Using systems thinking to deliver healthier urban mobility
Abstract
Our transport system has significant impacts on our health and wellbeing. Despite strategic acknowledgement of this, there is a disconnect, and sometimes a cultural divide, between transport planning and implementation on one hand, and the approach taken to improve public health and wellbeing on the other. This can undermine our ability to deliver outcomes in the public’s interest in an effective, coordinated and timely way. This session will consider how systems thinking can help break down sector divides and encourage the type of thinking, planning and collaboration that can result in a broader range of outcomes and help us get more bang for our buck, and faster delivery, in constrained post-COVID times. The session will bring together views from three different parts of the transport and health system. Interactive activities will be woven throughout the session.
Michael Hale (Auckland Regional Public Health Service) will begin by introducing the concept of systems thinking, discussing how it has been applied in the health sector (e.g. to improve tobacco control), and demonstrating the need to use this approach in the transport sector if we are to improve health outcomes.
Alex Macmillan (University of Otago) will build upon the concept of systems thinking by introducing how system dynamics modelling can help us identify some of the critical areas in the system that require change, and help inform policy and programme development.
Claire Pascoe (Waka Kotahi/NZTA) will provide a government perspective of trying to affect a change towards healthier urban mobility, and explore how the recent use of systems thinking has shifted the business as usual way of doing ‘transport’ and opened up new approaches and areas of focus.
