Lectures 2025
Public online lecture series “Mobility analysis and planning for human-scale cities” 2025
The lecture series, hosted by the Mobility Lab, University of Tartu, features experts and leading scholars in mobility and transport from Estonia and beyond. The lecture series addresses questions about how to promote human-scale, sustainable, and just cities through mobility analysis and transport planning. The lectures address transport policy, social transitions towards sustainable mobility systems, the social, environmental and health aspects of mobility and transport, accessibility concept, travel modes and their integration, and novel data and methods in mobility analysis and transport planning.
In 2025, the online lecture series will take place already for the fourth time. Registration form can be found HERE. Check the schedule of the lectures for 2025 below.
The lecture series is part of the graduate-level course “Mobility Analysis for Planning” in the Geography study programme at the University of Tartu. Live online lectures and their recordings are public and accessible to everyone. However, some of the lectures are held in Estonian.
The technical implementation for lectures is done by the visual media service of the University of Tartu.
More information: Siiri Silm (siiri.silm [@] ut.ee), Age Poom (age.poom [@] ut.ee) and Martin Haamer (martin.haamer [@] ut.ee).
Mobility Lab of the University of Tartu
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PhD Pille MetspaluHendriksonDGE, University of Tartu, March 20, 14:15–15:30 (UTC+02:00) |
Kaidi PõldojaPaco-Ernest UlmanTallinn Urban Planning Department April 3, 14:15–15:30 (UTC+03:00) |
PhD Benjamin BüttnerTechnical University of Munich (TUM) April 10, 14:15–15:30 (UTC+03:00) |
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Approaches to cover mobility topics in comprehensive and national planning practices |
Strategic development of the mobility environment in Tallinn: from data analysis to implementation |
The story of how the Flowers of Proximity make the 15-minute City blossom |
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| Dr Pille Metspalu is a spatial planner who primarily works at the consulting company HendriksonDGE. She is also a researcher in spatial planning at the Department of Geography, University of Tartu. Having prepared hundreds of municipal comprehensive plans and dozens of national-level plans, Pille has extensive experience in spatial planning and is one of Estonia’s leading spatial planners. Pille is a founding member and board member of the Estonian Association of Spatial Planners. | Kaidi Põldoja is an architect and the Head of Tallinn’s Spatial Planning and Design Unit. Her work significantly contributes to shaping Tallinn’s urban landscape, advocating for sustainable, inclusive, and thoughtfully designed spaces that enhance the quality of urban life for everyone. She is one of the authors of the Pollinator Highway, and her work advocates for integrating green infrastructure into urban planning and creating streets that serve more than just transport corridors. Paco-Ernest Ulman is an architect and city planner in Tallinn’s Spatial Planning and Design Unit. He leads the preparation of spatial vision plans, most notably the Pollinator Highway, spatial vision for Tallinn Airport and Ülemiste City, and Kristiine mobility HUB. Paco has gained experience in several architectural companies and co-founded the architecture office Model Arhitektid. | Dr Benjamin Büttner is the deputy head of the Chair of Urban Structure and Transport Planning at the Technical University of Munich, where he leads the TUM Accessibility Planning Research Group. His research focuses on developing intermodal accessibility instruments to support decision-making processes. He is the head of the EIT Urban Mobility ‘Doctoral Training Network’. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Urban Mobility and Area Editor for Accessibility in Networks and Spatial Economics. He has been appointed vice-chair of NECTAR. | ||
| In her lecture, Pille will introduce how human mobility is covered in recent comprehensive plans and in the currently drafted Estonian national plan for 2050. She will explore how the results of mobility studies have been used in spatial planning, and whether and how mobility data influence planning processes. She will briefly present the development scenarios of the Estonian national plan and their connection to human mobility (e.g., the so-called one-hour Estonia concept). | The lecture will address sustainable urban mobility, multimodal mobility hubs, and the future of rail transport in Tallinn. The development strategy Tallinn 2035 states: Rail transport is the backbone of sustainable urban mobility in Tallinn. The key issue for the urban mobility development in Tallinn is how to offer a credible alternative to personal car use by leveraging the potential of rail transport in the urban region and integrating various modes of mobility into a well-functioning whole. The lecture will provide an overview