The need for needs: Transport modelling and planning for sufficiency

Transport planning and modelling must consider ecological impacts and social justice to address the grand challenges of the 21st century. Ecological and social dimensions are central to the concept of sufficiency, but dominant methods in transport modelling and practice do not consider them explicitly. Instead, common transport models are based on individual utility maximisation under the assumption of unconstrained energy and material consumption. We review recent advances literature related to human need satisfaction as a novel approach to tackle growth dependency in transport. We first elaborate on useful foundational concepts to define needs and thresholds corresponding to sufficient levels of access to essential services and mobility, and approaches to acknowledging the constraints of planetary boundaries. We highlight promising approaches for measuring mobility need impairment, satisfaction and essentiality, and connect them to advances in disaggregated transport modelling. Concerning ecological impacts, we outline how these results can be useful for sustainability analysis in global-level aggregated models, which then inform planning on upper sufficiency boundaries. Measures of need satisfaction and environmental outcomes should ultimately inform novel methods for transport and infrastructure planning, as well as appraisal and policy frameworks. Our result is a framing of mobility needs as an operationalisation of sufficiency concepts in mobility that relies on individual- or household-level need satisfaction and impairment as well as societal-level threshold assessment. We draw conclusions for empirical research and modelling, highlight where participatory research is mandatory, and conclude with an inter- and trans-disciplinary future research towards needs-based design of mobility provisioning systems.

Authors

Institutions

Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-10-29
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23778780
Primary Topic
Transportation Planning and Optimization
Type
preprint
Controls
|||
ALL TIME
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
preprint

The need for needs: Transport modelling and planning for sufficiency

Thomas Grube, Kerstin Stark, Tim Schwanen, Vivien Fisch-Romito et al.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Transportation Planning and Optimization
preprint

The need for needs: Transport modelling and planning for sufficiency

Thomas Grube, Kerstin Stark, Tim Schwanen, Vivien Fisch-Romito, Kai Nagel, Paul Natsuo Kishimoto, Adam Millard‐Ball, Kay Werner Axhausen, Caroline Rozynek, Giulio Mattioli, Hawal Shamon, Simon Nieland, Marlin Arnz, Feixiong Liao, Ana Tsui Moreno, Jonas Horlemann, Susan P. Krumdieck, Martijn van Engelenburg, Jihoon Min, Michał Czepkiewicz, John P. Pritchard, Jarusch Muessel, Xiao Jian Fu, Kelly J. Clifton, Ruben Zerfaß, Yuqing Zhou, Francesca Giacco
preprint en

Abstract

Transport planning and modelling must consider ecological impacts and social justice to address the grand challenges of the 21st century. Ecological and social dimensions are central to the concept of sufficiency, but dominant methods in transport modelling and practice do not consider them explicitly. Instead, common transport models are based on individual utility maximisation under the assumption of unconstrained energy and material consumption. We review recent advances literature related to human need satisfaction as a novel approach to tackle growth dependency in transport. We first elaborate on useful foundational concepts to define needs and thresholds corresponding to sufficient levels of access to essential services and mobility, and approaches to acknowledging the constraints of planetary boundaries. We highlight promising approaches for measuring mobility need impairment, satisfaction and essentiality, and connect them to advances in disaggregated transport modelling. Concerning ecological impacts, we outline how these results can be useful for sustainability analysis in global-level aggregated models, which then inform planning on upper sufficiency boundaries. Measures of need satisfaction and environmental outcomes should ultimately inform novel methods for transport and infrastructure planning, as well as appraisal and policy frameworks. Our result is a framing of mobility needs as an operationalisation of sufficiency concepts in mobility that relies on individual- or household-level need satisfaction and impairment as well as societal-level threshold assessment. We draw conclusions for empirical research and modelling, highlight where participatory research is mandatory, and conclude with an inter- and trans-disciplinary future research towards needs-based design of mobility provisioning systems.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Goethe University Frankfurt (DE), Leiden University (NL), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (AT), University of British Columbia (CA), Nanjing Normal University (CN), University of California, Los Angeles (US), Forschungszentrum Jülich (DE), TU Dortmund University (DE), Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) (DE), Heriot-Watt University (GB), ETH Zurich (CH), University of Oxford (GB), Graz University of Technology (AT), Forum international des transports (FR), Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (DE), Technische Universität Berlin (DE), University of Warsaw (PL), Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (DE), Southeast University (CN), Eindhoven University of Technology (NL), University of Lausanne (CH)
Transportation Planning and Optimization
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
AI Navigator

Ask Laika to Summarize, Analyze, and Connect papers live on the map.

Summarize Papers & Methodologies

Extract key findings, datasets, and comparative methods across publications.

Benchmark Rankings & Visual Analytics

Rank top research institutions, authors, funders, topics, and journals by Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) and paper volume with instant charts.

Connect Distant Disciplines

Bridge topological clusters on the map to find hidden collaborative intersections.

Laika access coming soon