New transportation actors

New transportation actors

An analysis of the potential for Stockholm’s workplaces to contribute to

mobility management

Nadezhda Zherebina

Department of Human Geography Master’s thesis 30 HE Credits Urban and Regional Planning

Urban and Regional Planning (120 credits) Spring term 2020

Supervisors: Onyanta Adama-Ajonye (SU),

New transportation actors

An analysis of the potential for Stockholm’s workplaces to contribute to

mobility management

Nadezhda Zherebina

Abstract

This research in the field of transport sociology explores how workplaces in Stockholm can become actors in managing transport demand and through soft measures contribute to an increase of sustainable and active commuting to work and short-distance travel on work purposes. It uses a mixed-method approach consisting of a review of official documents, publications and initiatives, a web-survey and semi-structured interviews with representatives of Stockholm’s public and private workplaces. The study uncovers the current role of workplaces in mobility management policies of Stockholm, analyzes internal and external factors that influence the likelihood of workplaces to encourage sustainable and active commute and travel to meetings within the city among their employees and provides recommendations on how workplaces engagement can be increased. Being occasionally mentioned in the policy documents or invited to take part in climate or cycling-focused initiatives, workplaces in Stockholm are now at different stages in their willingness to have travel policies and participate in on-site mobility management. Internal and external factors influence the motivation of public and private, larger and smaller workplaces differently. With further research, comprehensive communication, questioning the status quo and establishing a constant dialogue between the city and workplaces there is a big potential to involve workplaces as new actors into various existing initiatives.

Keywords

mobility management, workplaces, travel policies, transport sociology, actor-network theory, sustainable travel, active travel.

Word count 24,626 words

Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to thank all the representatives of Stockholm companies and organizations, who saw potential in my research and were able to share the values of their companies via web-survey or interviews. Spring 2020 turned out to be an uneasy time for activities other than direct work responsibilities. Adapting to work from home and adjusting workflows to the new reality made it challenging to focus on and discuss the future of commuting to the office and traveling to face-to-face meetings. I am very grateful to those who were able to be proactive, think strategically and contribute to this research with their time, energy and knowledge. Due to the ethical considerations, the companies’ names and names of the representatives remain anonymous.

I also would like to acknowledge all people who helped me with contacts for the recruitment process for the empirical study and to Viktor Nordahl Bäcklund from Cykelvänligast and Emil Törnsten from Cykelframjändet who contributed to the research from the cycling perspective.

Most importantly I would like to give a big thanks to my supervisors: Onyanta Adama-Ajonye from Stockholm Universitet for jumping into a new topic for her, providing academical guidance and helping with methodological and structural perspective; Jones Karlström and Sonja Forward from VTI for the opportunity to be part of the Swedish National Transport Research Institute, for caring a lot, sharing professional expertise on transportation and giving advice on research design and Swedish perspective. Finally, my gratitude goes to the course coordinator Danielle Drozdzewski for encouragement through the master's thesis process and always having the right word for the right moment.

Summary

This master’s thesis is about managing the way people commute to work and travel to meetings within Stockholm and Stockholm workplaces as actors in this process. Rapidly growing transportation systems are a challenge for cities in many aspects, such as environment, costs, health and lifestyle. Stockholm has been doing a lot in the field of transportation in order to achieve the 2030 global agenda and the city’s local sustainability goals. Transport sociology analyzes travel with a focus on people, where the way people travel is a matter of choice. It can be interpreted and changed with a set of soft policies referred to as mobility management. This concept has been addressed by academics and used by practitioners internationally, however, the actorness and role of workplaces, in particular, has not been widely researched.

The purpose of the thesis was to explore the potential for workplaces in Stockholm to become actors in mobility management. In order to achieve this purpose, three research questions were answered: What is the role of workplaces in the current mobility management policies of Stockholm? What factors influence the likelihood of Stockholm workplaces to encourage sustainable and active commute and travel to meetings within the city among their employees? How can workplaces’ engagement in the mobility management policies of Stockholm be increased?

The theoretical framework for this research was built around the actor-network theory and complemented by organization theory and the transtheoretical model of change, which can be recommended for further academic research and creating targeted strategies for engaging workplaces in mobility management in practice.

A mixed-method approach was used to collect the data. Firstly, official documents, publications and existing initiatives in Stockholm aimed at mobility management were analyzed, secondly, an empirical study consisting of a web-survey and semi-structured interviews with Stockholm workplaces took place.

Findings show that there is a general recognition of participation and actorness in the planning agenda of Stockholm, however, the organizational level in the soft mobility strategies and the role of workplaces is mentioned just occasionally. Factors that influence workplaces’ likelihood to engage differ between public and private as well as larger and smaller workplaces, although some factors are ranked similarly by all groups. In comparison to the long-distance travel policies, workplace-based measures focused on commuting or short-distance travel are more focused on infrastructure and less on soft measures. Distance meetings are given a priority as a solution for reducing the workplace’s environmental impact.

The thesis concludes that Stockholm has a significant potential for creating a strong network with workplaces as actors in managing travel demand. The currently existing hesitations and limitations can be overcome with an intensive dialogue and targeted comprehensive communication.

Contents list

1.2 Aim, rationale and contribution……...………..………..9

2. Literature review……….………..……….11

2.1 Sociology of transport………...……….11

2.2 Mobility management…………...……….…12

2.3 Workplaces and staff travel……….………..…….13

2.4 Workplaces’ spatial distribution and mobility trends in Stockholm……….………..………....15

2.5 Concepts of sustainable and active travel………..16

3. Theoretical framework……….……….18

3.1 Actor-Network Theory...……….………...18

3.2 Organization theory………...20

3.3 Complementary theory: the transtheoretical model of change……….….………….………...………....21

4. Methodology_{​……….………...………...23}

4.1 Development of research questions……….………..23

4.2 Researcher’s positionality………..……….……...…24

4.3 Epistemology and ontology……….……….….25

4.4.1 Research design……….……….…....26 4.4.2. Second-source analysis……….….………..…..27 4.4.3 Web-survey……….……….……....…...28 4.4.4 Semi-structured interviews……….….……….…..30 4.5 Limitations……….………….……….……..………31 4.6 COVID-19 statement……….………....……32 5. Results………....………….……….………...…..33

