Measuring what matters in Melbourne: mobility

What would it mean for all the people of Melbourne to thrive when it comes to mobility?

There is currently no shortage of things to count or measure, there is no shortage of daily stats and graphs showing new metrics and insights telling us how to interpret this ever changing world. 

• But how do we join these targets and indicators together into a more comprehensive portrait of Melbourne's current state and future ambitions?   
• How might we start a more collective process to decide which of these measures is the most relevant to track our progress towards a more safe, just and regenerative city? 
• And how do we do this in such a way that balances the need for rigorous data collection (the grammar) and the need for stories and experience of this place (the poetry)?   

Regen Melbourne is embarking on the city portrait process to try and answer some of these questions. For this to be relevant, applicable and resonate to the actions you are all working on day to day, it needs to be a collective and community project. And so we invite you to join in the thematic sessions over the next 12 months as we begin to build a living portrait of Melbourne.

What is a City Portrait?
The City Portrait is a tool that applies diverse inputs and perspectives to create a holistic picture of Melbourne’s movement towards the safe and just space for humanity.  Developing a City Portrait for Melbourne will help us know where we are on track and where we need to act as we undertake the transition towards a regenerative and distributive wellbeing economy and It will also help us see the interconnections between our local aspirations and global responsibilities, both socially and ecologically.  

What happens in these sessions? 
Over 60 minutes we’ll deep dive into one dimension of the social foundations of the doughnut as we build Melbourne's City Portrait:

• We’ll ask for your input into what you think it means to thrive in Melbourne with ‘mobility’ in mind. 
• We’ll explore what existing targets, indicators and metrics are used in the mobility space and reflect on their relevancy and efficacy for a city-wide baseline. 
• We’ll discuss how the City Portrait will need to look and feel for it to be of greatest value to you and / or your organisation over the long term.

Is this session for me? 
If you are working in mobility or transport systems, we are keen for your participation  and we’d love you to bring your professional experiences and knowledge.  AND if you are a citizen of Greater Melbourne, and have an interest in and passion for this place, this session is also for you.  

We’ll be using Miro - an online whiteboard - and there will be a mix of presentation, individual work and group discussion.  

Background:
In 2021, we ran a collaborative community process to create the ‘Melbourne Doughnut’ and a vision for a regenerative Melbourne. The resulting Towards a Regenerative Melbourne report was launched in mid-2021. 

Since then, in partnership with Point Advisory, we have undertaken another phase of research to identify metrics and indicators for the 23 dimensions of the Melbourne Doughnut (e.g., food, gender equality, air pollution). This phase of work has focused on gathering and assessing existing measures and indicators that could help generate the data needed to measure what matters to Melbourne. 

Now that this initial phase of work is complete, we are ready to establish a longer-term research project that assesses metrics and indicators and adds depth to the data through community voice. The ultimate goal is to create a living City Portrait that can be used as a new compass for measuring progress in our city.

You can also look through the City Portrait resources on the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) platform to see how other cities around the world are creating their own portraits of place.