Four Ways Games Can Help Us Rethink Real-World Transportation Policy
How Getting Serious about Gaming Can Empower Urban Planners, Policymakers & Community Leaders to Build Better, People-Oriented Streets
Them: We’re really having a hard time getting this transformative transportation policy off the ground.
NUMO: Hm, interesting… Have you tried playing this card game?
It’s become an inside joke at NUMO that we’re obsessed with games. There’s a good chance that if someone approaches us with a problem, we’re likely to say, “oh, there’s a game for that.” While we don’t necessarily believe that games will fix everything — they can’t — what we love about games is their innate ability to simplify complex topics, encourage collaborative thinking and reframe challenges that seem insurmountable in real life.
We know that transportation policy is serious. When bad transportation policies become the norm, it leads to inefficiency, wasted funds and effort, frustration and, most tragically, loss of life. So when we say that games are a great way to help us rethink transportation policy, we don’t say that lightly. In fact, games are quite serious; they set objectives, establish order and have prescriptive rules of play. When dealing with a serious topic like transportation policy, or when leading a workshop attended by stakeholders with vastly different goals and perspectives, starting off with something unexpected, a bit spontaneous and (dare we say) fun can improve the likelihood of moving forward in discussions and opening up to new ideas.
Here are some ways playing games can help us rethink real-world transportation policy:
1. Shifting Mindsets
Very often in the transportation policy world, we come up against inflexibility: opinions formed based on archaic, institutional knowledge; unwillingness to consider another perspective, even when presented with data and other evidence; literally inflexible space constraints, infrastructure failures and lack of funding. Games can be a means by which to overcome inflexibility. By having players wear different hats, they are challenged to consider solutions to challenges from diverse perspectives.
That was the goal of MoMobility, an urban transformation card game, in which options are limited (to your hand of cards), but out-of-the-box thinking is encouraged. The concept is simple: players must select idea cards (rollerskates, singing in the rain, cancelling public transportation — not all of these are good ideas!) that best reach a goal card (joyful, dystopic, equitable…) selected by that round’s judge. Each player then works to persuade the judge that they should win the round, so they’ve got to make a good case for their idea… whether they believe in it or not. The point is to be creative and challenge yourself to shift your perspective.
NUMO has used MoMobility to kick off multi-stakeholder workshops to discuss contentious topics (like the use of space) that have many competing interests (such as the perceived need for parking but also the need to create space for people). Playing this game at the start of convenings in spaces where participants might initially feel uncomfortable or adversarial brings out the fun and promotes a competitive spirit while allowing participants to express the values that tie them to the project at hand. With the ice sufficiently broken, participants often are more willing to return to serious discussion with open minds that are primed to review options, make decisions and propose solutions they might not otherwise have considered.
2. Making daunting concepts more approachable
Transportation topics can get complex — take concepts like induced demand, right-of-way and demand-based parking pricing. That complexity can cause issues when you have a room of practitioners, policymakers, community leaders and others who may not have the same foundational knowledge. That’s why we need tools to help simplify ideas and better communicate their impacts to multiple audiences.
Tools like Lego — yes, that Lego — provide the literal building blocks needed to construct an existing street, and then to reimagine it. (Just avoid stepping on the bricks while barefoot!) Aided by social media, demonstrating urban and transportation planning solutions in action using Lego has become something of a trend over the last few years, leading to the development of conceptual blocks and plates that, once officially reviewed by the brand, could lead to the production of elements like bikeways and cargo bikes as part of the collaborative “Lego Ideas” online platform.
Another real-world example is UN-Habitat’s Block by Block program, which used the sandbox video game Minecraft as a community participation tool in the design of urban public spaces. It’s easy to use and accessible enough for kids to make direct proposals!
3. Engaging Communities
Speaking of community engagement… it’s vital to the success of any urban planning project. Unfortunately, inclusive, comprehensive community engagement is often challenging to achieve and, as a result, overlooked or skipped entirely. Because games can help break down complex themes, they also can offer pathways for better engaging the communities for whom transportation policies are crafted.
The city of Bogotá, Colombia made public participation a critical piece of its journey to redesign a major thoroughfare as a “green corridor.” Using a specially-tailored version of the digital street redesign platform Streetmix, the city gathered over 7,000 proposals from residents in just two week during the COVID-19 pandemic. The parameters of the exercise were to redesign a segment of the street using a fixed width to achieve the greatest capacity of users and lower greenhouse gas emissions. The city currently is using the data and feedback gathered via the participatory process to inform the final design of the street.
While not strictly a game, Streetmix is an example of an interactive, open-source tool that can be adapted to the circumstances and objectives of any city or audience. It’s easy and fun to use — literally click and drop in the elements you want to see on a street, from protected bike lanes to bus-only lanes to magic carpets (you read that right). Additionally, a platform like Streetmix can be used to collect data and feedback that can help shape public policy designed to build transportation ecosystems that actually serve communities and further municipal goals like sustainability, safety and equity.
4. Collaborative Storytelling
Creating a clear, consistent and persuasive narrative is a major component of achieving transportation policies that build safer, more equitable and sustainable mobility for all. Games that center on developing narratives in which participants play active roles in stories can result in participants more fully understanding the nuanced ramifications of specific policy decisions.
Future of Mobility, a card game from Mobility Lab UK, has teams play out “future transport scenarios” that follow trends. Gameplay focuses on helping players envision certain future scenarios and, more importantly, the results of actions taken in the present based on the persona (a local bike shop owner, a car dealership manager, an environmental campaigner, etc.) assigned to each player.
Games like Future of Mobility drive home the point that every action (or inaction) has short- and long-term consequences, and that we must think ahead of the policy cycle to establish values, set goals, define strategy and begin collaborative engagement with stakeholders.
Building safer, more sustainable and more equitable mobility that is accessible to all is a serious matter, and we need transportation policies that help us take decisive steps toward these goals. But games can seriously improve real-life transportation policy and serve as important tools as we seek cross-cutting solutions that engage the public sector, private sector and communities in cities around the world to creatively and collaboratively achieve the transportation systems we need.
This post was authored by Carlos Pardo, NUMO senior advisor, with assistance from Madlyn McAuliffe (NUMO) and Shafaq Choudry (NUMO).
NUMO, the New Urban Mobility alliance, is a global organization that channels tech-based disruptions in urban transport to create joyful cities where sustainable and just mobility is the new normal. Founded in 2019 as an outgrowth of the Shared Mobility Principles for Livable Cities, NUMO convenes diverse allies and leverages the momentum of significant revolutions in mobility to target urban issues — including equity, sustainability, accessibility and labor — impacted by the shifting transportation landscape. NUMO is hosted by WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities.
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