5.1 What is the current role of workplaces as actors in mobility management in Stockholm………...…………...…33

5.1.1. Representation in official documents…....………….…………...33

5.1.2. Initiatives………..……….………..…….….34

5.2 Findings from empirical study: web-survey and semi-structured interviews.……….….………..…….….36

5.2.1. Workplaces’ attitudes to mobility management………...……….….……….….…….….36

5.2.2. Encouraging factors for workplaces to foster sustainable and active travel among employees.….……….….….…….41

5.2.3. Discouraging factors for workplaces to foster sustainable and active travel among employees.….……….……..…….45

6. Discussion……….………,………...….….50

6.1 Considerations on the role of workplaces in the current mobility management policies in Stockholm………...………….…………..…...50

6.2 Trends in encouraging and discouraging factors for workplaces……...….52

6.3 Recommendations for engaging workplaces into mobility management in Stockholm……..……….…….…………....54

7. Conclusion....……….…………...….……….57

Bibliography……….………..……….59

Appendices Appendix 1 (web-survey design)……….………..………..64

Ethics Statement

This research was conducted with compliance of research ethic norms established by Stockholm University and The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). It involved human participants in two parts of the empirical data collection: a web-survey and a set of semi-structured online interviews. When choosing online data collection methods I was aware of ethical considerations and discussions around the difficulty to ensure privacy, transparency, confidentiality, and security in this form of research (Gupta, 2017).

The survey was created with a free survey software _{​Google Forms and sent to} participants via personalized emails. It was replied by people, representing companies and organizations in Stockholm: CEOs, HR-, CSR-, sustainability and administrative managers or employees in other positions. As a researcher I took responsibility to explain in detail, what the survey was about and how it formed part of the larger master’s thesis research project. Participants received information about the aim of the study, participation details and a short description of the survey via email. It was clearly stated that the final results of the survey would be anonymized and no company’s or person’s name would be published, so the company’s reputation or person’s employment would not be affected. The web-survey started with a one-page detailed description (Appendix 1), which mentioned that the final master’s thesis would be available for open access. There was a consent ticking box following the information page. Data from the survey was systemized and stored in the automatically formed Google spreadsheets with access available to the researcher only.

Semi-structured interviews were held either via Skype or Zoom. Before the interview started, the participants gave their oral consent to be recorded.

Work emails of both survey and interview candidates were obtained via a personal network of people who voluntarily agreed to share the survey with their employers. In this case, as a researcher, I tried to balance between not being unethically intrusive but persistent enough to get to the right informers on the researched topic.

In this research I was supervised by Stockholm University and VTI (Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute). Both organizations are not-for-profit educational and scientific institutions aware of ethical norms of social research. I also considered the potential interests of my study objects, many of which were private companies. Their nature could have affected the trustworthiness and independence of my informants. However, interests, attitudes and values of companies were my research topic, so analyzing private corporate interests and taking them into consideration could not be avoided.

Introduction

We move and most of us travel to work or for work purposes on a regular basis. The way we move and the demand we set upon everyday travel is a big part of what shapes the cities and influences our everyday life. Cities are growing and transportation systems in them become more complex and… more overwhelmed. Since long ago the scope of the problem around transportation has reached far beyond the initial issues of capacity: emissions are huge, there is no space for new infrastructure layers, people have less active lifestyles _​—_​ our urban transport is simply not efficient.

Planners and policymakers in different cities around the world were more or less successful in coping with the broad range of transportation questions. However, even those who recognize the problems and work hard on them are in most cases not yet close to solving them. So it might be not just up to professionals in urban development to tackle the growing transport demand. Besides, today's cities have a long history of infrastructure and street planning, so fixing errors, re-planning and re-constructing requires time and large investments.Therefore, soft measures and work with people’s travel choices become more and more important.

We reached the point when even small mechanisms that are not obvious from the beginning can make a big difference. One of the paths to take could be a more open-minded approach, communication and involvement of a broader range of actors. In order for this to work out an understanding is needed of who potential actors could be, of their role and challenges as participants of a network.

Using my prior experience in cycling advocacy and corporate engagement in cycling initiatives I asked myself how the topic of actorness in increasing sustainable and active forms of urban transportation (walking, cycling) has been addressed by researchers. I also wondered if workplaces in Stockholm, where I live and study, could contribute to comprehensive transportation policies already implemented by the city.

My objective in this study is thus to explore the potential for workplaces by understanding their motivations in being part of these policies. My purpose will be achieved by answering three research questions:

1. What is the role of workplaces in the current mobility management policies of Stockholm?

2. What factors influence the likelihood of Stockholm workplaces to encourage sustainable and active commute and travel to meetings within the city among their employees?

3. How can workplaces’ engagement in the mobility management policies of Stockholm be increased?

In order to answer them, I will use a multidisciplinary theoretical approach combined with a selection of academic literature and a mixed-method approach consisting of a review of documents and initiatives, web-survey and interviews. Due to the master’s level of research, it by no means gives answers relevant to all workplaces

in Stockholm, however, I encourage everyone interested to use it as a starting or complementary point for bigger studies.

This research is structured into seven main chapters. It starts with the ethics statement which sets guidelines for the whole research, followed by the introduction (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 contains the literature review where the researched topic is placed within three contextual levels: sociology of transport, travel demand management and workplaces and staff travel. Chapter 3 builds a theoretical framework for this study, introduces the use of the actor-network theory, justifies its complementation with organization theory and the transtheoretical model of change. Chapter 4 focuses on the methodology of the research, covers ontology and epistemology, explains the choice of the mixed-method approach, describes the methods and study limitations. Chapter 5 presents and analyzes the results obtained through the second source analysis, web-survey and interviews. Discussion in Chapter 6 explains the identified trends with the use of the actor-network theory. As a result of the discussion, a set of recommendations is introduced. Chapter 7 concludes this thesis and provides suggestions for future research.

1.1.

_​

Background

Sustainable development of cities and communities is the main focus of the United Nations Global Goals and the 2030 Agenda. Sweden perceives all goals as “integrated and indivisible” (Government offices of Sweden, 2018) and strives to have a balanced approach towards improving all three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental. One of the core elements in achieving these goals is managing the fast-growing urban transport systems, in particular promoting sustainable energy-efficient transport and influencing the personal car use. There are several reasons for special attention towards the transport sector in Sweden: transport is responsible for 33% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, generates noise pollution and congestion (Andersson et al., 2020).

