Common Access

Transforming urban peripheries with Commoning Accessibility practices

The project describes Commoning Accessibility practices and explores their potential to help achieve the 15-minute city principle in urban peripheries.

Two main barriers exist to the implementation of 15-minute City (15minC) concept: first, the 15minC principles are hard to transfer to urban outskirts; second is the lack of attention to the social dimension in the design and implementation of mobility and accessibility solutions. This project aims to generate knowledge addressing these two main shortcomings.

Common Access brings a novel focus on the social nature of accessibility options and measures (for people and freight) in urban peripheries. Central to Common Access’s approach are Commoning Accessibility practices, where the role of communities in optimising resources and sharing physical and digital accessibility services is fundamental.

Commoning Accessibility (CA) practices are centred around the social dimension of mobility and accessibility. They include a combination of community-shared (e-) bikes; community micro-mobility Hubs; community-car clubs; community parcel lockers; community car clubs; mobile community services; community-led temporary and tactical measures to increase local accessibility; citizen-based community datasets to enhance digital connectivity and enable the use of shared mobility options and of community services and amenities.

These CA practices can empower communities to share physical and digital accessibility services needed to foster a more inclusive and sustainable urban environment. This is the core belief of the Common Access research project.

The research project is working via testbeds in different suburban neighbourhoods of six metropolitan areas: The Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (NL), Province of Bergamo (IT), Province Oost-Vlaanderen (BE), Vaterstetten, Bavaria (GE), Province of Pavia (IT) and Oxforshire County Council (UK). It will generate insights into (1) the variety of accessibility conditions of urban outskirts; (2) ongoing CA practices in urban outskirts; (3) opportunities for activating new CA experiments; (4) the mobility and social impacts of CA experiments and (5) the policy enablers and constraints of CA experiments in the outskirts.