Toolbox for freedom of movement

Toolbox for freedom of movement, in short

Parking spaces and roads for cars occupy a significant amount of space, and that space is becoming increasingly scarce in urban environments. That’s why more cities and new residential areas are looking for alternatives to private car ownership. Buurtschap te Veld in Eindhoven is one such place. But the idea of not having your own car right outside your door is a significant change for many people. How do we support this transition in a way that ensures every resident maintains enough freedom of movement?

For two years, the design research studio cocosmos explored these questions in Buurtschap te Veld. Through ten different behavioral interventions, they investigated the barriers and needs surrounding shared mobility. The research results were compiled into a toolbox that residents and policymakers in other municipalities can also utilize. The toolbox includes a whitepaper with the most important insights from the research. A matching card set with behavioral interventions supports conversations and helps encourage behavioral shifts.

About the designers

Cocosmos

Cocosmos is a Dutch research and design studio that specializes in co-creation and research for social challenges. The team works from the belief that residents, business owners, and visitors all shape the city together. With their creative research approach, the designers at cocosmos create experiences and interventions that bring both visible and hidden needs to the surface. They then translate these findings into clear and engaging insights for their clients or for other parties who need to understand the results. The insights and recommendations are concise and practical, allowing policymakers to implement them immediately.

More information: cocosmos.nl

The process

The idea

Buurtschap te Veld will eventually include 670 homes. The philosophy of a green living environment with shared amenities can only succeed if residents are willing and enthusiastic. Without them, the concept will not work.

Shared mobility has existed for many years, but it is far from second nature for everyone. People see obstacles and worry about the unfamiliar. Shared mobility works differently from owning a private car. You pay per trip and sometimes need a subscription. You use the vehicles together with other people. Many residents also wondered how insurance works and what happens if damage occurs.

Instead of jumping directly to solutions, cocosmos first zoomed out. What is really happening in Buurtschap te Veld. Who lives in the neighborhood, and how do these people travel today? What modes of transportation do they already use? And which barriers do they see. What assumptions do they have? Do they understand the impact of having fewer parking spaces? And what opportunities do they see? What are their wishes and needs?

The plan

For the research in Buurtschap te Veld, cocosmos developed a total of ten creative interventions. Through these interventions, they explored how residents thought about and discussed the challenge at hand. They organized trial days where residents could try out the full range of local shared mobility options, guided by experts. Together with residents, they created a hypothetical mobility map that displayed the daily trips neighbors expected to make. They looked for overlap. Could people ride together. Would shared mobility be suitable for these trips. And what other options did residents see?

A third intervention shed light on a sensitive issue. There would be fewer parking spaces than homes. During a workshop, cocosmos used tape to mark the actual number of parking spaces for one of the residential rooms on the ground. There were only twenty eight spaces for forty homes. They did this during the key handover and information event for all new residents of that room. Car owners were each allowed to stand inside one of the taped parking spaces. This allowed them to experience how crowded the parking area would become. In this hypothetical situation, there were not even family members or visiting friends present with cars, something the future residents quickly realized.

By experiencing the challenge as if they were cars themselves, standing in taped outlines on the ground, residents were able to feel what the situation would mean for them. It became concrete. It made them think, and they discussed it with one another and with the housing association. The workshop also delivered valuable insights for the research team. They heard directly what residents found important and which solutions they themselves suggested. For example, some people found it inconvenient not to have a parking space near their home because they would need to carry heavy groceries farther. And many people found it difficult to give up their private car because they did not yet feel they could rely on shared mobility for their daily trips.

Not stepping automatically into their own car represented a major behavioral shift for many residents. That shift led to resistance. Design-driven research helped residents explore other possibilities together. It helped them first understand why things needed to change, and then work together on solutions that felt as comfortable and fitting as having their own car at the front door.

cocosmos also used interventions to identify the barriers and concerns residents had about shared mobility. What was stopping them from using it. Some residents found shared mobility confusing. They did not know which option was most affordable or which option was most sustainable. They worried about visual clutter, such as shared scooters and bikes left in random places around the neighborhood. They worried about hygiene. And fear of insurance issues or damage claims was also a barrier.

The execution

Based on the outcomes of the interventions, cocosmos developed a prototype of a mobility hub. The team intentionally built the prototype out of wood, because this made it easy to adjust and also communicated a sense of flexibility and temporariness. This is an important part of design-driven research. You try something out in real life, test how it works and make adjustments where needed. Through this process, cocosmos uncovered insights about the design of the hub itself, about the services provided by shared mobility companies, about the underlying municipal policies, about agreements related to housing associations and about the social dynamics within the neighborhood. They also discovered that the value of a hub for residents is broader than shared mobility alone. In Buurtschap te Veld, for example, cocosmos added a shared cabinet and a parcel point. Once there had been enough testing and refinement, the team created a version of the hub in steel as the final step toward a permanent mobility hub.

Throughout the research process, cocosmos monitored what happened. They observed which forms of shared mobility residents used and which ones they did not. They listened to how residents responded and noted the questions they asked. They also looked at the impact that the shared mobility trial days in Buurtschap te Veld had on usage. With these insights in hand, the research team continued to refine the mobility hubs. They added a travel guide, for example, which worked like a metro-style map with zones, showing the cost, emissions, and travel time for each mode of transportation. This guide helped residents make their own informed choices about shared mobility. cocosmos also designed special storage areas at the hub where residents could return shared bikes and scooters after use.

The interventions also created movement in other ways. A group of neighbors began operating a community-owned shared car as an alternative to commercial services, because this option matched their needs better. This was an interesting development, because it showed that shared mobility can also emerge outside the commercial market.

During the research, the mobility hubs gradually evolved into shared hubs. Today, residents use the hubs not only for shared transportation but also to exchange tools, books and toys through a shared cabinet designed by cocosmos. There is also a parcel point. This is convenient, because delivery vans are not allowed in the car-free residential rooms of Buurtschap te Veld.

The results

The interventions developed by cocosmos made residents feel seen and heard. While a private car at the front door remained impossible, residents actively participated in shaping the shared hubs in ways that matched their needs.

The research also showed that creating a car-free or low-car neighborhood requires far more than installing a few mobility hubs. If you want to truly meet residents’ needs, you must be flexible. This applies to every party involved. One example from the research is the handcarts at the shared hubs. The housing associations donated these carts to the neighborhood, because that was the best solution. If they had offered the carts as a service, maintenance and management would have been required. By donating them to Buurtschap te Veld, residents became responsible for them, and they were happy to take on that responsibility.

Cocosmos, the municipality and the housing associations also agreed on temporary discounts with shared mobility providers. In the early stages, these companies helped replenish and correctly arrange the shared vehicles. This allowed residents to get used to shared mobility at lower cost and also showed them how the vehicles should be placed in the storage areas.

Many cities now face situations where the number of parking spaces is lower than the number of homes. Because of this, cocosmos documented the full research process and outcomes in a whitepaper. The main results can help other neighborhoods as a starting point for spatial planning and for onboarding residents. The ten interventions from the research are presented step by step on an intervention map. The toolbox provides residents, policymakers and developers with concrete activities and practical tips for making a low car neighborhood successful. It helps uncover the added value of this way of living and supports the organization of related services, social agreements and policy changes within a project team.


This approach is already making an impact. cocosmos presented the toolbox to the entire Smart and Green Mobility department of the municipality of Eindhoven, a team of more than twenty people. They are already incorporating these interventions into their daily work and ongoing projects. This broader perspective is important. The research in Buurtschap te Veld shows that placing a mobility hub alone is not enough to help shared mobility succeed in a neighborhood.