Similar to many other cities around the world Stockholm is making steps towards increasing the efficiency of its transport system. The plan is to prioritize high-capacity modes of transport, such as walking, cycling and public transport. Stockholm is proactive and quite successful in fulfilling this plan: the mode share is 47% for public transit, 21% for walking and 8% for bicycles. Beside that Sweden pioneers in putting not just efficiency in terms of traffic capacity or environment on the agenda, but talking about healthier and more long-living population through increasing active travel.

In comparison to non-active transport modes traveling by bicycle or walking

(also referred to as “active travel”) has been proven to contribute to less diabetes and mental health problems, which is a benefit for both the social and economic dimensions of the global goals. Increasing active travel in Sweden has been part of the Moving Beyond Zero strategy. It claims that a “modern environmentally sound and healthy transport planning has to create a vision for a more active and healthier population”

(Svenska trafiksäkerhetsrådet för aktiv och hållbar mobilitet, n.d.). It highlights that benefits from active mobility in the public health and quality of life need to be prioritized.

Commuting to and from work is a routine everyday activity for many people that generates a great percentage of trips. Apart from commuting, business trips in Sweden account for 10% of the total number of passenger kilometers traveled per person and per day with 40% of them done over distances shorter than 5 km (Andersson et al., 2020). Choice of a travel mode for both types of trips and potential for changing the individual’s travel behavior has been proven to be influenced by workplaces, for instance facilities at the office and soft measures like campaigns, carpools, travel advice, parking management (Vanoutrive T. et al., 2010).

A concept of mobility management has been an important tool for the everyday work of transport planners. It consists of various strategies that change travel behavior to increase transportation system efficiency. An important part of it is engaging different actors to supplement governmental policies and building infrastructure. Globally and in Sweden different mechanisms for better involvement of employers into actions towards sustainable and active travel have been thought of and developed: Cycling-Friendly Employer certification, employers travel plans.

1.2.

_​

Aim, rationale and contribution

The aim of this master’s thesis is _​to explore the potential for workplaces in Stockholm to become actors in mobility management by identifying their current role and understanding the factors that influence likelihood of their participation. This aim is covered by three research questions:

1. What is the role of workplaces in the current mobility management policies of Stockholm?

This question is asked with the purpose to find out what is the current vision of working with travel behavior through employers and corporate travel strategies as well as how (if) this vision is included in policy documents and represented in different documents and initiatives in Stockholm.

2. What factors influence the likelihood of Stockholm workplaces to encourage sustainable and active commute and travel to meetings within the city among their employees?

With this question I get an overview of both encouraging and discouraging factors, which of them are more important and if it differs depending on the types of companies (public and private) and sizes (larger and smaller).

3. How can workplaces’ engagement in the mobility management policies of Stockholm be increased?

This question is aimed at developing a set of recommendations based on the analysis of the answers to the first two questions and taking into account the conceptual and theoretical framework.

The rationale for this research lies in both the societal and academic relevance of the topic. As partly mentioned in the introduction and background there is a growing need for a better understanding of soft measures as part of urban transportation development. Participatory urban processes face a lack of understanding of how to build a strong long-term network of actors and some participatory tools can be underestimated. Another problem of many aspects of mobility management, especially with the actorness part of it, is that being applied in practice a lot it lacks a clear conceptual placement and elaborated theoretical framework.

At the global, European and local levels in the Swedish cities there is ongoing work on projects and initiatives such as Bicycle-Friendly Employers, workplace travel policies, promotion of distance meetings. So every new knowledge on how actors, like employers, can be involved in increasing sustainable and active travel is very valuable. Thus, this research will contribute to the work of practitioners, especially those engaged in mobility management at the City of Stockholm (from here on referred to as Stockholms Stad). It might provide new insights for such initiatives, which are taking place in Stockholm as project for cycle-friendlier workplaces (Cykelvänligast), Stockholm Climate Pact (Klimatpakten), work of various consultancies and governmental agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket) and the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) involved in sustainable transport planning and attract attention to the potential of more active work with workplaces.

2.

_​

Literature Review

This literature review provided an overview of the existing academic knowledge about the researched topic, shaped my understanding of the concepts, my research design, methodology and created a framework for the analysis of my findings. This study was not aimed at providing a comparative analysis between a Stockholm case and international examples, and also the sampling method chosen for the empirical study did not allow to generalize findings for all workplaces in Stockholm. However I decided to draw the parallels based on the review of studies from around the world in order to get a broader understanding of the topic and perform my analysis.

2.1. Sociology of transport

“Changes to transport will inevitably be linked with, and influenced by, broader changes in the values and practices developed by societies as a whole” Cairns et al., 2014 The topic of this research was placed within the social sciences and the sociology of transport in particular. Social aspects of transport planning and management have been brought up throughout the last fifty years of scientific thought in sociology and transport by Healey (1977), de Boer (1986), Yago (1983, 2003), Cairns et al. (2014), Curtis (2016), Kaufman (2016) and many others. The initial transportation research had the aim to understand the connections between transportation and spatial urban form, which then gradually expanded towards understanding institutional forces behind transport planning and management, political economy and impacts of transportation upon social interaction (Yago, 1983). The vision of a city as a social system (de Boer, 1986) allowed to look at transportation as a social system as well, thus giving a social perspective to environmental and societal impacts of transport systems and stakeholders in it.

Healey saw the rise of the social side in transport planning as a “ _{​mechanism of} adaptation” (Healey, 1977) to the constantly changing and unstable social environment _​. She also noticed that as soon as urban transport started to be seen through the prism of social perspective, the discussion had to incorporate conceptual explanatory theories linked to social positions of those who observe and explain urban transport and those explained. This consideration framed interpretivist epistemology and ontology of this research as well as the usage of the theories.

