"The decision underscores the need for a national knowledge centre for collective mobility as a basis for accessibility in and between sustainable cities and regions. Much of what has been built up will be preserved as K2 enters the next phase, while some areas will be developed and renewed," says John Hultén, who will hand over the reins after nearly ten years as the director of K2.
The travellers who primarily cite perceived insecurity as a reason not to travel by public transport are infrequent travellers. However, a study of young public transport users in Malmö shows that perceived insecurity leads ten percent of these travellers to often avoid using public transport, despite the study being conducted among frequent travellers.
Ruben Kuipers has successfully defended his thesis at Lund University, identifying concrete measures to improve punctuality for commuter trains. The research focuses on avoiding dwell time delays when passengers board and alight the train.
"Dwell time delays are often a matter of seconds, but they can quickly accumulate and lead to significant delays over longer journeys. These small delays can trigger a domino effect on other trains that are forced to wait outside the station or lead to passengers missing connecting trains or buses,” Ruben Kuipers explains.
Shared e-scooters can be viewed as a complement or a potential competitor to public transport. However, until now, it has been unclear how the interaction between public transport and these relatively new vehicles really works.
K2 researcher Pengxiang Zhao is studying how well shared e-scooters complement public transport as a solution for the distance to and from stops and stations. In one study, he compared 124 European cities, including 16 in Sweden, by calculating the percentage of all e-scooter trips that feed to public transport.
There is a growing interest in how innovations can reduce the environmental impact of the transport sector, not the least for public transport. Phil Flores from Lund University has recently defended his thesis which provides an understanding of what motivates people to use new modes of transport that are promoted as environmentally friendly. The thesis focuses on two emerging transport innovations – shared electric scooters and electric bicycles.
"This is an important European context where there is a significant demand for the knowledge that K2's researchers can contribute with," says John Hultén, director of K2.
Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) is a European research and innovation program aimed at driving the development of sustainable cities. Sweden is one of the 27 countries participating in the partnership. This year, decisions were made on 48 new projects within mobility, energy, and circular economy. Two of these projects are led by researchers affiliated with K2.
The initiative aims to establish a policy lab, a central platform, where practitioners and researchers can exchange experiences to increase the knowledge about on-demand public transport. The hope is to improve the conditions for the development of sustainable on-demand services in Sweden.
“By enabling collaboration and learning among different stakeholders, we hope to broaden the knowledge and break through isolated projects and pilots”, says project manager Jan Persson, who is a researcher at Malmö University and K2.
K2's research highlights problems defined in dialogue between researchers and pracitioners in and around public transport. The research is based on K2's research agenda. A decision has now been made on nine new smaller projects that will run in 2024.
Joel Hansson from Lund University has successfully defended his thesis that highlights how public transport planning is a balancing act between various trade-offs, regarding for example stop spacing or how departures should be distributed during peak hours and periods of lower travel demand.
Too many of those who traveled by train in Sweden this year have suffered from canceled or delayed journeys. The share of trains that has been canceled or delayed during the first half of this year is the highest in ten years, says Carl-William Palmqvist, who is a researcher at K2 and Lund University.
Rådslaget is a K2 initiative that has involved experts working in public transport, new mobility services and urban development. The initiative has resulted in a report that suggests that public transport should be developed into what is referred to as public mobility, which also includes new shared mobility services.
Jeffrey Kenworthy from Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences and Helena Svensson from Lund University have investigated the potential to save transport energy in ten Swedish cities through different strategies in private, public and non-motorized modes.
— By looking at factors such as per capita energy use, we have compared the ten Swedish cities with each other and with cities globally in order to calculate the transport energy conservation potential through five scenarios, says Helena Svensson.
