Introduction

Walking has a key role in achieving the compact and 15-min city, improving public health, and reaching sustainability goals. However, whilst walking is placed at the top of the transport hierarchy in public documents throughout Scandinavia, in reality, walking as a mode of transport is consistently downplayed and hierarchically placed in the bottom of the transport hierarchy. Focus in the public and planning discourse is instead commonly on either motorised transport, public transport, or cycling, regardless of whether the focus is on city planning, logistics or safety.

Methods

To better understand why this is the case – as well as attempting to suggest solutions to levelling-up walking as a mode of transport – academics, policymakers, and practitioners from across Scandinavia were strategically selected to contribute with their knowledge through focus groups and individual surveys during 2021 and 2023.

Results

In the analysis of the material, it became clear that walking was largely viewed in the parallel perspectives of two fields: planning and safety. These fields coexist as disparate and disconnected fields, basing their work on different methodologies and input data, resulting in an incoherent understanding of walking as a mode of transport. However, the analysis also enabled the development of a thematic model: realising walking as a mode of transport, illustrating an ideal construct in which planning and safety perspectives work coherently.

Conclusion

The results suggest that there is a strong desire to level-up walking as a mode of transport and change the status and hierarchy in the transport system. However, to do so requires a more holistic and multi-disciplinary view.

This study focuses on the transition towards “fossil-free” (meaning fossil fuel-free) passenger transport in rural areas. We identify enablers for travel behaviour change through alternative transport and accessibility solutions from a bottom-up/traveller perspective, reducing the current knowledge gap and adding nuances to our existing body of knowledge. Rural environments are particularly challenging with long distances, inadequate accessibility to services, and limited public transport. As fossil fuel cars are the dominant means of achieving essential accessibility for many rural residents, maintaining accessibility with alternative solutions in connection with the transition to a sustainable transport system is vital. The study was conducted in Västerbotten and Norrbotten, located in Northern Sweden, Europe’s most sparsely populated area. The empirical material consists of focus groups with rural inhabitants and (separately) civil servants, and material gathered from various other transport-related projects. The results identify five enabling themes: motivation, personal and local community, opportunities and adaptability, expectation or anticipation of the transition, and physical proximity. The research material was analysed through social innovation theory, meaning that the changes under consideration were not only seen from the perspective of simple technical changes in transport but also as a complex social process moving towards changing travel habits.

Introduction: In recent years, the 15-min city concept has gained popularity as a solution for urban planning, emphasizing proximity to daily amenities accessible by walking or cycling. While commonly studied and implemented in densely populated cities, its application in other contexts remains limited. Simultaneously, Europe's older population continues to grow, highlighting the need to address their unique needs. This study examines the 15-min city from the perspective of older adults in the Swedish Arctic.

Methods: A mailed questionnaire was chosen to investigate the most significant daily amenities within a 15-min walk for the sociodemographic group. Responses were categorized into the six original categories of the 15-min city concept: Living, Working, Supplying, Caring, Learning, and Enjoying.

Results: Results included high responses for Supplying and Caring, with low mentions of Working. Additionally, two new categories emerged: Social, highlighting the importance of relationships with family, friends and neighbours, and Nothing, reflecting a lack of nearby services despite many respondents still engaging in daily neighbourhood visits.

Conclusions: This study offers a fresh perspective on the 15-min city, emphasizing the importance of integrating residents' experiences and preferences into urban planning, especially in smaller communities, to support active ageing and overall well-being. The findings offer valuable insights into key destinations for the older population, which can help enhance accessibility to essential facilities and promote proximity-based planning.

Denna rapport avser Organisation för forskningsprogram gång, dvs sammanställning av det genomförda arbetet med att planera för ett forskningsprogram, samt slutligen förslag på organisation för forskningsprogrammet. Syftet med Forskningsprogrammet Planering för Gång är att arbeta med färdsättet gång enligt de två övergripande projektmålen att öka kunskapen samt aktivt främja insatser om (1) hur gångtrafiken kan öka och (2) hur gångtrafiken kan bli säker. Syftet är även att integrera dessa tillsammans, på ett systematiskt och tvärvetenskapligt sätt inom trafik- och samhällsplaneringen. Betydelsen av att ”färdas till fots” är bred i denna ansats, med fokus på att behandla det dels som” som ett transportsätt", dels i betydelsen att färdas till fots för rekreation. Forskningsprogrammet Planering för Gång ska öka det tvärvetenskapliga samarbetet, arbeta för långsiktig kunskapsuppbyggnad, knyta forskningen närmare samhället och uppfylla följande mål om färdsättet gång och fotgängare:

