"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.
K2-researchers Robert Hrelja from Malmö University and Tom Rye from Molde University College have studied what causes measures that can reduce the transport system's car dependence not to be implemented to the extent required to achieve politically decided goals. They have interviewed officials and politicians in Swedish municipalities and asked how they regard the municipality's transport planning.
Jens Portinson Hylander from Lund University has recently defended his thesis which provides a historical understanding of the way public transport is viewed. Jens has studied the development of public transport through a case study of Malmöhus County and Skåne between 1970 and 2020. The study is based on archival records and interviews with individuals who were involved in the planning of public transport in the Skåne region.
“It’s like we expected - users see these means of transport as environmentally friendly, while non-users usually don’t share that same perception”, says Phil Flores, PhD student at K2 and the School of Economics and Management at Lund University.
Knowledge about passengers preferences is important as it can help guiding the prioritisation between different measures when public transport and infrastructure are developed and planned. Ulrik Berggren has used a new methodology to measure and model the behaviour of public transport passengers.
“Public transport passengers are prepared to walk or cycle much longer to reach a line with extra departures or a connection with fewer transfers”, says Ulrik Berggren.
The transition to renewable fuels in the Swedish bus sector has been rapid and in 2020 over 90 percent of all bus kilometers were run on renewable fuels. However, the proportion and type of renewable fuel differs between the country’s different regions.
"The environmental requirements that have governed the public procurement of bus traffic have been of great importance for the rapid introduction of renewable fuels in Sweden", says Malin Aldenius.
