Category: practitioners

Further Development: Recommendations for Action in the Use of Consultation for Mobility Transitions

In a presentation at the Dortmund Conference (dokorp) 2025 “Reasons for planning in time of multiple crisis”, Katharina Holec, Laura Mark and Tobias Escher presented further selected recommendations for dealing with planning conflicts in the context of the transport transition. The presentation arose from the ongoing work on recommendations for action, which was developed by the CIMT research group as a synthesis of the various strands of research and in cooperation with practitioners.

These recommendations are derived from various research findings from the CIMT project. They are based on quantitative data from surveys of more than 2,000 people and qualitative data from more than 20 interviews on various mobility planning processes in three German cities, as well as a quantitative analysis of the participation landscape in Germany based on an extensive database of over 350 transport-related participation processes that we have built up. Following feedback from practitioners, they were revised and put into a coherent form.

Recommendations

For the presentation, the following two recommendations were selected from those developed to date and presented for discussion:

It is not the primary task of consultation processes to reach a consensus on fundamentally controversial issues such as the mobility transition.

Compared to the presentation at the CMUS conference in Aalborg, this recommendation was slightly adapted and reformulated in the process of developing the recommendations for action, so that consensus is still not seen as the primary task of consultation procedures, but can at least be sought as a partial aspect. Furthermore, it is emphasized that the transport transition is fundamentally controversial. The derivation of the recommendations for action can be found in the contribution to the Mobilities Controversies Conference in Aalborg 2024.

The results of the consultation must be supplemented by other perspectives in order to arrive at a balanced decision in the interests of the mobility transition!

Here, too, the wording was slightly adapted after discussion with practitioners. The wording was changed primarily to make it clear once again that decisions should primarily be made in the interests of the mobility transition and that these should also be balanced for different socio-economic groups.

Presentation and publication

We are currently working on a compilation of these and other empirically based recommendations for the use of participation in the mobility transition.

4th workshop for practitioners on recommendations for action generated from the results

On October 31, November 7 and December 11, workshops for practitioners were held at which we presented recommendations for action and discussed them with the participants. The participants were administrative staff responsible for citizen participation in the various municipalities with which we cooperated and who were involved in the planning and implementation of the participation processes that we examined in our research.

In the course of our investigation of various open consultative participation formats on the topic of urban mobility planning, we were able to generate various findings from which theses can be derived. In a further step, we combined these numerous theses into seven recommendations for action, which are intended to support the implementation of consultative participation formats. At the beginning of the workshops, we used an example to outline the path from insight to recommendations for action before the practitioners themselves got involved and were able to leave comments in our mind map. With the help of digital sticky notes, they added their opinions, additions, criticisms and experiences to the individual recommendations for action. This was followed by discussions on individual recommendations for action. Important points were:

  • The usefulness of the recommendations for action in participation practice as tools for classifying one’s own participation
  • The usefulness of the recommendations for action in participation practice as an aid to justifying the importance of participation

Overall, the experts agreed that the results of our research are very helpful in communicating the challenges of citizen participation and the resulting consequences to policymakers. In addition, many of the practitioners noted that they found the link to the results of the research clear and structured. Some had the impression that participation and specific consultations are viewed critically in municipal administrations. They share the view that our results can help to train administrative staff and make them aware of the usefulness of participation procedures.

Major points of discussion in the workshops were

  • the specificity of the recommendations for action and the inclusion of examples in the presentation of results
  • a potentially stronger emphasis on the transparency aspect through the recommendations for action
  • an arrangement of the recommendations for action in the chronological order of a participation process

The planners note that the recommendations for action could be made more specific in order to clarify their practical relevance and make them more likely to be applied. In the form in which they were presented, they were rather general and always in strict relation to the results of the research. It was suggested that the recommendations be underpinned with examples from specific participation formats. For example, our research objects could be mentioned, which form the basis of our findings, the theses and thus also the recommendations for action.

Although reformulations and concretizations have been made, examples cannot be found directly in the recommendations. This would have been complicated, especially with regard to the partly abstract quantitative results. However, some examples from the specific participation processes form the basis for the development of the recommendations for action and are sometimes used to underline their importance.

Another aspect that the experts raised is that different tasks and questions arise at different times in a planning process. Some of the seven recommendations for action relate to the planning, implementation or evaluation of the procedures. It was suggested that specific attention should be paid to the participation process and that the recommendations be arranged according to the different stages. This was implemented in the order of the recommendations.

At the end of the workshops, we asked for suggestions for the publication of the results. It was emphasized how important it is for the planners to be able to find these recommendations easily and it was recommended to use existing networks in order to disseminate the results as widely as possible.

We would like to thank the practitioners for their time and important input – and to a large extent for their years of cooperation. We gained many important insights and suggestions that will help us in our work on a helpful and practical publication of recommendations for action.

Transdisciplinary Research – Meeting FixMyCity and Liquid Democracy in Berlin

Transdisciplinarity as cooperation with practice is an enormously relevant aspect for our project. In order to incorporate the ideas and requirements of practice into the development of our concepts and procedures at an early stage, we went to Berlin on October 24th and 25th.

Once there, we first went to a meeting in the offices of FixMyCity, where Boris Hekele was waiting for us. After a short tour of the work spaces in the former Tempelhof Airport, the founder of FixMyCity told us about past and current experiences with participation in mobility transitions – mainly the improvement of cycle paths and cycle parking in various districts in Berlin. This gave us an insight into participation procedures currently running mainly online.

After a long walk across the Tempelhof field and thus the assessment of the impact of a previous participation procedure on the design of urban space, we finally arrived at the office of Liquid Democracy. We discussed the potentials of automated evaluation in participation procedures and possible deliberative potentials of these. The exchange was very helpful for us to identify needs in practice, as well as for the further conceptualization of the dissertations and the orientation of these towards problems in practice.

On Friday we had our first meeting with our mentor Dr. Oliver Lah and the Urban Change Maker Group, where we discussed our dissertation ideas in an international environment. The focus was again on the automated evaluation of participation contributions and the representativeness of procedures in the field of sustainable mobility. The feedback was very helpful for the further design of the dissertation projects.