• Att möta samhällets utmaningar och aktörernas behov genom tillämpad forskning och utveckling samt spridning av kunskap.
• Att bygga upp en långsiktig, konkurrenskraftig och sammanhållen kompetens inom färdsättet gång och fotgängare genom forskning, utbildning och professionell erfarenhet.
• Att därmed utgöra en plattform för kunskapsspridning, och excellent och innovativ forskning.

Reducing the use of fossil fuels for personal transport is challenging in rural areas where car dependency, long distances, and a lack of services and collective travel solutions are common. The transition is proving slow, as many people see cars as essential to fulfilling their needs and therefore a potentially car-less future as restricting their accessibility. One perceived obstacle to the transition is security, or perceived safety, which is the focus of this paper.This study examines the conditions for replacing fossil-fuel cars for personal transport with any alternatives leading to lower CO2 emissions, exploring what shapes rural people’s needs of this transition, focusing particularly on their security and safety concerns.The empirical material comes from focus group discussions with civil servants and rural inhabitants in the sub-arctic north of Sweden which is one of Europe’s most sparsely populated areas. The results show that based on current conditions relying on only alternatives to the fossil-fuel car in rural areas would lead to insecurity, and that concerns about security affect rural inhabitants’ choice of transport mode. In addition, whether or not alternatives to the fossil-fuel car are perceived as broadly feasible seems to be affected by a small proportion of the journeys individuals make, in this study referred to as boundary-setting trips comprising “tough journeys”, “journeys out of one’s control”, and “journeys affected by the unexpected”.

Walking is well known for its societal benefits, including promoting sustainability, health, and environmental well-being. In recent years, urban planners and traffic designers have increased their focus on creating pedestrian-friendly zones. The 15-minute city concept, which gained recognition in recent years, emphasizes proximity, aiming to keep daily amenities close to residents to reduce travel time and encourage walking and cycling as modes of transport. This literature review, using an abductive qualitative approach, examines how the factors influencing planning for walking are addressed within the 15-minute city concept. The goal is to compile the state of knowledge and identify critical issues and priorities in the field of walking as a mode of transport. The findings are predominantly from China and Italy, and indicate a global concern about urban centres’ accessibility within the 15-minute city concept and highlight that walking is a multidisciplinary topic. However, the review reveals under-researched areas such as individual factors, smaller settlements, and lack of standardized methods. This stresses the need for further research to encourage walking and its multiple benefits.

Passenger travel by car currently accounts for a significant part of greenhouse gas emissions, but reducing dependency on the car in rural areas while ensuring accessibility is challenging. This study offers a user perspective on the constraints to fossil-free mobility in a remote rural area of Sweden, drawing on focus group discussions with inhabitants of six rural settlements.

The study took place in Västerbotten and Norrbotten, Sweden's two northernmost regions where the climate is sub-arctic, population density low, and car dependence high.

It explores constraints including the shift from personal and individual responsibility for transport to more collective solutions. Both contextual and individual aspects impact on people's ability to change, including social networks, working arrangements, socioeconomic preconditions, and personal flexibility.

Objective data on pedestrian travel has long been lacking, especially pertaining to quantitative information about flows and route choices. Recent ICT development has opened opportunities to collect position-determined data automatically/passively but has rarely been used to study walking behavior. This study analyses the use of two such data sources for pedestrian study. Data was collected in the autumn of 2019 in Umeå, Sweden, where residents (N = 88) in the study area were asked to use the travel survey app (TravelVu) for 5 days. A total of 3,856 trips were recorded of which 51% were walking. A measurement of travel patterns was also carried out with Wi-Fi (Bumbee) for 8 days at 14 points, which recorded 279,791 entries. The results show that what Bumbee loses in precision it makes up for in the number of registrations, while TravelVu provides a detailed picture of an individual’s travels. This pilot study addresses how well the combination of these data types describes pedestrian traffic in an area in terms of flow, route choice, and distribution in time and space. Furthermore, the study provides knowledge on how new data sources can be used to provide municipalities with a picture of their pedestrian traffic.