of the strategic vision for creating a human-centred and sustainable mobility environment in Tallinn, the best new practices for reaching knowledge-based spatial decisions, and major investments in the coming years to realise the concept in physical space. | The “Flowers of Proximity” method empowers the co-design of liveable neighbourhoods by asking both planners and citizens about their actual needs. These flowers emphasize the importance of the local context, which aligns with the principles of the 15-minute city and the city of proximity, making services, amenities, and social interactions accessible within short distances. This approach strengthens community resilience by supporting walkability, enhancing local economies, and encouraging sustainable practices, thereby building adaptive urban spaces responsive to the changing needs of different social groups. | ||
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Associate Professor
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Professor Emeritus
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Associate Professor
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How does our travel environment affect us? |
The dilemma of transport planning: Is e–bike–city a possibility? |
Towards a plangineering identity: Lessons from the Spatial Planning and Transportation Engineering MSc programme |
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| Dr Age Poom is an Associate Professor of Urban Environment and the Head of the Mobility Lab at the Department of Geography, University of Tartu. Age’s research focuses on human mobility, sustainable cities, and environmental exposure during mobility. She has extensive experience in conducting mobility studies based on mobile phone data and developing related data infrastructure. Age is an expert member of the University of Tartu Sustainable Development Centre and an editorial board member of the journal Big Data & Society. | Dr K. W. Axhausen is Professor emeritus of Transport Planning at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich. Before he worked at the Leopold-Franzens Universität, Innsbruck, Imperial College London, and the University of Oxford. He has been involved in the measurement and modelling of travel behaviour for the past 40 years contributing especially to the literature on stated preferences, micro-simulation of travel behaviour, accessibility, valuation of travel time and its components, parking behaviour, activity scheduling, social networks, and travel diary data collection including GPS tracking. His current work focusses on the e-bike-city project. | Miloš N. Mladenović is an Associate Professor at the Spatial Planning and Transportation Engineering Group, Department of Built Environment at Aalto University. His research interests include the interplay of society and emerging mobility technologies, and development of decision-support methods and planning processes. His teaching responsibilities have included a range of courses in transport systems policy, planning, modelling, management, and design. He has been a deputy leader for MSc programme Spatial Planning and Transportation Engineering and is currently leading the MSc programme Sustainable Urban Mobility Transitions. | ||
| In her lecture, Age addresses the quality of travel environments, accessibility to healthy and pleasant travel environments, socio-spatial differences in environmental exposure, people’s preferences, and related impacts on travel behaviour. She opens this rapidly developing research field with studies that use diverse mobility, environmental, and (bio)sensor data. The lecture takes a closer look at an eye-tracking and emotion–detection lab experiment which focuses on the impact of environmental conditions on pedestrian well-being. | The post-war consensus that additional road and rail capacities are the solution to all transport issues has dissolved due to the recognition of its associated GHG emissions and its temporary congestion relief. The lecture will discuss this dilemma for transport policy and will suggest the reorientation away from motorized vehicles to e–bikes as a possible solution for the dilemma. The case of Zürich will be presented for which detailed design and modelling work has been undertaken. |
The cities worldwide are in a transition, driven by pressures of the wellbeing polycrisis and technological disruption. Modern planners and engineers are facing an array of challenges to steer this transition towards sustainable outcomes, while land use and mobility systems remain the main laggard sector. To face the socio-technical complexities involved, there is a need for new concepts, skills and identities in both education and practice. This lecture will unpack the continuous development in and around the MSc program Spatial Planning and Transportation Engineering at Aalto University, and provide food for thought regarding knowledge, skills and identity of the 21st century urban and mobility systems plangineers. |
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