Mobility management and the lifestyles of residents:Lessons learnt from the Turku region and the implications to the future of the harbour area

As part of the European project “Holistic Urban and Peri-Urban Mobility”, a survey in Turku region was realized to study urban mobility lifestyles. The online Maptionnaire survey was participated by about 800 respondents but in this report we analyzed the answers of a subsample of 474 respondents who provided answer to all questions. We identified four personas, namely four groups of people with similar neighborhood preferences and travel attitudes. These groups differed in terms of their socio-economic characteristics, their travel behavior in different seasons, their preferences for future mobility services, and their perceived health and life satisfaction. Pro-sustainable urbanites prefer green and beautiful neighborhoods that are convenient to walk and cycle and that have good access to public transportation and city center. These residents are often females and rather young and most likely to live in intensive transit zones. Multimodal price-conscious residents are omnivorous but cost-sensitive in their travel mode choices. In their neighborhoods they value functionality over attractiveness. These residents are often males and highly educated but have limited budget. These first two groups walk more than the following two groups – even in winter. They also cycle more and use car less– regardless where they live.Time-conscious suburbanites value suburban, quiet and green neighborhoods with good proximity to schools and recreational facilities. In their travel they are time-sensitive and car-oriented. These high-income residents have often children and own one or more cars and they are least likely to live in intensive transit zones. In their daily life they use car more than other groups regardless of where they live. Auto-oriented residents value good access to the main roads and district shopping center as well as the cleanness of the neighborhood and spacious housing. The members of this group are rather old and live alone or with a partner. Although they often live car-dependent life, they decrease their use of car if they live in intensive transit zone.When estimating the perceived health of the four groups, it appeared that the pro-sustainable group living in intensive transit zone had the highest and the auto-oriented group living in basic transit or car zone had the lowest perceived physical health among the groups. Findings regarding perceived life satisfaction were different: the time-conscious suburbanites living in basic transit or car zone had the highest perceived life satisfaction while the pro-sustainable urbanites living in intensive transit zones had the lowest perceived life satisfaction. The likelihood for using walking and cycling infrastructure, bike sharing, scooter sharing, electric bike services or improved transit services to travel to Turku harbor in the future is highest among the pro-sustainable urbanites followed by the multimodal price-conscious residents. The latter group is most likely to use ride sharing, car sharing and car rental services for their harbor related trips in the future. The results of this study can be used both in transportation and land use planning. The identified personas can be targeted as different market segments for different mobility management strategies or policies aiming at increasing sustainable and active travel behavior. The results can be considered when investing to the improvements of certain travel modes or when deciding about the maintenance levels of routes during various seasons. The findings can also inform land use policy when estimating the best balance between supply and demand of various types of urban neighbourhoods