Their ‘FUTURES’ study is a six stage approach to transport planning which considers significant changes in society and mobility in the digital age and how it is disrupting the age of the motor car.

Professor of future mobility Glenn Lyons - who launched the new approach at the CIHT Learned Society Lecture last week - said: “We must concern ourselves not only with the future of mobility but with the future of planning for the future of mobility.

“There is growing recognition internationally of the need for an evolution in how we address planning and investment for the future. FUTURES represents a key part of this evolution and a means to make decision making more resilient.”

FUTURES stands for Future Uncertainty Toolkit for Understanding & Responding to an Evolving Society. It is designed to help organisations decide on the future they want and to develop a resilient and effective strategy to help take them there, accommodating the uncertainties outside their control.

In summary, the six stages of FUTURES are:

1. Gearing up: helping organisations understand the approach and its underlying philosophy.
2. Preferred futures: Focus on the future you want.
3. Opening out: Guides organisations through a scenario planning exercise to understand plausible future contexts
4. Options: Helping to set a direction of travel towards realising the vision.
5. Closing down: Helping organisations to examine how their options could perform in different futures.
6. Review: Regular monitoring is encouraged along with being prepared to revise the strategy considering new evidence and signals of change.

For more details visit mottmac.com/futures

(Photograph: grassrootsgroundswell and licenced for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)