Studies of the individual travel behavior form a large part of sociological perspectives of transport research, being the most evident subject for planning and managing transport systems and thus having a high practical request. Multiple regional,

national and city-wide travel surveys have been taking place in order to understand, predict and plan according to transport demand. After the environmental effects of car-oriented transport development became clear and the agenda of urban mobility shifted towards sustainability, the scientific thought started to be placed around the question what motivates individuals to change their travel behavior (Kingham et al., 2001; Stewart et al., 2015; Forward, 2019; Andersson, 2020).

A broader perspective on this topic suggests that understanding and changing travel patterns must look beyond individual choices and pay more attention to the potential of transformation at institutional, cultural and societal levels for achieving change (Cairns et al., 2014). In particular, the lack of a multilevel approach targeting organizational level has been mentioned by Aittasalo et al. (2019) concerning active commute to work. The key themes within this focus of scientific transport debate relevant for my research include a vision of travel practices as independent dynamic social entities, implications for mobility within changing nature of societies, complex issues of car dependence in societies and the role different cultures play in forming travel patterns.

The fact that society is moving forward makes all researchers in the field of transport sociology reflect on how new changes interlink with the change in urban travel. The so-called “new mobility paradigm” (Sheller, 2006) brings forward such issues as the role of new technologies in transport planning and travel patterns change and the importance of social networks in travel decisions.

All these themes form a framework through which the role of workplaces and social entities in changing travel patterns can be understood.

2.2. Mobility Management

A concept strongly related to transportation is mobility management (MM) or transportation demand management (TDM), which represents a set of strategies that help make transportation systems more efficient (Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2017). It shifts the focus from the movement of motor vehicles to the movement of people and goods and prioritizes such efficient modes as walking, cycling, ridesharing, public transit and telework. According to this concept priority also should be given to the higher value and lower cost modes over lower value and higher cost travel. In order to achieve the latter mobility management requires the usage of strategies to inform and encourage travelers to change their preferences in mode choice in order to improve mobility, reduce congestion, lower vehicle emissions, improve health, etc. The mentioned strategies require various actors to be involved and for the working-age population employers are one of the most important actors. They are the ones to incorporate something that is called “soft transport policy measures” (Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2017) such as workplace facilities, campaigns, carpools, travel advice and parking management in order to supplement infrastructural measures.

Understanding the concept of mobility management as an umbrella term for those soft transport measures and what MM is not is crucial for contextualizing this

study. Although complex measures are required for the shift to sustainable and active travel, infrastructural measures such as bicycle paths, new tram and bus lines are not directly part of MM but supportive measures (Enoch, 2012) and thus not a key focus of this research. They are supply measures, while the main interest of this research is to investigate the workplaces’ contribution to demand-oriented measures. Urban transport plans are not MM themselves, because they contain all the spectrum of transportation planning, however, they usually contain MM (Enoch, 2012). Thus this will be of interest to this research to analyze Stockholm’s sustainable mobility plan in order to look for MM measures related to workplaces. Raising travel awareness, promoting sustainable transport modes, introducing site-based travel plans, i.e. at a workplace, university or school are part of MM. Finally, the actions of the end-users are meant to be voluntary (Attenbrand et al., 2005 cited by Enoch, 2012).

Richter et al. (2011) made a review of implementations of soft transport policy measures. Although there are still many gaps in the knowledge on this topic, i. e. in long-term effects, generalizability, non-quantified benefits and others, the overall effectiveness in discouraging private car use and encouraging the shift towards more sustainable transport modes has been acknowledged.

2.3. Workplaces and staff travel

The core context of this study is based around workplaces and their involvement in managing staff commute and travel to meetings within the city. One of the earlier perspectives covered land use and workplace location as instruments for influencing transport modal split (Naess & Sandberg, 1996; van Wee & van Der Hoorn, 1996; Aarhus, 2000). Later the importance of accountability with location when researching workplace-focused mobility management measures was stated by Vanoutrive et al., (2010). Although not being the main focus of this study, the review of this perspective encouraged to contextualize this Stockholm-based research in terms of land-use policies and tendencies in the office location.

The overall question about whether workplaces can play a significant role in the way their employees’ travel has been asked by researchers internationally, i.e. Dickinson et al. (2003), Wen, et al. (2010), Bopp et al., (2018). International scientific thought has touched this field from various perspectives throughout the years, starting from the late 1980s, when so-called Employer transport plans (ETPs) were introduced as part of the Dutch transport policy (Rye, 1999). In the US workplace-oriented transport policies adopted around the same time period were mandatory (Dill, 1998). Employer-based trip reduction (EBTR) policies required workplaces to reduce the number of employees using private cars to get to work. They turned out not to be successful due to multiple gaps in problem definition, goal setting, context definition and implementation (Dill, 1998). After that various studies on evaluation of workplace travel plans and their effectiveness were held internationally (Rye, 2002; Enoch & Potter, 2002; Dickinsson et al., 2003; Chorus et al., 2006). Such plans were defined as implemented by employers with the aim to encourage their employees to choose mode

active and sustainable mode of transport to work and for business trips (Rye, 1999). In another definition by Bopp et al. (2018) a long-term character of travel plans is highlighted: “A long term management strategy to promote sustainable forms of transportation for staff, visitors and clients with long-term goals of reduced CO2 emissions, cost savings, less traffic and improved health”. They can be built around encouragement strategies or restrictive policies but should include: a) information on how the plan fits into the organization's long-term planning; describe the organization’s level of commitment, evaluation of existing travel patterns as well as goals for future travel, assessment strategies and action plan.

Earlier studies held in the UK revealed some of the employers’ motivations towards adopting ETPs: environment was a central part of their business, staff travel behavior had a significant effect upon their core business through planning and development issues, measures were seen as a staff benefit, benefits were linked to local estate management issues, etc (Rye, 1999).

The following characteristics make workplaces very valuable to include in mobility management: the multitude of potential strategies, growing evidence base, the potential for widespread reach, and positive economic impact (Bopp et al., 2018). That is why different ways of how workplaces can influence travel have been researched including, for example, evaluation of active travel interventions (Petrunoff, 2016), auto restraint policies (Shiftan & Golani, 2005), effects of transit benefits (Cadena et al., 2017), disincentivizing policies for driving and incentivizing measures for active travel. On the one hand, the many of those mobility management measures taken by workplaces are in many cases challenged by accessibility problems (Vanoutrive et al., 2010), but on the other hand, companies confronted by accessibility problems tend to be the first ones investing in mobility management (Rye, 1999a). With that being said a large scale database on workplaces and staff travel is needed in order to analyze which mobility measures work and which not and to estimate its benefits as a mobility management tool (Vanoutrivespi et al., 2010): Belgian Home-to-Work- Travel (HTWT) database is a good example with the information on modal split, work regimes, accessibility problems and 38 types of mobility management measures at 7460 worksites.

