Active mobility is physical activity undertaken as a means of transport. It includes travel by foot, bicycle and other vehicles which require physical effort to get moving. It does not include walking, cycling or other physical activity that is undertaken exclusively for recreation purposes. With today’s sedentary lifestyles, this opportunity to be physically active while at the same fulfilling a basic need (transport), can bring a whole host of benefits for individuals and society as a whole. Dr Anna Clark and Dr Ulf Eriksson from transport consultancy Trivector Traffic look at the benefits and what is stopping us in taking advantage of them.
Active mobility is quite simply a great way to get in your daily dose of physical activity. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that we do 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per week. This doesn’t need to be done in one go, and 10 minute bouts of cycling or walking are a perfect way to reach this goal.
It’s about fitting physical activity into your daily routine, and active mobility is a great way to do that!” says Dr Eriksson.
Not only is active mobility a great way to get an individual moving, it also brings large benefits to society. The WHO have developed an easy-to-use web-based tool (HEAT) which calculates the economic value of reduced mortality of walking and cycling in populations. Applications of this tool have proven to show huge benefits for society, and inclusion in cost-benefit analyses reveal sometimes shockingly high benefit:cost ratios.
“Our own calculations of the value of walking and cycling only in combination with public transport in Sweden reveal that the benefits outweigh investments in public transport” says Dr Clark. Also, the benefits of active mobility outweigh the costs associated with traffic accidents, air pollution and noise pollution. The results are in line with a growing body of scientific findings which are all coming to the same conclusion.
Barriers to active mobility
But if active mobility is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty in reaping the physical activity benefits of active mobility? A large part of the European population do not meet the recommended levels of physical activity. There are several problems with this: first of all, there is a general lack of understanding among those who work in transport about the health benefits of physical activity from active mobility. Active mobility is still seen very much as a non-mainstream transport modes in most authorities, and getting people to walk and cycle means that we need to plan for and provide properly for walking and cycling, and today this is not done. Then there’s the issue that the cost of creating a walkable and cyclable environment is primarily borne by the transport sector, but the economic benefits are seen in another sector: health. This makes finding budgets in the transport sector to fund active mobility harder. It is also an issue affecting the communication and collaboration between transport and health professionals and how they promote active mobility.
Studying the links
“These are the kind of issues we explore in the PASTA project” says Dr Eriksson. PASTA stands for Physical Activity through Sustainable Transport Approaches, and is a four year research project which is looking at better understanding and promoting the links between the environment and active mobility. The project includes a large study which will look at transport and physical activity over time in approximately 14 000 European citizens in 7 case study cities.
“In the Swedish part of the study, we want to investigate the impact of workplace mobility management measures on transport behaviour and levels of active mobility” say Dr Eriksson, who together with the team from Trivector Traffic is leading the study in the city of Örebro in Sweden.
Useful outputs
In addition to the vast amount of innovative research, the PASTA team are also developing recommendations for local authorities of how to overcome barriers and reap the benefits of physical activity through active mobility, as well as developing a new health impact assessment model for transport, and providing input to the update of HEAT.
What’s next?
“We passionately believe in creating more healthy liveable societies through environments supporting active mobility” concludes Dr Eriksson. “Our experience working in this field provides us with a lot to offer public authorities who want to imbed “healthy” thinking into transport planning, and we hope that many more will start to take health into consideration in transport planning!”
For more information, contact
Dr Ulf Eriksson 0046 10 456 56 87 ulf.eriksson@trivector.se
Dr Anna Clark 0046 10 456 56 23 anna.clark@trivector.se
http://www.pastaproject.eu/
Photo credit: Lena Smidfelt Rosqvist
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