The chapter is inserted in a book that draws from the Land Use and Transport Research (LUTR) cluster of the European Union EU “Cities of Tomorrow” programme, within the Fifth Framework Programme, and describes the outcomes of the research “ASI: Asses implementations in the frame of the Cities-of-Tomorrow”, that is aimed at considering the methodologies used by the researches of such cluster for dealing with Quality of Life (QoL) issues in relation to sustainable urban mobility and at devising appropriate ameliorative assessment tools. The ASI consortium has a strongly interdisciplinary character; the partners come indeed from different disciplinary backgrounds: psychology, transport and architecture and from various European countries: Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Sweden. The basic assumption they set is that, since the satisfaction level of the needs reflects people’s QoL, all the measures to be implemented must be chosen on the basis of the evaluation of how they will affect final users’ QoL. Generally these aspects tend to be neglected, since they are quantified with difficulty. Moreover, experts usually think that the solutions they choose are good, but users often do not agree. The main aim of the research is then to devise a Toolbox that enables local administrations and practitioners to better consider QoL issues, in relation to urban mobility, and that provides them with indications for choosing solutions and measures to adopt, so as to consider users’ needs and expectations. Its theoretical approach, the contextual analysis of subjective and objective aspects, is quite innovative. It is based on the consideration that QoL should be evaluated by the investigation of users’ perception, but since technicians can mainly act on objective aspects for improving the environment in which people live, also the actual objective situation has to be detected. The essay, after a literature review considering studies on the definition and on the possibility of measuring QoL, reports two aspects of the first part of the research: the ways (interviews and workshops with experts) used to examine how QoL issues are currently taken into account in land use and transport planning; the test of an already existing instrument aimed at examining to what extent land use and transport planning would affect individuals. Then it reports the second part of the research, devoted to the definition of a specific instrument and to its test with a pilot study. The proposed toolbox is composed of a questionnaire, for analysing and assessing subjective aspects, and of some guidelines, for surveying, measuring and assessing objective aspects. Since the aim is to compare these two aspects, questions and operations are correlated and consistent. They both concern a set of key indicators, related to the urban environment in which people move, to its performances and to the way in which is used. The data analysis and evaluation is one of the main aspects faced in this part of the research. The toolbox, easy and feasible, can be used to target a design, to define its appropriateness or to validate its goals, with the aim to control its environmental and social quality and sustainability. The results of the test are quite interesting and underline the importance of this holistic tool, showing its potentialities.
Steg, L., DE GROOT, J., Forward, S., Kaufmann, C., Risser, R., Schmeidler, K., et al. (2007). "Assessing Life Quality in Transport Planning and Urban Design”. In S.e.B. MARSHALL (a cura di), “Land Use and Transport. European Research towards Integrated policies” (pp. 217-243). Oxford : Elsevier.
"Assessing Life Quality in Transport Planning and Urban Design”
MARTINCIGH, Lucia;
2007-01-01
Abstract
The chapter is inserted in a book that draws from the Land Use and Transport Research (LUTR) cluster of the European Union EU “Cities of Tomorrow” programme, within the Fifth Framework Programme, and describes the outcomes of the research “ASI: Asses implementations in the frame of the Cities-of-Tomorrow”, that is aimed at considering the methodologies used by the researches of such cluster for dealing with Quality of Life (QoL) issues in relation to sustainable urban mobility and at devising appropriate ameliorative assessment tools. The ASI consortium has a strongly interdisciplinary character; the partners come indeed from different disciplinary backgrounds: psychology, transport and architecture and from various European countries: Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Sweden. The basic assumption they set is that, since the satisfaction level of the needs reflects people’s QoL, all the measures to be implemented must be chosen on the basis of the evaluation of how they will affect final users’ QoL. Generally these aspects tend to be neglected, since they are quantified with difficulty. Moreover, experts usually think that the solutions they choose are good, but users often do not agree. The main aim of the research is then to devise a Toolbox that enables local administrations and practitioners to better consider QoL issues, in relation to urban mobility, and that provides them with indications for choosing solutions and measures to adopt, so as to consider users’ needs and expectations. Its theoretical approach, the contextual analysis of subjective and objective aspects, is quite innovative. It is based on the consideration that QoL should be evaluated by the investigation of users’ perception, but since technicians can mainly act on objective aspects for improving the environment in which people live, also the actual objective situation has to be detected. The essay, after a literature review considering studies on the definition and on the possibility of measuring QoL, reports two aspects of the first part of the research: the ways (interviews and workshops with experts) used to examine how QoL issues are currently taken into account in land use and transport planning; the test of an already existing instrument aimed at examining to what extent land use and transport planning would affect individuals. Then it reports the second part of the research, devoted to the definition of a specific instrument and to its test with a pilot study. The proposed toolbox is composed of a questionnaire, for analysing and assessing subjective aspects, and of some guidelines, for surveying, measuring and assessing objective aspects. Since the aim is to compare these two aspects, questions and operations are correlated and consistent. They both concern a set of key indicators, related to the urban environment in which people move, to its performances and to the way in which is used. The data analysis and evaluation is one of the main aspects faced in this part of the research. The toolbox, easy and feasible, can be used to target a design, to define its appropriateness or to validate its goals, with the aim to control its environmental and social quality and sustainability. The results of the test are quite interesting and underline the importance of this holistic tool, showing its potentialities.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