As stated before in this literature review understanding the wider context when researching the workplace engagement in mobility management is very important. Such elements as taxation, parking regulations, labor and public transport policies, spatial planning need to be taken into account during analysis (Vanoutrive et al., 2010), same as the political aspect of introducing car-restricting measures, for instance (Andersson, 2020) or risk of viewing specific mode promotion as a fundamentalist one, i.e. cycling (Cupples & Ridley, 2008). At the same time the reasons that motivate workplaces to adopt travel plans or work on mobility management in a more informal way often differ from the official goals of sustainable mobility agenda (Vanoutrive et al., 2010), which makes it very interesting for detailed research.

Although the topic of workplace transport plans has been researched, the practical awareness about mobility management tools and understanding of the reasons to implement them by workplaces was noticed to be a problem (Coleman, 2000). Based on the literature review we can say that the topic was coming and going during the years, being part of the transport planning agenda in some cities, however, it has not been very high on the workplaces’ agenda so far. Such plans were recognized to be

effective (Aittasalo et al., 2019). Besides unawareness, both Enoch and Potter (2002) and Kingham et al. (2001) noticed that travel plans were seen by employers as a cost and they thus did not have a good reason to make it into common business practice. Characterized as a “blind spot of the sustainable development policies” (Kalliomäki, 2019) business trips and commuter trips impact on the environment have been seen as an external factor on which a company “has no responsibility”.

Tax incentives could be a potential solution to this and although difficult to enforce it was tried out by some cities during the time afterward. On the other hand, the study of health promotion programs by Batur & Koc (2017) identified “sufficient time, skills, knowledge and competence” as well as senior management support as facilitating factors for implementing those programs at workplaces.

2.4. Workplaces’ spatial distribution and mobility

trends in Stockholm

In order to contextualize the research location, a study of 30-years change in travel behavior patterns in Stockholm was used. _​Trends between 1985 and 2015 have shown the decrease of car-trip share and increase of bicycle and public transport share in Central Stockholm. According to Bastian and Börjesson (2017) trends in travel behavior among other things are influenced by trends in Stockholm’s society: leading world positions in gender equality, ICT use, digital and knowledge-based economy. Service-, knowledge- and digital-based sectors benefit from density, so a fast increase of jobs and housing from 2004 on happened in the regional center, so a lot of working-age residents were attracted to live there or to come on a daily basis. The workforce in Stockholm is “highly specialized and educated” (Bastian & Börjesson, 2017).

A discourse about the polycentric development of Stockholm is another fact about workplaces’ spatial distribution in the city. The idea is that besides the growth in the regional center, the local employment markets would be equally distributed between central and suburban municipalities, which would reduce car commute traffic. However Bastian and Börjesson argue that due to the early transit-oriented development of Stockholm the employment was not kept local in many cases, so obviously the car share and distances in commute in the suburbs are higher than in the inner city. The congestion charging system, parking restrictions and decrease in travel speed introduced from 2006 on are other reasons for fewer car trips in the inner city.

Several other findings that are going to be used further in the discussion of this thesis are:

● between 2004 and 2015 trip frequencies for commuting and business became more gender-equal;

● time spent at work per day increased by 28 minutes on average;

● high-income groups have increased their bicycle share of trips more than low-income groups;

● central residents have increased their bicycle distance but not outer suburban residents.

So with the above being said the trend for increase of employment locations in the inner city means shorter commutes, more travel alternatives and more city-driven infrastructure and regulatory measures for the workers there. Commuting distances and car share at the more remote suburban employment clusters are therefore not so easily reduced compared to commute at the more central job locations.

According to Deloitte City Mobility Index 2018, public transport system in Stockholm urban area is “high-performing with many active modes” including bus, commuter train, tram, metro, light rail and ferry. Modal split is 23% for private cars, 47% for public transit, 21% for walking and 8% for bicycles (Deloitte Insights, 2018). It is ranked as Top performer in mobility vision and strategy and environmental sustainability initiatives with a “proactive environment and few barriers” on the way to the Future of Mobility.

As a key improvement measure for city mobility, Stockholm was advised in the Deloitte Index to “adopt new demand management techniques for public transport as urbanization increases” (Deloitte Insights, 2018), as space on its roads is limited due to multiple transportation modes.

2.5. Concepts of sustainable and active travel

Sustainable travel in this study refers to using sustainable transportation modes. Sustainable transportation according to Rodrigue (2020) is the “capacity to support the mobility needs of a society in a manner that is the least damageable to the environment and does not impair the mobility needs of future generations”. There are a lot of discussions and speculations around what can be counted as “sustainable”, however, going deeper into this discussion is not part of this research. We thus take a broader understanding of the concept and count walking, cycling, types of light individual transportation (e-scooters, segway, etc.) public transportation, carpooling, car sharing, and green vehicles as a more sustainable alternative to private motorized vehicles.

Active travel (active mobility, active transportation) is mostly used to define walking and cycling but also can refer to running, skateboard, kick scooter, roller skates. In this research this concept is defined as a form of transport that requires the physical power of a human being in order to keep moving (Active transportation alliance, 2020).

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Summary of the literature review

In this chapter I presented three levels of scientific thought in which this research can be contextualized: sociology of transport, transport demand (or mobility) management and workplaces and staff travel. The social side of transport planning and

management rose as a response and an adaptation mechanism to the constantly changing and unstable social environment. Transport sociologists gave a social perspective to stakeholders in transportation, which opened the discussion towards incorporating interpretivist epistemology. They brought forward the importance of considering institutional forces behind transport planning and social networks in travel decisions and management. With an existing large focus on individual travel behavior in social transport research, the lack of a multilevel approach targeting the organizational level has been stated. In transport demand management (or mobility management) concept actors should be engaged in the implementation of soft transport policy measures in order to supplement infrastructural measures. These measures are demand-oriented and aim at changing travel behavior towards efficient transport modes (walking, cycling, ridesharing, public transit and telework. Literature proves that travel-related measures introduced by workplaces are effective for the working population, they are in many cases presented as travel plans - a long term management strategy to promote sustainable forms of transportation for staff. The accountability with the location was proven to be important when researching those measures but the overall practical awareness about the soft measures and understanding of the reasons to implement them by workplaces was noticed to be an under-researched topic.

