Urban environments, lifestyles and leisure mobility

This research project, urban environments, lifestyles and leisure mobility, will identify the mechanisms by which various urban settings influence leisure time trips (including long distance travel).

The underlying hypothesis associated with this research work is that leisure mobility may be partly defined by lifestyle and other factors related to the quality of life, which are strongly linked to urban settings and the opportunities that they offer. For instance, we will investigate whether the design of a central city area, while offering recognized advantages as far as commuting is concerned, does not lead to increased leisure time mobility in order to compensate for opportunities which are not present locally.

The test field of this research focuses on the two largest cities in Switzerland, namely Geneva and Zurich. For each type of urban environment considered in this study, we will conduct contextual, qualitative as well as quantitative surveys in order to test the aforementioned hypothesis.

Urban environments, lifestyles and leisure mobility will last 3 years and is conducted by the Urban Sociology and Mobility Laboratory (LASUR) of Professor Vincent Kaufmann. It is one of the leading projects associated with Forum Vies Mobiles, a think tank initiated and sponsored by the SNCF.

Forum Vies Mobiles’ website EN

Principal investigator Prof. Vincent Kaufmann
Project manager Sébastien Munafò
Sponsor SNCF/Forum Vies Mobiles
Period 2012-2015
Laboratories Forum vies mobiles, LASUR
Collaboration TRACE