Site context

 

Site context is immensely important in mobility management since the nature of the site affects the transport problems that it experiences, as well as the mobility management solutions that can be used there effectively. If you are thinking about your site's transport problems, you will need to consider the site context. Site context is characterised by a number of sub-characteristics.

For each OPTIMUM² site these characteristics have been described.

 

Type of site

Hospitals and business areas are the topic of OPTIMUM², but the lessons of the project are relevant to many other kinds of sites as well. Read more about specific business areas by clicking on one of the sites mentioned in the top half in the menu, or clicking on specific hospital sites mentioned in the lower half of the menu.  

 

Location

This could be centre of town, edge of town, outskirts, etc. It is important because it is a key determinant of the accessibility of the site (see below). If, for example, a site is in a rural area, it is unlikely to have great (conventional) public transport services, and people who use the site are likely to be travelling quite far. 

 

Accessibility profile

This is normally defined as the number of people who can reach the site in a given time by a given transport mode, and it is obviously a product of the available travel services and infrastructure to the site, as well as the density of population around it. The accessibility of a site by different modes affects the suitability of these modes as mobility management solutions. Very poor accessibility by bus, for example, is likely to be difficult and costly to improve.

 

Mobility profile

The size of the travel demand to a site affects both the scale of any transport problem there, and the scale of relevant solutions to those problems. For example, a small staff is unlikely to be of the size to justify new bus services to a site. For this reason, the site level is so important to make mobility management worthwile and not so much the company level. 
Within OPTIMUM², all sites have travel demands exceeding some thousand travellers.

 

Institutional context

In certain countries, it is possible that local authorities may require, as part of the process of granting permission to build, that developers of new land and new sites implement mobility management measures there. Whether a site is new, undergoing redevelopment or not changing in any way can be, therefore, an important factor. Furthermore, mobility management is often implemented in partnership between the government and other parties such as employers and developers. In understanding how mobility management works, it is important to be aware of the project stakeholders.  See also planning and regulation.