Processen och mekanismerna för hållbar mobilitetsomställning i nederländska städer. En analys genom flernivåperspektivramverk

Urban Mobility transitions are often examined through niche innovations or landscape-level shocks, yet the meso-level dynamics of incumbent systems remain under explored. To address this gap, this research takes a regime-oriented, comparative approach to studying urban mobility transitions. Rather than focusing narrowly on a single technological innovation or on broad external trends, the research looks within the urban mobility regime to see how it has been reconfigured in the period from 2000 to 2025. By examining established mobility systems in two Dutch cities, Rotterdam and Utrecht, over a 25-year period, the internal dynamics of change are observed. Guided by the Multi-Level Perspective framework and an explicit spatial lens, the study combines scientific literature, grey literature, nine expert interviews, and an operationalised MLP template with narratives to map cross-(sub)regime interactions. The study reveals the development timeline of an expanding public transport regime in Rotterdam and a densifying cycling regime in Utrecht. Utrecht's cycling regime has been established through long-term policy continuity, a young and highly educated demography fitting cycling and layer by layer infrastructure upgrades that matched the compact city layout. Obstacles in Utrecht include little room for expansion, funding gaps for expansion and the risk of segregation. On the other hand, Rotterdam's public transport regime could gain ground due to assertive national-regional investment, a multicultural ridership base and transit oriented development. Notable challenges were multi-level governance barriers, post Covid19 insecurities and capital-intensive technological lock-ins. The cross-case comparison revealed that regimes stabilize when reinforcing dynamics span all five sub-regimes (policy, science, socio-cultural, user-market and technological). The thesis “opens the black box” of regimes and offers a transferable mapping tool for diagnosing leverage points. It urges policymakers to tailor transition plans to place-specific morphologies and governance constellations.