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Short abstract:

Focusing on the city of Hamburg as a case study, the research investigates changes in the governance arrangements around urban mobility since a turning point away from car-centric urban development.

Long abstract:

Urban mobility systems have become highly contested spaces. The locked-in arrangements of urban automobility that are the product of car-centric urban development in the 20th century are increasingly under pressure to change in light of the many ambitions for the future of urban areas that are often at odds with the car’s hegemonic status. The research builds on an emerging perspective in transformation-oriented research that places processes of destabilisation at the centre of investigations into socio-technical change. Focusing on the city of Hamburg as a case study, the research draws on the perspectives of individuals involved in the urban mobility governance arrangements as observers or (former) practitioners to identify turning points, mounting pressure fronts and shifts in the incumbent responses over time. Five development phases are identified characterised by shifts in the incumbent responses to mounting pressures. Despite a clear shift away from the unfettered expansion of the car-based transport system in the late 1970s, the extent to which socio-technical destabilisation has occurred is unclear. There has been a growing coalition of actors that have been challenging the prevailing car-centric arrangements for some decades. Furthermore, some key changes in the underlying logics that underpin car-based automobility can be identified. However, the incumbent responses to the mounting pressures demonstrate limited commitment to challenge the privileged position of the car in the mobility system and recent shifts could indicate the emergence of new and more entrenched lock-ins.