3.

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Theoretical Framework

The review of literature about employers’ attitudes to workplace travel policies showed that a significant amount of studies has been of an applied character. In comparison to the studies focused on individual travel behavior (Andersson et al., 2020; Forward, 2019; Eriksson, 2011; de Geus et al., 2019 and many others) that use a clearly shaped framework of behavioral theories, research focused on employers often provide a broad set of concepts but a limited theoretical foundation. In this chapter I introduce the actor-network theory that shaped the framework for this research and provide an overview of two complementary theories (organization theory and transtheoretical model of change), which appear in my discussion in a smaller extent but are suggested as a new theoretical framework for studies and practical work in this field.

3.1.

Actor-network theory in transport

planning

This chapter introduces the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and explains why this theory has been chosen for this research. ANT originated in the early 1980s and was first mentioned by Michael Callon, Bruno Latour and John Law. It represents a theoretical and methodological approach that forms a part of social theory and aims at analyzing the social world, which correlates well with the conceptual framework of transport sociology introduced in the previous chapter. This theory was shaped by the constructivist philosophy and interpretivist epistemology, in which social processes are directly involved in creating knowledge (Rydin, 2017). This epistemology and ontology were chosen for this research and are explained in detail in further chapters.

In the second part of the twenty century there was a shift from linear planning towards recognition of the necessity to include different voices of public and private sectors in the planning for effective action (Rydin, 2012). A number of papers recognized the potential of Actor-Network Theory to be an appropriate theory for “contemporary planning practice for sustainability” (Rydin, 2012. p. 24). Among planning-related publications using ANT are Rydin (2012) about low-carbon development of commercial facilities, Boelens (2010) used it on the experimental case of planning practice in the Netherlands, Latour and Yaneva (2008) (cited by Rydin, 2017) analyzed ethnography of architectural practice through ANT, etc.

ANT sees everything in social and natural worlds as being integrated into constantly changing networks, where nothing can exist outside of a set of relationships. The dynamic character of networks, which are being constantly remade (Latour 2005),

and interest to understand how actors forge, negotiate and maintain those relationships is a key aspect of the theory. As planning and managing growing transport systems nowadays and understanding the sociology of transport are difficult to imagine outside of sophisticated multilevel networks and constant change, the ANT was considered to be relevant for the current research.

It recognizes the capacity of non-humans to act in the networks, where they are treated equally to human actors. Objects, ideas, processes and relevant factors make a difference in creating social situations (Latour, 2005). Besides, any actor can be seen as a sum of smaller actors. Workplaces are thus perceived as social entities consisting of people working there, with employees, management being human actors but also office-buildings, infrastructure around, decision-making mechanisms as non-human actants.

Concepts of “intermediaries” and “mediators” are crucial for framing the study objects of this research. The former are entities, which make no difference in how a network forms and functions. The latter, on the contrary, can multiply difference and thus should be objects of study (Latour, 2005). Workplaces, based on the literature review, are seen as mediators in this research, which can actively construct a mechanism of influence on travel choices of the working population.

Attempt to create a network in which all the actors agree that it is worth building, in other words, the rationale for the network is referred to in ANT as the concept of “translation”. In the background and literature review I explained the overall rationale for increasing sustainable and active travel globally and locally, in Stockholm, and academically and practically confirmed reasoning for involving workplaces as actors in mobility management. So the main focus of my research questions and empirical study is to find out if and how workplaces as potential actors of the network working on mobility management see that this network is even “worth building”.

ANT is highly empirical but its empirical analysis is not aimed at explaining but rather describing. Although referred to as a theory, ANT does not explain why a network takes this or that form. It can be better seen as “a way of exploring relational ties within a network” (Latour 1995). An empirical study, consisting of a web-survey and semi-structured interviews with workplaces, was chosen as methods relevant to explore their potential to become actors in mobility management. Although the researcher’s ideas about possible explanations of the findings are introduced in the analysis later on, the study overall is exploratory.

Due to the relational character of the theory, characteristics of the individual network elements in ANT are less of a value compared to the qualities of the relationships and what is happening. Power and agency concepts in ANT are results of relationship qualities in the network and not of the actor’s initial or individually acquired characteristics. “Capacity for linking with the network, not the strength, mobility and intentionality of the actors” is the focus of the analysis (Rydin 2017, p. 303). Workplaces are unique so in order to analyze the opportunities for their inclusion into the network of short distance sustainable and active travel management, it is crucial to take the above-mentioned aspects of ANT into account.

To finalize the ANT part it is important to mention that there is no theoretical perspective that would embrace all aspects of planning practice without leaving out the others. ANT by no means provides a “comprehensive and dominant account” (Rydin 2017, p. 302) of the researched topic. For example, not taking “intentionality of the

actors” into account can be a weak point of ANT, that is why the Transtheoretical Model of Change is complementing ANT in this research. However, it seems worthwhile and practical for the aim of this study that deals with workplaces as actors in mobility management and is complemented by other theories, models and concepts.

3.2.

Organization theory

This research is dealing with organizations: all types of workplaces in Stockholm, both private and public, which are “the group of individuals who come together to perform a set of tasks with the intent to accomplish the common objectives” (Business Jargons, n.d.). Organization theory is an interdisciplinary set of concepts and definitions that explain the behavior of organizations and also how they are affected by the internal and external factors. In particular it looks at the ways organizations make decisions, distribute control and promote or resist change (Inc., 2020). In New Directions for Organization Theory Jeffrey Pfeffer highlights the focus of organization theory on the “effect of social organizations on the behavior and attitudes of individuals within them” as well as the mutual effects of different types of environments, i.e. political and cultural environments (Pfeffer 1997, cited by Inc. 2020).

