From narratives to indicator-based future scenarios of urban mobility

Scenario planning can be a useful tool for solving urban mobility challenges in cities while achieving sustainability goals. Scenario planning is particularly pertinent for policymakers as it can stimulate debates on different possible futures. The concept of sustainable urban mobility planning, promoted by the European Commission, is based on the principle of involving the public in the transport planning process. Including various stakeholders, all individuals, groups or organisations affected by a plan or project in the urban mobility system, such as the citizen, in the planning process can improve results and contribute to an overall understanding of the system and the views of other stakeholders. It is essential for stakeholders to interact with and participate in the creation of these scenarios. This article presents a method for formalising and evaluating prospective urban mobility scenarios. Our approach combines the strengths of both qualitative (narrative) and quantitative (indicators-based) methods. The result is a method that translates textual narratives created by stakeholders into indicators that can be easily understood. The method was applied to scenarios that were created through interviews and participatory workshops in the cities of Strasbourg and Aix-Marseille. •An innovative method in order to translate a narrative scenario on a set of categorised indicators related to urban mobility.•A scenario formulation that combines the advantages of "qualitative" and "quantitative" methods.•A method based on workshops and interviews involving the various stakeholders, these stakeholders can be creators, recipients of the scenario or both.•A method applied to 21 scenarios and 2 territories.