NETWORK’S DESIGN
A de-scription of Nieuw-West’s transit map – bridging the quasi-object
with Amsterdam’s broader urban assemblages
TUNNELLING
Léo Jusiak 11763248 First reader: Dr. Adeola Enigbokan
Second reader : Olga Sezneva
« How is one to conceive of both the organization of
a city and the construction of a collective infrastructure? »
- Michel Foucault, 1984, 239
« When you eat a fish, you eat the meat not the fishbone.
The fishbone you throw it away, you give it to your cat. »
« There is nothing natural about a map. It is a cultural
artefact, a cumulation of choices made among choices
every one of which reveals a value: not the world, but a
slice of a piece of the world; not nature but a slant on it;
not innocent but loaded with intentions and purposes;
[…] not straight, but mediated by words and other signs;
not, in a word, as it is, but in code. And of course it’s in
code: all meaning, all significance derives from codes, all
intelligibility depends on them. […] »
The thesis written hereby came out from a long process
which with no doubt challenge me as never before. I went through
tough moments, often stressful ones, sometimes thinking about giving
up but, this, I realized after, was a necessary pass way to produce
what I have today. The hard part was not the thesis in itself but a long
process which started beforehand and challenged me intellectually
and personally throughout this years. This would surely not have been
possible without few people who played a crucial role in this process.
First, I must thank Adeola whose presence from the beginning was at
the cornerstone of my work. As I start to understand her as both as a
professor and as a person, I could fully strive in my work and develop
myself. It pushed me at the limit, forcing me to question myself and
grow up to move forward. What I learn from this experience can be
sum up in the two words: being confident. This is also thanks to Olga,
who support me during this process and always remained open to
my questions and uncertainties. I am thankful for my classmates and
particularly Inge, Emre, Javier, Tom, Lizl, Jasper as well as all my other
friend Kristie, Andy, Christian who all, in their own way, made both
my experience of Amsterdam and my time at Uva a great moment.
‘However’, as he would say, the basis of my experience at Uva is
certainly due to Marco. I could say many things about this crazy Italian
guy, but I think that I mainly thank him for being himself and sharing
this year of real struggle with me. Without him, I will surely be crying
on my desk to finish this paper. But, it went otherwise. Also, I want to
thank Tarek, my closest friend who was always there when I needed
it. Moreover my Canadian crew and particularly Alex, Jules, and
Adamtheda, who spend their time to help me with my English writing.
This gives me the opportunity to thank my professors Riley, Stephen,
Rod and Nathan from the University of Stfx in Canada who gave me
the will to follow this master’s in urban Sociology and encouraged me
in realizing this project. Also, special thanks to Lucas who spend a
lot of time to arrange the full design of my thesis. Finally, I thank my
parents and my sister for giving me the opportunity to follow this year
in Amsterdam, supporting me everyday whatever my choices were and
fully believing in my ability to make something important for me.
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to consider the new
transport map that will re-arrange Amsterdam’s transport system
in July 22. With the opening of the new underground North/South
metro line, transport authorities have decided to re-organize the
former transit system following a heavy-rail system that deeply
transform the way the city will develop itself. Therefore, my purpose
is to explore the very design of this plan, looking at planners’ design
practices, so as the institutional process that frames these, to describe
the production of the transport map and ideas it carried along. This
will bridge with a larger socio-technical analysis considering the
geographical displacements of Nieuw-West’s transport infrastructures
within the future mobile metropolis to critically look at the way this
produce urbanites bodies. In summary, I frame the transport map as
a socio-technical object of design that bridges with the new shape of
the transit network so as Amsterdam’s broader urban assemblages. I
question how this very translation may transform the technical world
and urbanites bodies’ practices which produce and continuously
Table of content
IntroductionHistorical and spatial development of Amsterdam’s transit Network
Amsterdam’s controversial transport plans Planning the new mobile metropolis
Theoretical Framework
a - Actor-network theory: descripting socio-technical design
b - Urban splintering: bridging the design with broader socio-technical assemblages and mobile’ bodies
Methodology
a - A qualitative research method
b - In-depth interview and document analysis of cartographic mapmaking
Chapter I - Life and death of the quasi-object
Part 1- Opening the black-box(es)
a - Actor-world and actor network b - TR’s action program
c - GVB’s plan of action
d - A ‘formal’ decision-making process Part 2- How do laboratories change the world?
a - Quasi-object and laboratories
b - Combining Human and non-human agency c - Socio-technical instruments of design
Part 3- Controversies construct socio-technical assemblage a - Cascade of inscriptions
b - Closing the black box and clear-cut object re-appear c - Laboratory-wars
Transition- Which politic(s)?
Chapter II - Splintering Laboratory’ urban life
1 - Adjusting the map
a - The splintering of urbanism through routing b - Nieuw-West’s rolling stock adjustments 2 - The politic of speed
a - Tunnelling the urban spaces b - Technology is society made durable 3 - Splintering body rhythms
Bodies rhythms
(De)-synchronised body rhythms Anti-bodies
Chapter III - When do the counter-laboratories fail?
