Institutional conditions for integrated mobility services (IMS): Towards a framework for analysis

Rapport, 2016

The present text is a theoretical framework that has been developed with the aim to generate knowledge of and policy recommendations for the promotion of integrated mobility services (IMS), with specific regard to institutional dimensions. Integrated mobility services are services where the passenger’s transport needs are met by a service that not only integrates a range of mobility services, both public and private, but also provides one-stop access to all services through a common interface. These types of services are currently being developed in several cities globally, and the purpose of the project is to understand and explain how institutions can enable, but also impede, their realization. Institutions are defined as a relatively stable collection of rules and practices, embedded in structures that enable action. In the project a broad theoretical approach, developed by an interdisciplinary research team, will be applied. As such, the framework includes factors at the macro, meso and micro levels, thus including extensive societal trends as well as individual's needs and behaviour. The macro level includes broader social and political factors, including both formal rules and more informal social norms and perceptions. The division between formal and informal variables recur on the meso and micro levels respectively. The meso level – which includes both public and private actors at regional and local levels – consists of both formal institutional factors such as taxation and regulations, and informal factors such as organizational culture and inherited networks between regional actors. Each actor enters the collaborative processes that signify IMS with their own ideals, interests and expectations, and it is in these processes of negotiation that the framework takes it point of departure. It is also in this context that business models will be developed, another central aspect of the realisation of IMS. Finally, the framework also includes the micro level, where an individual perspective is placed at centre stage. Individuals are affected by various formal incentives and push factors, as well as more informal aspects such as self-image and social status. Through the application of the framework in a number of case studies, empirical findings will help illuminate which institutional factors enable or constrain the development of IMS. The findings will provide the empirical and analytical foundation for suggestions on how formal and informal rules and practices can be modified to enable new IMS to contribute to sustainable mobility.