Using strategic niche management to evaluate and implement urban transport policy instruments

Strategic Niche Management (SNM) is rooted in organisational innovationdiffusion theory and provides a structure to evaluate and manage the introductionof new transport technologies. In brief, SNM involves:• Formation of a ‘technological niche’.• Identification and introduction of appropriate protection measures thatsupport the new technology.• Analysing the technological regime of the ‘experiment’ (demonstrationproject). -Promotion and examination (by actors/partners) of 'second order'learning processes within the protected experimental space.• Management of experiment to encourage innovation diffusion.An existing transport case study is presented to demonstrate how StrategicNiche Management could be used in the development of new and innovativetransport technologies. These were conducted as part of a research project for theCEC DG XII Strategic Niche Management as a Tool for Transition to aSustainable Transport System.This paper briefly introduces Strategic Niche Management and focuses onthe new research by Petros Ieromonachou that is seeking to use SNM to evaluateand manage radical local transport policy package measures. The possibility ofproducing an implementation guidance tool based on this concept is discussed.