Mobility in layman’s terms

While many people use the terms “transportation” and “mobility” interchangeably, those who are seriously studying the science will say they are not and will readily tell you the difference. But even the explanations may still seem ambiguous, as both involve moving goods or people. Eventually, we may arrive at these common iconic definitions: “transportation is something you do, and mobility is something you have.”

We usually clearly understand transportation as it is the older, more conventional term. It is mobility that may require further explanation. It might prove useful to describe it in layman's terms. All of us move every day, so let’s start from there. There are a lot of reasons why people move, but the biggest bulk of all trips are classified as home-to-work trips. Transport scientists include in this group, both home-to-work and work-to-home as well as the home-to-school (and back) trips. We are all familiar with these typically- morning and evening trips which by their sheer number also define the traffic congestion hours of the day.

If you have a car, you go straight from your home to your office or school, right? If you don’t and take public transportation, you do the same if you’re lucky to have your home and workplace/school along the public transportation route, in a single ride. Usually, you still have to walk a bit to get a ride and may also walk a bit after the end of the ride. Sometimes you need two rides and need to transfer between the two, probably with a bit of walking in between during the transfer. Some are unlucky enough to need three, or even more rides, with inconvenient transfers. And you may not get a ride immediately in one or all of these trips and get into worse situations where the waiting time is endlessly longer than the ride itself. The entire experience illustrates our mobility situation.

With the kind of insufficient public transportation systems that we have in this country, one can just imagine the misery that the majority of our people suffer every day in going to work or school and back. The severity will vary for each person, but we have to admit it is much worse for those who don’t own private cars. Those who do may still loudly complain about traffic congestion, but this, too, affects those who just use public transportation. But the sorry experience of walking (along bad or missing pedestrian lanes), waiting endlessly along non-existent stations/sheds, fighting for a ride, and transferring, distinctly illustrate the kind of “mobility” we have in this country.

All of you reading this article will come from diverse backgrounds, car owners/users, or public transportation commuters and, if the latter, may have an easy riding experience. But the majority of our people are the ones who suffer daily in their mobility, not to mention the loss to our economy. Having flashy projects like BRT, LRT, monorail, or cable cars may help, transportation-wise, but they might not in mobility. It’s the sum total of our daily commute experience that defines whether we have mobility or not. The sad thing is when the government officials don’t understand it at all, and relish on their projects without looking at how their constituents live their daily lives.