The match of this approach with the study aim was the main rationale of using this theory to complement the ANT. Another rationale was that organization theory has been used by researchers to analyze the engagement of organizations into the sustainability topic overall, i.e. Ascher (2000), Kantabutra (2020) and others. Assuming that encouraging, discouraging factors, organizational decision making, culture and internal structure can be similar for adopting and following travel policies the decision about the suitability of this theory for the study has been taken.

There are various approaches to organizational analysis that form part of organization theory. For this research it is important to shortly introduce all of them as understanding encouraging and discouraging factors for workplaces can depend on the approach one takes to analyse the workplaces and also because a workplace can embrace different organizational strategies when it comes to a change.

Traditional view of organizations among researchers before 1930 was mechanical but began to be more human-focused and recognize human influences after that moment. One of the main differences relevant for this research is that in the traditional approaches organizations were seen as autonomous closed systems, isolated from the outside world. For example a traditional vision of organizations as bureaucracies, which Weber saw as an ideal form (Pfeffer 1997), meant that their structure was based on logic, absolute authority and worker’s behaviour is controlled by rules and policies. Organizations were impersonal.

However the recently emerged term of “open systems” (Inc., 2020) recognizes the uniqueness of individual organizations, partly influenced by the unique environment they operate in. This also means that they deal with their unique problems and have unique opportunities of change. A similar approach called a modern theory, which is part of organization theory, recognizes a workplace as a system that changes due to

changes in either internal or external environment. Organizations are adaptive to changes, dynamic, however, the results are always probabilistic and caused by multiple variables on the micro- and macro level, both interrelated or independent. Neoclassical approach adds that organizations are social systems, which are thus affected by human actions.

It is however beyond the scope of this research to go into theoretical details of organizational ecology, culture of work and other theories that deal with private companies, NGOs and public institutions in particular. Deeper incorporation of those theories and concepts into travel policy analysis is therefore suggested for further studies.

3.3. Complementary theory: Transtheoretical

Model of Change

The transtheoretical model of change (TTM) first used by Prochaska & DiClemente (1984) has been broadly used in explaining a behavioral change in health-, environmental- organizational-related research and lately also in transportation research, in particular in investigating travel behavior change (Friman et al., 2017). According to TTM individuals shift towards the desired behavior passing through a number of sequential stages of change, which are connected with processes of change. TTM is valued for both its help in explanatory research and in practice. At the same time, the model proposes that campaigns, measures, interventions of behavior change should be tailored to different stages of change of the particular individuals (Buckley & Hughes, 2008).

I decided that TTM could be applicable to workplaces as the main study subject of this research. As my main interest lies in workplaces as social actors and ways they can be more motivated to address the sustainable and active travel issue on their corporate agenda, the organizational behavior, values, attitudes, decisions are formed, applied to and followed by the individuals. The TTM stages are thus used in this research to better understand how workplaces' participation as actors in mobility management of Stockholms Stad and further research on the topic can be potentially tailored to the particular groups of companies. TTM includes five main stages (Friman et al., 2017; Andersson, 2020): precontemplation - workplaces unaware of the benefits of sustainable travel and not willing to engage; contemplation - workplaces more aware of the topic but have concerns and discouraged by certain factors; preparation - workplaces clearly see the benefits and have taken decision to make a change; action - workplaces that are actively engaged in mobility management; and maintenance - workplaces that have been consistently engaged for a long period of time.

Summary

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of the

_​

theoretical framework

The theoretical framework for this study has been formed with three theories: actor-network theory and its application in transport planning, organization theory and workplaces as organizations and finally the transtheoretical model of change. ANT suggests that everything in social and natural worlds is integrated in constantly changing networks and everything exists in a set of relationships. The main focus lies in the understanding of how actors forge and maintain the relationships and their capacity to link with the network and not individual characteristics. Organizational theories help to understand how workplaces as actors are affected by the internal and external environment and how they behave. Different organization theories see the functionality, motivations and decision making of an organization depending on the perception of an organization, i.e. a social system affected by human actions, an adaptive system changing under influence of multiple variables, a machine with centralized authority, etc. Finally, the transtheoretical model of change applied to organizations means that the shift towards the desired behavior passes through five main stages of change from pre-contemplation to action and maintenance phase.

4.

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Methodology and research methods

This chapter presents the research process, including the decision-making process behind the methodological approach, justification of choosing the specific research methods. It also tells the story behind the selection of research objects and the development of the research questions. Then suitability of each method is proven and reliability discussed. Finally, this chapter provides reflections on the researcher’s positionality and limitations.

4.1.

Development of research questions

This master’s thesis originated from my background in working on a Bike to Work Campaign with a Russian cycling advocacy organization. Being in charge of involving workplaces to participate in the campaign twice a year and constantly communicating with employers about transport culture at their offices, I decided to build my research questions around the topic of urban mobility and workplaces or travel to work in particular.

Next, I chose to limit my study area to the Stockholm municipality due to several reasons: I wanted to avoid the taken-for-granted facts that could create a bias if I would do it in my home country and culture, I was based in Stockholm by the time of the research and was familiar with active position of Stockholm in shifting towards sustainable mobility. It was interesting to look at encouraging and discouraging factors for the workplaces to be involved, as the obvious factors such as low infrastructure quality or governmental support of car-culture are not the case in Stockholm.

After conducting the literature review I concluded that many travel studies have been done to understand individual travel behavior and choice of transportation mode for commuting to work both internationally and in Sweden. So as a master student I could not “compete” with studies having large resources. So I decided to build my research questions around workplaces themselves rather than individuals. I asked “How are and how can they be social actors in this topic and encourage more sustainable travel? What is their place and role in the system?”

I knew that many workplaces in Sweden have policies for long-distance travel, preferring trains to planes, for example. So I wanted to investigate the short distances: I decided that it would be both the commute of the employees to work and short-distance travel to meetings within the city, as both could be positively influenced by employers

according to previous studies. I asked myself: “What discourages them from working actively on this topic on the corporate level? What could encourage them?”

Finally, I decided that I do not want to ask them about just one mode of transport, or for example the promotion of cycling. I wanted to know about the complex measures and a variety of steps towards sustainable and active travel, thus not limiting them.

