OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 1STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 Visioning and Backcasting: Desirable Futures and Key Decisions Dominic Stead OTB Research Institute Delft University of Technology NETHERLANDS David Banister Bartlett School of Planning University College London UNITED KINGDOM

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 2STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 Content Are there commonalities in the approach and/or policy recommendations of recent transport futures studies? introduction and context futures studies the backcasting approach meta-analysis of futures studies conclusions

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 3STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 Introduction and context Across the EU: increasing car ownership and use increasing passenger and freight volumes increasing congestion, environmental and health impacts trends in an undesirable direction how can we reverse these trends?

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 4STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 The use of futures studies until around the 1970s, futures studies were based mainly on traditional extrapolation scenario techniques then started to be used (e.g. Rand – defence, Shell – fuel supply) aim not to predict the future but to assist decision-making (especially for the long-term) under uncertainty a variety of different scenarios can help to identify the ‘possibility space’ of the future

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 5STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 Possibility space

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 6STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 Why futures studies are used to provide frameworks for policy decisions to help to identify dangers and opportunities for policies to help to assess alternative policies and actions under different conditions to try to increase creativity and choice in policy-making

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 7STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 Types of futures studies Futures studies consider one or more of the three P’s: 1.Possible futures. What may happen? 2.Probable futures. What is most likely to happen? 3.Preferable futures. What we would prefer to happen? backcasting concerns the latter – identifying preferable futures “The major distinguishing characteristic of backcasting analysis is a concern, not with what futures are likely to happen, but with how desirable futures can be attained. It is thus explicitly normative, involving working backwards from a particular desirable future end- point to the present in order to determine the physical feasibility of that future and what policy measures would be required to reach that point.” (Robinson, 1990)

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 8STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 Forecasting and backcasting FUTURE PRESENT Forecasting VISION OF THE FUTURE Backcasting PRESENT

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 9STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 Forecasting and backcasting T 0 = nowTfTf X0X0 trend forecast X f1 X f2 backcast TpTp

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 10STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 The backcasting approach key issues projections of key issues policy targets images of the future policy options policy packages policy paths validation and assessment (Stead and Banister, 2003)

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 11STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 Meta-analysis of futures studies various recent futures studies concerning transport  40 are there common strands? similar outputs, recommendations, policy options? 6 studies examined: EST ( , OECD-ENVIRONMENT) POSSUM ( , EU FP4) STEEDS ( , EU JOULE) ICTRANS ( , EU JRC) CPB (1999, NL CENTRAL PLANNING BUREAU) VISION 2030 ( , UK HIGHWAYS AGENCY)

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 12STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 Conclusions futures studies provide a way of assessing the impact of policies under different future conditions there is a wide range and breadth of studies, involving both projective and prospective approaches all six studies examined contain some focus on novel alternative futures that challenge existing thinking the means by which the ‘challenging ideas’ can be taken on board and integrated into mainstream thinking remains unclear some of the studies stop short of making policy recommendations the studies are quite different: there are some commonalities in approach but few similarities concerning policy recommendations

OTB Research Institute for Housing, Mobility and Urban Studies 13STELLA Focus Group 4 meeting, Brussels March 2004 END