Are you a passionate researcher with interest in the fast-pacing advances in the field of accessibility and sustainable urban mobility? The University of Twente has a 3-year opening for a postdoctoral researcher position in the European research project “Driving Equitable and Accessible 15 Minute Neighbourhood Transformations” (DREAMS). DREAMS will examine how co-created and user-centric mobility services, mobility and flexible activity hubs can contribute to accessible, sustainable, and inclusive 15-minute city neighborhoods in urban outskirts in European cities and regions.
The DREAMS project is coordinated by the University of Twente. In the project you will work closely with research and industrial partners from six countries, including the following universities: University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna (BOKU), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Gustave Eiffel University, Technical University of Munich, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Vienna University of Technology, and University of Applied Sciences Utrecht. In the DREAMS project you will conduct research that goes beyond the state of the art to explore the potential of user-centric mobility services and mobility and flexible activity hubs that can promote 15-minute city neighborhoods for inclusive, sustainable, and accessible cities and regions. The research will be applied in six living labs in Vienna, Brussels, Utrecht, Munich, Paris, and Budapest.
THE CHALLENGE In the DREAMS project you will be responsible for the coordination of the activities of the Utrecht living lab, which is one of the six project living labs, liaise with the local partners, organize surveys and participatory workshops, organize networking/stakeholder events, analyze big data from mobility service providers, and collaborate with researchers from the six other universities in the project to adopt best practices from other living labs.
Specific research questions that will be addressed in this postdoctoral research project are:
- Investigate the concept of 15-minute cities, identify the boundaries of the concept, determine the current planning approaches, and the role of walkability and cyclability in urban/suburban/rural mobility.
- Investigate innovative mobility services and the roles of local stores to identify the current role of shared mobility services and mobility hubs in urban outskirts
- Examine the potential impact of different business models for shared e-bikes with a focus on disadvantaged residents (low-income) currently having no access to (e)bikes in the urban fringes.
- Develop models (based on surveys conducted in each living lab) to estimate perceived accessibility to amenities for different groups of people living in urban outskirts
- Examine and test different business and governance frameworks models to develop new mobility hubs with shared e-bikes in a district with a low socio-economic status where currently no operators are active.
- Contribute to the development of a new regulatory framework for micromobility services to be introduced in 2024, to create a more socially inclusive distribution of micromobility services.
The expected outcome is: - The successful coordination of Utrecht living lab
- The publication of research papers and technical reports related to the deliverables of the project
- The successful adoption of best practices from other living labs to the living lab of Utrecht