Monitoring and Evaluation: Table

Clarify the aim of the participation

• to understand the needs of certain groups (e.g. people with mobility difficulties; parents and guardians of young children etc.) or
• to draw on lay or expert knowledge in developing a transport plan or
•  gather information about travel experiences

Determine,

who should be involved

• people who together represent the demographic make-up of the city
• demographic representation if the aim of participation is to draw on public knowledge, or to understand public experiences
• members of groups if the aim is to understand needs of specific groups

what form of participation is appropriate 

• forums allowing debate to use lay or expert knowledge in developing a transport plan
• questionnaires or interviews for gathering experiences of travel
• question and answer session for helping to explain decisions

when to involve

• explain how public or stakeholder involvement influences  decisions.

show people that their participation makes a difference

Accessibility of participation

Barriers to participation occur,

• if people cannot physically reach a venue in which participatory events occur
• if information is not provided in a format that can be clearly understood

Consider aspects such as,

• can people attend after work
• is there provision for children at events
• is there wheelchair access
• what is the availability of transport to the venue
• how is material distributed (consider e.g. that online questionnaires are cost effective and have broad reach, but may exclude some groups of people)
• how opportunities for participation are publicised
• whether information is presented in clear language that can be understood by a lay person
• whether information is provided in braille, large text and audio formats
• whether information should be translated into different languages spoken in your city

Public reluctance to engage in participation

• Groups that face forms of social exclusion or discrimination may have little trust in formal participation
• People feel they have little free time to give to participating
• People feel that their word does not count and that the decision-making process remains opaque despite consultation

While there are no simple answers to problems of reluctance to participate, it is probable that interest will increase to the extent that people see the relevance to them of participating, and feel that the processes are transparent and worthy of their trust

Institutional barriers to participation

• Include limitations in institutional resources, and difficulty in securing resources required for participation
• Institutional cultures which place low priority on participation

Might lead to poorly planned participation or a failure to take seriously results of participation (perhaps because of a view that the public are poorly informed). In either case the risk if that loss of public trust will follow.

Limits of participation

• Awareness about the limits of what participation can achieve
• Ensure that only appropriate claims are made for the participation

• Avoid claims that respondents represent the public when only some members of the public, or some stakeholders are involved
• Avoid claiming that the ‘public’ have expressed a given view when it is likely that substantial disagreement exists among the public

Dissatisfaction with the involvement process

Effective participation can involve members of the public organising themselves and determining among themselves what are relevant questions and challenges to put to decision-makers. Motivation can be a response to forms of ‘official’ participation which members of the public consider insufficient.

- Identify stakeholders and groups to be involved carefully and from the outset so that no one feels left out

- Communicate with them regularly and discuss their involvement and influence

- If the public is dissatisfied with the involvement process,  take action as early as possible and take their concerns seriously

CIVITAS MIMOSA (2013)

Handbook “Evaluation matters - a practitioners guide to sound evaluation for urban mobility measures”

CityMobil (2013)

ADVANCE (2011-2014)

ADVANCE develops, tests and applies an Audit Scheme to assess the quality of sustainable urban mobility planning

QUEST (2011-2013)

Quest is a Quality Management tool to help small- and medium-sized cities to set up and further develop their sustainable mobility policies and actions with assistance of an external auditor. Recommendations with regard to Urban Mobility Assessment from the review of approaches to evaluation (Deliverable 3.1)

CIVITAS ELAN (2012)

ELAN experiments at all stages from project planning and implementation, to monitoring and evaluation.

Eltisplus (2011)

Guidelines - Developing and Implementing a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan

Cost Action 356 (2010)

Towards the definition of a measurable environmentally sustainable transport (EST)

MAX (2009) Max Sumo

Max Sumo. Guidance on how to plan, monitor and evaluate mobility projects. MaxSumo offers an opportunity to effectively plan, monitor and evaluate mobility projects and programmes aimed at behavioural change. Available in EN, DE, ES, FR, NL, PL, PT, SE

DISTILLATE (2008)

Project C - Indicators: Product C1: Designing a monitoring strategy to support effective delivery of sustainable transport goals; Product C2: Advice on selecting indicators for sustainable transport; Product C3: Monitoring across sectors and spatial levels for sustainable transport: a good practice guide. http://www.its.leeds.ac.uk/projects/distillate/outputs/products.php

GUIDEMAPS Handbook, Volume 1: Concepts and tools (2004)

Measuring indicators, p. 59 f., 61. Evaluation methods (Cost effectiveness,Cost-benefit analysis, least cost planning, multiple criteria analysis), p. 79

GUIDEMAPS Handbook, Volume 2:Fact Sheets (2004)

Measuring indicators, p. 70 f., Tools for tracking progress, p. 73, Measuring outcome indicators, p. 76, Post implementation evaluation, p. 78

PROPOLIS (2000-2003)

PROPOLIS focused on developing methodologies and tools for assessment of urban sustainability and on evaluation of different land use and transport policies.

KonSULT (2005)

Transport Strategy: A Decision-Makers Guidebook

PROSPECTS A Methodological Guidebook (2003)

Appraisal and evaluation, p. 25 f., 33 ff., Implementation and monitoring, p. 27 ff., Basics of CBA, p. 99 f.

PROSPECTS Evaluation tools (Deliverable 2) (2002)

Covering a wide range of methods and tools for evaluation. See whole document.