Research and Advocacy
GAMUT
The Centre is financed by VREF (SEK 25 million), the VREF OMEGA Centre (SEK 1.37 million), Melbourne University (SEK 2.5 million), and through a range of contract research projects (approx. SEK 250 thousand).
The Centre employs 14 researchers, of which five are doctoral students.
Host organisation:
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Links:
The Centre's website
Technology is not what is missing when it comes to introducing ecologically sustainable-transportation systems. It is old ways of thinking and outdated structures that get in the way. That’s why researchers at VREF’s CoE in Melbourne are actively participating in a debate aimed to bring about change.
Barrier to new solutions
Low believes that the Centre is beginning to get results, in the form of improved cooperation amongst different arms of the government. But decision makers are still stuck in outdated organizational structures and traditional ways of thinking. That is perhaps the greatest barrier to new solutions for achieving an ecologically- sustainable transportation system. For example, a government inquiry in Melbourne re cently proposed a new road tunnel to solve traffic congestion. “We have been active in the debate, because we believe that the construction of yet another road tunnel does not address climate change and won’t contribute to sustainable transportation for Australia,” says Low.
Conventional traffic research is primarily about transportation technology and refining models for understanding demand and travel patterns. “Our research focuses on the political-institutional level of transportation instead, where we identify institutional solutions to transportation problems. We are probably the only Centre in FUT that is focused on changing governance and management,” says Nicholas Low.
One research theme at the Centre is about innovations and barriers to change. The Centre is illuminating the path dependence of transportation institutions, which are locked into car and road-based solutions that stand in the way of adopting necessary new policies. “Key government agencies are doing what they have always done, in the way they have always done it. These ways are not well suited to tackling today’s key issues of climate change and peak oil. We believe that climate change is not only a result of market failures, as the Stern report claims, but just as much a failure of governance. We are trying to understand institutional histories so that they can adapt better to the environment of the twenty first century,” says Low.
The Centre’s vision is to create a society characterized by less dependence on fossil fuels, where private cars are less dominant and city planning is improved to avoid urban sprawl (the problem of cities growing without truly integrated planning for their expansion). “To avoid the spread of such unsustainable patterns to developing countries, we have to begin at home. Although we have good links with our East Asian region, GAMUT is strongly focused on solving problems in Australia. We cannot require that developing countries work with sustainable transportation systems before we’ve cleaned up our own act. That’s why our research focuses on cities whose transportation systems are highly dependent on cars. In this respect Australian cities have much in common with those of North America,” says Nicholas Low. The work at the Centre has three dimensions: pure research, advocacy, and education. The researchers come from disciplines such as town planning, engineering, political science, environmental management, and sociology. Five doctoral students are funded through GAMUT, and the Centre presently offers two courses in the Master of Urban Planning program, in addition to existing transport planning subjects. In the future GAMUT will offer a full major in Sustainable Transport in this Master’s Course, as well as training workshops for professionals.
Three types of users
The Centre aims to reach three types of users: government professionals in transportation and planning ministries; private companies interested in sustainable development; and NGOs such as the Public Transport Users’ Association. One of the Centre’s research topics is about trying to see how optimal public transportation networks should be designed and managed and how different transportation modes can be integrated. “We want to find the world’s best examples of urban transportation systems. We are also trying to create better procedures for evaluating transportation projects, in order to apply the best available knowledge to the design of new systems,” says Nicholas Low.
Traffic planning and behavior
The Centre is carrying out several case studies in large cities, in Australia as well as Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong, together with researchers from each city. In Shanghai GAMUT is exploring the changing institutional basis of transportation planning and the social impact of the metro system.
In another sub-project, GAMUT is studying children’s independent mobility. Today children in Australia are as dependent on cars as their parents. One of the reasons is they are driven to school and other activities instead of, for example, walking or cycling. “One reason for this behavior is the lack of safe paths and places, bike lanes or sidewalks, necessary for them to be able to move independently,” says Nicholas Low.
In another project, researchers are analyzing Australia’s transportation budget. The purpose is to see how money is intended to be spent and how it is actually used. “We have discovered that budgets are far from transparent, which makes it difficult to see how money has been used. We are working to achieve better transparency and consultative processes that make it possible to ensure that budgeted funds are used correctly,” says Nicholas Low.
