Sustainable mobility: An integrative framework and its application for new service design

Sustainable mobility is a relevant challenge addressed today by policy-makers, public managers and researchers worldwide. In addition to engineering and infrastructural issues, the problem is also generating increasing interest in the service management field. This article aims to present a framework useful to support the design of more sustainable mobility systems within territorial communities. A review of extant literature, ongoing projects and research initiatives is used to derive a six-component integrative framework aimed to improve a mobility system by introducing new services, evaluating trade-offs, and assessing or promoting the use of services already in place. Two cases are presented as illustrative examples of application. The proposed framework can support further investigations aimed to define new ways to face the sustainable mobility challenge through a service innovation perspective. The framework can also support the design of interdisciplinary curricula for competence development in the mobility field. The work investigates the challenge of sustainable mobility through complementary socio-technical and service management perspectives, and provides a contribution of potential value to conceive more effective solutions to mobility management.