On 29–30 June, the GEMOTT team joined the Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) Partnership ACTIVATE project meeting in Utrecht, bringing together researchers and societal partners from across Europe to advance research on active mobility among children and young people.
Led by Dr Dea van Lierop and her team at Utrecht University, ACTIVATE combines the expertise of academic partners including University College London (UCL), the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB/GEMOTT), working closely with societal stakeholders such as the Municipality of Utrecht, the City of St. Pölten (Department of Mobility Planning), Radlobby St. Pölten, Gesundheit Österreich GmbH, and the Ajuntament de Sabadell to ensure that research is closely connected to local policy and practice.
ACTIVATE seeks to better understand why children and young people do—or do not—choose active forms of travel such as walking and cycling, even in urban environments designed to support them. The project examines how mobility policies and the built environment shape travel behaviour, how family, peers, schools, and wider community influences encourage or discourage active mobility, and how these factors vary across different socio-economic contexts. It also explores how attitudes towards mobility develop and change throughout childhood and adolescence, with a particular focus on key life stages and transitions. Ultimately, the project aims to translate these insights into practical recommendations and tools that can help cities create more inclusive, healthy, and youth-friendly mobility systems.
Research within ACTIVATE will be conducted across four European case-study cities—Utrecht, London, St. Pölten, and Sabadell—each offering a distinct urban context for exploring how children and young people experience and engage with active mobility.
Alongside planning and sharing updates on our work in the four project cities, we learned about ongoing research within the consortium and heard presentations from Utrecht University students exploring the factors that shape children’s active travel, independent mobility, and mobility choices in everyday life.
GEMOTT contributed to the programme through a session led by dr Oriol Roig Costa and dr Monika Maciejewska, focusing on qualitative and participatory methods in active mobility research. Drawing on our experience from previous projects, the session highlighted approaches such as Photovoice, ride-along interviews, and other participatory techniques that help capture young people’s lived experiences of mobility. The discussion that followed provided valuable opportunities for mutual learning and the exchange of methodological perspectives across disciplines and countries.
Anothery key component of the meeting was a co-creation session dedicated to developing a joint household travel survey that will be implemented across all four project cities.
Participants also had a chance to explore Utrecht by bicycle, gaining first-hand insight into the city’s cycling infrastructure, urban design, and initiatives that support active mobility, while experiencing how the built environment can foster independent travel among children and young people.
Within ACTIVATE, GEMOTT leads Work Package 2, which focuses on participatory GIS research with adolescents in Sabadell. Through participatory mapping and other qualitative methods, the research will explore how young people navigate the city and how social, spatial, and environmental factors shape their active mobility choices and everyday travel experiences.
GEMOTT’s work within the ACTIVATE project is funded by the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) within the framework of the Driving Urban Transitions Partnership (DUT).
