Mobility Management in Parking Code Standards – A Study on Measures and Policies that Rock in Bremen (and what needs to be improved)!

Traditional parking standards in many cities still require that property developers build car parking spaces – regardless of whether or not there is a demand for them. This poses a challenge for planning the city of the future, one that is resource efficient, sustainable, socially equitable and attractive.

In 2013, the City of Bremen’s parking standard for new real estate developments was revised to allow the implementation of mobility management measures as an alternative to building required car parking spaces. These measures include the provision of public transport tickets, carsharing memberships, carsharing stations on-site…and in the last few years, the provision of bike sharing memberships, bicycle repair shops and cargo bikes as well. However, up until now, the impact of mobility management measures on private car-ownership and car use and the perception of transport by residents and users of the mobility management concepts was unknown.

That’s why team red Deutschland GmbH carried out a comprehensive study on the impact of these mobility management concepts on behalf of the City of Bremen in 2021 – comparing the mobility behaviour of beneficiaries of these concepts to control groups in Bremen. In-depth interviews were also carried out with real-estate developers, mobility providers and planning offices that developed and implemented the mobility management concepts.   

Key findings include that:

• The mobility concepts work!
  • Measures led to reduced car use and reduced car ownership among users
  • Public transport tickets are particularly popular/effective
  • Accompanying communication measures are essential
• There is still room for improvement!
  • The process for investors must be simplified and more transparent
  • Sufficient qualified and target group oriented advice for real estate developers increases the success of the mobility concepts
  • Missing management of parking on public street space reduces the potential of the mobility management measures

If you want the full story, the English version of the study is “hot off the press” and is available for download here.

The German version of the Study was published in April 2021 and presented for the first time at the German Conference for Mobility Management as – still – a unique way of designing parking codes for cities and encourage sustainable travel behaviour at a time when individuals are most likely to change their travel behaviour: when they move house! You can view the German version here.