the city as a whole.

Mobility and accessibility are central prerequisites for social integration and participation, exchange, employment and prosperity in our cities. And yet, motorized urban transport is known to be a major contributor to emissions (greenhouse gases, particles, noise), resource and space consumption, segregation of activities, decline of liveability, and for its propensity to encourage a more passive lifestyle.

Thus, there is a long-recognized need to shift urban mobility worldwide towards sustainable solutions, beyond only emission targets. Yet, this shift is often studied for mobility modes or mobility systems in isolation. But they are part of the social, environmental, and economic fabric of the city, and only systems thinking will lead to significant breakthroughs and progress towards sustainability.

Sustainability is often aimed at by avoid, shift, reduce principles. With regard to urban mobility, which is a derived demand, a number of factors impact these three principles: Those addressing the urban fabric and common infrastructure – e.g., urban planning, transport engineering, traffic management, – and those addressing individual behavior and culture, guided by, e.g., costs, incentives, and other regulations. Each of these factors raise questions relevant to our computational community:

• Which interventions to avoid, shift, and reduce can make basic functionalities of life accessible for all people with less or no motorized trips?
• And where basic functionalities are already accessible, such as in dense urban areas, which regulatory interventions can support a behavioral shift to more local lifestyles?
• And how can any of these interventions be assessed for its impact at system scale?

This is a domain of spatial and spatiotemporal simulation, data analytics, and prediction.

Topics of this workshop include, but are not limited to:

• Make real costs of mobility transparent, including its impacts across other sectors (e.g. energy, environment, logistics, public health)
• Explore and assess environments that support sustainable mobility (e. g., 15 min centers)
• Investigate and quantify transport fairness
• Explore the impact of new forms of information (e.g., mobility carbon budgets, transport options)
• Investigate how to substitute personal motorized trips in areas lacking supply with (some) basic functionalities
• Elicit decisive parameters for route or mode choice to nudge travelers to a more sustainable behavior
• Assess sharing principles (e. g., car sharing, ride sharing) and its integration with mass transportation for their system-wide impact
• Manage distribution of traffic in favor of active mobility or shared mobility at the expense of individual motorized traffic
• Explore alternative concepts for urban logistics
• Extend single-mode optimizations taking system-wide sustainability into account (changing demand, land use, environment, waste, energy, logistics)
• Devise decision support tools, methods and data analyses to support sustainable policy making

The workshop aims for active participation and broad discussion, e.g., in breakout groups. Thus, we invite also alternative forms of contributions - besides full papers.

• Call for Papers (PDF)
• Main Conference (external link)