To meet climate goals, people need to travel less by car. There are some cities that have successfully reduced car use; without exception, these successful cities have made cycling, walking and public transport nicer – but they have also made driving a car a bit more difficult, by charging for road use or taking road space away from cars to give it to cyclists and walkers, or making it a bit trickier to park. These “contentious transport measures” (CTM) are the focus of the project, because if we want to meet local transport objectives, then more of these measures need to be put in place in more towns and cities. Of course these CTM are not always very popular, and so politicians often do not like them.
The project researched in detail some cases where such measures have been implemented (or not) in Oslo, Fredrikstad, Sandnes, and Helsingborg in Sweden and Copenhagen in Denmark. It also surveyed politicians and analysed media coverage to find out what, and who, really shapes politicians’ views of these measures. We looked at how different forms of public participation and public protest affect politicians’ willingness to approve “contentious” measures. We also studied how public participation can be improved and made more in-depth and include people who maybe don’t take part at the moment. Finally, the project produced a Handbook for planners and politicians on how to better involve the public in decision-making about CTM to – hopefully – increase the chances that more such things will be implemented, in more cities, in future. The project was a collaboration between partners in Norway, Sweden and Spain and also worked in Denmark, and ran from 2021 to 2025.
Findings
The study has identified three key dimensions of public interaction with municipalities in the context of implementing contentious transport measures (CTM). The three dimensions encompass the actions of protesters, the efforts of municipalities to engage the public in planning processes, and coherence between various municipal policy domains.
We have observed that a combination of policy incoherence and certain forms of protest can significantly influence the outcome of planned projects. Our analysis indicates a relationship between low levels of public participation and the utilization of disruptive protest forms. To mitigate protest risks, projects must be firmly anchored at political, administrative, and community levels. Local authorities must be aware that garnering support among local inhabitants can be challenging, as public participation activities may not always be acknowledged, recognized, or remembered by their intended audience.
In contrast to findings in certain protest studies, our research reveals that it is not necessarily the affluent and politically well-connected who prevail. Instead, we show that focused and cohesive protester organizations can wield significant influence. We also show that policy incoherence poses a critical challenge for municipal authorities embarking on CTM implementation, emphasizing the importance of clarifying project coherence at all stages.
Although they are the key decision makers as to whether CTM should be implemented , there is a dearth of research on local politicians’ views on mobility issues including CTM. This project addressed this gap by interviewing local politicians in Sweden, Norway and Spain. It found that local politicians can be categorised broadly into three groups: those who do not support CTM as they see them as incompatible with their ideology; those who support gradual implementation of such measures; and those for whom there is an urgent need for CTM and that their task is to respond to their voters and lead society by implementing CTM even in the face of protest. These findings align with earlier work identifying some politicians as radical and some as incremental in policy change; and the self-definition of politicians as ‘trustees’, leading change as elected representatives, compared to those who see themselves more as ‘delegates’, representing the views of their voters. Politicians with specific experience of implementing CTM were in many cases sceptical of the value of public consultation, preferring to implement measures and let their benefits speak for themselves. Importantly, they saw CTM in more suburban locations, and involving transformation of on-street parking, as particularly challenging to deliver.
Different forms of public participation on CTM were analysed in 3 Scandinavian cities, related to their effects on i) inclusion, ii) transparency, iii) influence, and iv) resources. These aspects of participation can be seen as “levers” to “pull” to increase legitimacy. Citizens' panels were a promising form of public participation in terms of relationship to these four different aspects.
Outcomes: the popular science presentation explains how the anticipated project outcomes have been delivered. The project has enhanced understanding of the interplay between political decision-making and public protest and participation by carrying out case studies of the implementation of contentious transport measures (CTM), some which generated protest and others which did not, and it has evaluated the effect of different and novel forms of public participation for CTM on the legitimacy of the measures. In addition it has significantly increased our knowledge of the perceptions and views of local politicians about CTM, and their experience of implementing them. In terms of practical knowledge, a Handbook, based on the project results, but targeted at local decision makers, traffic engineers and transport planners, and other practitioners, has been widely disseminated to its target audience both in Norway and in an English version in other countries. Summary lessons from the handbook have also been disseminated in the form of videos.
In terms of impacts it is not possible to say with certainty that the project has had direct impacts on the implementation of CTM. However, the project has produced its findings and outputs in formats that were specifically aimed at practitioners and decision makers, not just researchers, and the majority of its dissemination activities took place at events oriented towards practitioners and decisionmakers. These are highlighted on the performance indicators page.
The project is about politicians’ views and citizens reactions’ to contentious urban transport measures (parking management, roadspace transformation, car-free zones, congestion charging schemes). These are measures that are necessary to reduce reliance on the private car, increase the use of more sustainable modes of transport, and thus meet both the national zero-growth goal for person transport and climate goals. However, while effective, these measures typically also cause disagreement between technicians, politicians and some members of the public, which in Norway has particularly been visible by movement protesting against congestion charging and road tolls in general prior to local elections in 2019.
TRANSPOL will explore how political views are shaped by the interaction with the public (including protest movements); and whether different forms of public participation might make it easier to gain political support for these types of measures. Ultimately, it aims to provide advice to municipal planners and politicians on how to engage with contentious policy measures and public protest, and to design and manage public participation, in order to reduce the political barriers to these contentious transport measures. The main methods are (i) in-depth studies of cases where contentious measures have been implemented; (ii) case studies of participatory practices, protests and experiments, (iii) broader survey of political attitudes as well as (iv) extensive user involvement during the research process. It is a bold and novel piece of transport research in that it seeks to directly address the motivations of politicians as decision makers; and because it encourages organisations to take new risks and innovative steps in the way in which they involve and engage with the public in decision making.
