Defining the ‘30 minute city’
“A 30 minute city is one where, no matter where you live, you can easily access the places you need to visit on a daily basis.” — Australian Smart Cities Plan, 2016.
Policymakers in Australia are exploring how the concept of the ‘30 minute city’ can help to reduce the amount of time people need to travel, and increase the number of opportunities close to where people live. In order to achieve this, they will need to specifically define and measure the ‘30 minute city’ according to the opportunities that exist in Australian cities and the transport options available to reach them. We think the ‘30 minute city’ should be defined with a person-centric approach, which is why we’ve developed our model and visualisations in the ‘many to many’ style. Eventually an aggregated view of the opportunities that can be reached from anywhere in the city will be possible with our approach.
Accessibility planning studies have identified important considerations that define and help to measure access. There are three that we think define and help to measure the ‘30 minute city’:
- A person-centric approach
- Opportunity and access definitions
- Different transport types (preferably integrated)
A person-centric approach
It is people who live, work, play and travel in cities, therefore the definition or measurement of access should be person-centric. Being person-centric means measuring the access individuals are afforded to places where opportunities are located. In practice the access between different locations throughout the entire city should be measured, rather than just key locations such as Central Business Districts. The ‘everywhere to everywhere’ approach allows measurements to be compared across the city. Furthermore a person-centric approach should consider universal access to opportunities, regardless of social class, gender, ethnicity, or level of physical or mental ability.
A person-centric approach to defining the ‘30 minute city’ might consider the questions:
- How does access to health opportunities differ throughout the city, based on where people live?
- How does access to a place change for someone using a wheelchair compared to someone who walks?
Opportunity and access definitions
The types of opportunities people need to access as part of a productive city should be clearly tested and defined. There are things we know people need to do to fully participate in society including work, education, shopping, health and recreational activities. For people living in Australian cities these opportunities are often in locations other than where they live and need occur across time, resulting in different access requirements. Access to jobs is reported as an important requirement because of the clear economic performance impact, but in Sydney access to jobs (commute trips) account for only 15 per cent of travel (TfNSW, 2014). Consideration of a greater diversity of opportunities and their importance will lead to a clearer and more specific measurement of access and how it relates to the ‘30 minute city’. A prioritisation process as part of aggregation could further enhance this measurement. Perhaps we could even begin to consider the temporal aspect and how that relates to night time and day time experiences?
A discussion of important opportunities might consider the questions:
- What are the essential opportunities that people need to realise on a daily basis?
- Should we prioritise access to work over access to social and recreational activities?
Different transport types
People use different types of transport depending on the opportunity they are realising, the locations they are travelling to and from and the options available to them. Car continues to be the most common form of transport in Sydney (and all Australian cities), but cars only account for half of all weekday trips made in the city. Further, travel by car is not a practical or available method of travel for certain trips — such as those to dense or busy areas with limited parking — or for certain people — such as those without licenses or access to cars. Defining the ‘30 minute city’ requires a consideration of access through the lens of these different travel options including public transport, walking, cycling, scootering and skateboarding in addition to car based travel in taxis, rideshares and private vehicles. In Sydney, different travel types have different levels of competitiveness based on the relative levels of access they provide to people using them. These relative levels of access should be measured and considered when defining the ‘30 minute city’.
A consideration of measuring the 30 minute city according to different transport types might consider the questions:
- Where is access by public transport most competitive with driving a car?
- Which locations have the best access by walking?
What next?
Arup has developed an online ‘30 minute city’ platform to help understand access to opportunities from locations everywhere in Sydney based on public transport and private vehicle access (both including walking). A key aim of the platform is to encourage discussion of the measurement of access in Sydney and assist in the development of an accessibility framework for Sydney. We want people’s thoughts and opinions so that this way of looking at the ‘30 minute city’ can develop.
Explore Arup’s ‘30 minute city’ at 30minutecity.arup.digital
References:
Australian Smart Cities Plan. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. 2016. Available online at https://cities.dpmc.gov.au/smart-cities-plan
Household Travel Survey Summary Report 2012–13. Transport for NSW, 2014. Available online at bts.nsw.gov.au
