Context- and Community- sensitive transport solutions in Charlotteville Tobago: Impacts on the spatial governance

• Applicant: Julia Roberta Kotzebue, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: City Planning, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning ; Human Geography
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 425915783

Combating climate change needs sustainable and integrated transport solutions. However, with regards to transport development, spatial governance still is often oriented towards individual car use. In this project, spatial governance describes the interplay of transport developing actors steering the appreciation, the organisation, the use and functions of space. Research on sustainable transport and mobility has pointed on the one hand to the importance to change the personal and individual mobility behaviour towards walking, bicycling and shared transportation. On the other hand scholars argue that the focus in transport development on individual needs and spatial factors, e.g. spatially car- oriented towns have facilitated the process of an individualistic society, an increasing residential mobility, less social participation and mutual support in the community. This project responds to the shortcoming knowledge about the role of the community in the spatial governance for sustainable transport development. Both community and spatial governance are fuzzy concepts, which raises the need to clarify them in the context. Therefore, I will apply in this project a web-based social-geocommunication platform to map the community, its transport needs, to clarify spatial perceptions and to develop sustainable transport solutions with the community of Charlotteville in Tobago. The focus spatially is on this rural community in the Caribbean Region because Small Island States like Trinidad and Tobago are significantly disadvantaged from the effects of climate change and expanding a car-oriented island. The research addresses the following main question: To what extent does community and context-sensitive transport solution development influence the spatial governance in sustainable integrated transport development in Charlotteville, Tobago? The empirical basic research will reveal new insights into the role of the community and spatial governance in the development of sustainable transport solutions in the Caribbean.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Trinidad and Tobago
• Host: Dr. Priya Kissoon