This research was planned to be exploratory (White, 2017) as it aimed to explore aspects of travel policies and workplaces role in mobility management to formulate practical advice on collaboration models as well as to broaden scientific understanding of the topic and placing it into the broader theoretical framework of transportation and actorness studies. The cross-sectional character of the study predetermined that research questions are framed the way they would be focused on exploring and understanding the current situation around the attitudes and measures on increasing sustainable and active travel at workplaces. A longitudinal study on this topic would be very relevant in order to see how workplaces' motivation to take part in increasing sustainable and active travel among employees change over time and are affected by visions and strategies of Stockholms Stad. However, this type of study was not possible due to the short time framework for this master´s thesis.

4.2.

Reflections on the researcher’s

positionality

According to Hall (1990, p. 232) what we produce as researchers always come from “a particular place and time, from a history and a culture which is specific”. This is why it becomes very important to reflect upon the context of the research, to “situate the knowledge” _{​(Rose 1997, p. 306) ​and take account of both our} own position and position of the research participants (McDowell, 1992a).

My positionality as a researcher is influenced by my activist background due to my past work experience in a not-for-profit cycling advocacy project. My personal position is clearly supportive to prioritizing walking, cycling and all forms of sustainable and active mobility in urban development. It also influenced my formulating research questions, web-survey and interview questions. What I was trying to avoid in this master’s thesis is something identified by Cupples & Ridley (2008) as “cycling fundamentalism”. In this research a balanced and complex vision of sustainable and active mobility was used in order to avoid too much focus on just bicycles.

I have not been employed by a private or public employer for a significant time so far, so I did not have previous experience in understanding corporate management, PR or human resources from within, which puts me in the outside position in regards to my study population.

My research focuses on Swedish reality, in which I am a foreigner, both in terms of language I use in my study and in culture, research and work environment in general. Even though I was physically present in the place of my study and have been living in

Sweden for 1,5 years by the time my research began, it is important to recognize that my origin played a role placing me “outside”.

Finally, the positioning of power in this research was quite unusually unbalanced towards the researched subjects in comparison to the dichotomy of power described by Dufty-Jones (2010) where researchers are the ones to have the expert power. As my study objects were companies and organizations, their power as big institutional bodies were outweighing mine as an individual international master's student.

4.3.

Epistemology and ontology

Part of starting research and establishing its design is understanding one’s own philosophical stand and how one sees the world around. How researchers understand reality and the truth will influence which questions they ask and how the data found is interpreted. Particularly for this research the social ontology is applicable, according to which approach to the nature of social entities has to be defined (Bryman, 2012).

In my research workplaces are the main study objects. I study social entities, which consist of people and are represented by people. My interest is to look at how and why those entities can be motivated to make travel more sustainable and active among those who belong to them - the employees. I assume that workplaces, represented by their CEOs, HRs or other employees, have their values and attitudes to the topic of sustainability, transportation to and at the workplace and so on, which determines their more or less active position. I also assume that there are outside factors, such as city policies, infrastructure, general awareness, sustainable business trends and many others that impact them and form their perceptions towards working on internal travel policies. In my analysis I search for opportunities to involve workplaces as social actors in the construction of reality (Bryman, 2012), where sustainable and active commute and short distance travel is encouraged. So this research follows a constructionist ontology.

According to Bryman (2012) the latter also means that social phenomena and categories are constantly updated and revised as well as that my version of research on the topic can by no means be considered definitive. The knowledge produced by this research is “indeterminate” (Bryman 2012, p. 76).

What is considered an acceptable way of finding out indicates the epistemological framework of research (Bryman 2012, p. 27). In my case it is important to understand and interpret behavior, motivations, decision making and values of workplaces as social actors in order to find out how to encourage them to increase sustainable and active commute among their employees. As each workplace is a unique organism which consists of and is represented by people with their own knowledge, biases, interpretations of the situation, the interpretation of “the subjective meaning” grasped from them is what is going to form the knowledge of this research (Bryman 2012, p. 28).

The knowledge in this research is “relative to particular circumstances — historical, temporal, cultural, subjective — and exists in multiple forms as representations of reality (interpretations by individuals)” (Benoliel cited by Levers 2013, p. 3). It happens in the Stockholm context, in the historical time when certain values in sustainability and transportation have been priorities on the local and national levels, the culture of cycling to work has become stronger. Besides that the subjective

attitude of a company representative and his/her official position and set of responsibilities affect the way survey and interview questions are understood and answered. Thus this research is formed in the interpretivist epistemological framework.

4.4.

Research design and methods

4.4.1. Research design

Research designs set procedures for working with data at all research stages, it structures the choice of methods and sets the logic for the interpretation of findings (Croswell, 2006). Around 40 different possible mixed-method designs have been identified by Tashakkori and Teddlie (2003b cited by Croswell, 2006: 59).

My research design started with identifying the main study subject (workplaces), research location (Stockholm) within the previously defined general research interest (increasing sustainable and active travel). Its goal was exploratory so the key idea was to link those parts together with the right research questions and build up a research design that would allow me to answer them taking time constraints and availability of tools into account. The practical exploratory research focus, types of research questions, resource availability and interpretivist theoretical framework lead to the choice of the mixed-method approach.

The main idea of the mixed-method approach is to integrate quantitative and qualitative research methods in different suitable ways to achieve a better quality of data collection and analysis for more complete answering the research question. (Bryman, 2012). It is important to note my awareness about the fact that this method has been facing some concerns in its epistemology and ontology. These concerns apply to the different paradigms, that qualitative and quantitative methods are considered to be a part of. However, the criticism of the method is based on pure theoretical discussion but once it comes to more practical research and the method itself is discussed as a set of tools and not as a concept (Bryman, 2012), there are no deep arguments against it but just precautions on a smart choice of it.

The subjectivity of the mixed method is an important aspect to mention in terms of the method‘s validity in a practical sense. Taking into consideration that we are talking about social sciences that are recognized to be subjective in general, the mixed method research can be analyzed from this point. It will never be completely objective, as the very design of the mixed-method research starts from the researcher‘s decision on the rationale and on priority and sequence of combining two methods.

The design of this study consisted of studying both second source and first source data simultaneously. Second source qualitative analysis of policies, strategies and other existing documents was performed to answer the first research questions:

What is the role of workplaces in the current mobility management policies of Stockholm? _{​Empirical data collection and first source analysis of a web-survey and}