Beyond Infrastructure: Dr. Li Wan Explores the Social and Spatial Dimensions of Sustainable Mobility

At the annual UP Dialogues UGoveRN keynote on urban resilience and governance, we had the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Li Wan from the University of Cambridge for a keynote lecture titled “Sustainable Travel Revisited: A Lifestyle and Geographical Perspective.” Dr. Li Wan is Associate Professor in urban planning and development, Director for the MPhil in Planning, Growth and Regeneration, and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge

Dr. Wan’s talk offered a refreshing and much-needed rethinking of transport decarbonisation, challenging established policy orthodoxies and offering new directions grounded in both evidence and nuance. Given the strong interest within the Urban Planning group in critical mobility studies, we were pleased to welcome Dr. Li Wan’s keynote as an opportunity to explore diverse perspectives on the governance of mobility in the context of sustainable urban development. His talk provided valuable insights into how lifestyle, geography, and temporal dimensions intersect with transport policy, enriching our ongoing conversations about equitable and resilient mobility systems.

Drawing on empirical findings from England and the broader UK, Dr. Wan’s work engages an audience of scholars and practitioners in urban and regional planning, transportation studies, geography, environmental planning, and economics. His central claim was clear: current approaches to decarbonising mobility continue to rely too heavily on physical infrastructure investments while overlooking the complex social, spatial, and behavioural dimensions that shape travel.

Understanding long-term influences on travel behaviour

The first part of Dr. Wan’s presentation explored how long-term land-use changes and evolving lifestyle patterns influence travel behaviour in the UK. Using longitudinal data, he showed how housing development, employment geographies, and the changing nature of urban form interact with lifestyle preferences and demographic factors to produce deeply embedded patterns of mobility. Many of these patterns persist despite infrastructure investments and policy efforts, especially in areas where structural constraints reinforce car dependency.

A central message of the presentation was that we cannot standardise travel behaviour. People travel differently depending on where they live, how they work, their family situation, and their social routines. Dr. Wan emphasised the importance of understanding the time frame of travel. Commuting, leisure trips, school runs, and errands all follow different temporal rhythms. Without this sensitivity to timing and context, analysis risks flattening out the complexity of mobility choices and misdirecting policy responses.

Questioning the equity of decarbonisation pathways

A second major theme was the uneven potential and distribution of costs and benefits associated with transport decarbonisation. Dr. Wan cautioned that policies such as electric vehicle subsidies or road pricing schemes often have unequal effects. Those with greater financial means are better positioned to take advantage of incentives and technologies, while others may face increased costs or declining access to essential services.

This raised an important point: sustainable transport cannot be separated from questions of social equity. Effective and just mobility policy must account for the geographic and economic inequalities that shape how people experience both travel and decarbonisation efforts.

Beyond infrastructure: Rethinking policy through behaviour and culture

Dr. Wan argued that the current focus on expanding infrastructure, such as cycling lanes, rail connections, or EV charging stations, while valuable, often obscures the deeper social and cultural dimensions of mobility. He called for a broader approach that takes seriously the role of values, routines, perceptions of time and risk, and the embedded nature of mobility in everyday life.

Rather than seeing infrastructure as the primary lever of change, Dr. Wan suggested that policy should also aim to support shifts in lifestyle and travel cultures. This might include designing targeted mobility budgets, developing community-based transport solutions, and recognising that travel behaviours are shaped by a wider ecosystem of social norms and institutional arrangements.

An engaging discussion

The keynote was followed by a discussion moderated by Professor Luka Bertolini of the UP Group. The conversation ranged from the integration of land-use and mobility planning to the role of digital platforms and commoning in shaping travel choices. Participants reflected on the practical challenges of implementing more adaptive and culturally aware transport policies in systems still shaped by technocratic routines.

Dr. Wan’s contribution served as a powerful reminder that sustainable mobility is not just about building better infrastructure. It is about understanding how people live, how they move through time and space, and how policy can meaningfully respond to the diversity and complexity of travel in everyday life.

In sum, the keynote called for a shift in how we think about decarbonisation, from a narrow focus on physical solutions to a broader conversation about behavioural change, temporal sensitivity, and social justice in mobility planning.