1 - Short History of bus 21 –background and protest in De Eendratch 2 - ‘I do not use this bus, but I want it back’
a - Mobilities in time of change
‘Social’ mobilities
b - Ordering flow disorder 3 - Alternatives to socio-spatial divides
a - ‘Putting band-aids on bullet wounds.’
b - Creating counter-laboratories: alternatives to dominant design c - The potentialities of counter-laboratories for urban change
Conclusion
a - Nieuw-West: From quasi-object to broader socio-technical assemblages b - Moving on toward alternatives design
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Introduction
« I live in Geuzenveld. This is the further neighbourhood
from Amsterdam. The furthest on the west side. In our
neighbourhood, there are no shops, and there is, for one
year, no public transport »
Since 2016, the residents from the protest group Bus 21 moet in Geuzen of Nieuw-West district in Amsterdam have been protesting the cancellation of bus 21 which used to operate in their neighbourhood. This movement relates to a broader political setting, which concerns a new transport plan (Vervoerplan 2016) from the Gemeentelijk Vervoerbedrijf (GVB)2 to ‘re-arrange’ Amsterdam transportation networks system.
The opening of the North/South metro line (NSL) in July 2018 seems to be an opportunity for the municipality of Amsterdam and the Vervoerregio (Transport Region), to fully re-organize Amsterdam’s old fine-meshed light-rail sys-tem with a new metro network. It will connect the former buss/tram network with the NSL (GVB, 2016). According to GVB, which is responsible for designing and operationalizing the new transport networks, this system will ensure a faster and more reliable transit system for 80% of the inhabitants, with the NSL as the new backbone of the system (GVB, 2016). Furthermore, GVB argues it will enhance support for Amsterdam’s economic development, and reinforce its international attractiveness (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2008, p.2) by re-connecting the city with its multi-centred urban form caused by Amsterdam spatial expansion in the last decades (Bertolini, 2017). In fact, this will be done by prioritising access to these emerging urban areas like the IJburg3, and the Zuidas, considered as high-value residen-tial and business districts and privileged locations for global flow of capital and ‘new people expected to settle there’ (Gemente Amsterdam, 2018). Meanwhile, lower-class urban districts like Nieuw-West (Ton Heijdra, 2010) also see their former transport systems being transformed with the cancellation of some bus and tramway lines (bus 21, 69, trams 14)4. This will remove direct connections with the city centre5, but will ‘ensure fast connection with the N/S line’ (GVB, 2016). However, and despite recent politics of ‘redevelopment’ in this area (Mens, 2017), Nieuw-West’s novel transport network primarily aims to improve fast connections between the transportation nodes of Schipol, Sloterdjik and the NSL line (Gemente Amsterdam, 2015). This change illustrates a process of urban networks splintering, which make it more difficult for some marginalised areas and social groups living in the district to access public transport (Graham, Simon, 2001). Indeed, some of Nieuw-West’s residents and activists fear that it will drastically reduce transport acces-sibility in the neighbourhood6; To them, the neighbourhood is ostensibly not of prime attention within the re-organi-sation of the transport.
1 [Bus 21 must stay in Geuzenveld] https://www.facebook.com/bus21Geuzenveld/
2 Amsterdam Gemeentelijk Vervoerbedrijf (Municipal transport company) https://over.gvb.nl/
3 https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/living/about-living-in-amsterdam/neighbourhoods/ijburg
4 https://assets.gvb.nl/vervoerplan/20161011vervoerplan22juli2018def.pdf
5 https://www.dewestkrant.nl/opnieuw-actie-verdwijnen-tram-14/
6 https://www.parool.nl/opinie/-busverbinding-tussen-sloterdijk-en-schiphol-door-onze-strot-geduwd~a4247409/
In this context, the purpose of my research is to investigate the very design of the new plan to understand to which extent it aims to transform Amsterdam mobility system and re-imagine the district of Nieuw-West within the city larger transit network. To do so, I will consider the new Vervoerplan 2016 as a socio-technical object of design (Latour, 1991), the product of designers’ work which is translated into a transport map (figure 1), and which inscribes an intri-cate ‘vision’ of what the future city must become. Furthermore, as the new transport system seems to illustrate a process of segmentation of the urban spaces between high-valued and marginalised areas of the city (Graham, Simon, 2001), I will assess the extent to which this process unevenly re-arranges mobility resources’ in Amsterdam, by pres-cribing new practices of movement in the district of Nieuw-West (Creswell, 2010). To do so, my research will rely on a qualitative research method, using in-depth interviews, combined with a documents analysis to study designers’ works.
Historical and spatial development
of Amsterdam’s transit Network
I first sketch an overview of Amsterdam’s socio-historical development regarding transport mobility systems, which have operated in the city since the 1960s. It will emphasise the crucial character of these changes within the current socio-spatial developments of city, and the way these may transform the relationship between Nieuw-West, and the rest of the city.
Amsterdam’s controversial transport plans:
In 1964, the Amsterdam Bureau Stadspoorwegen7 presented a plan to build four underground metro lines to deal with the traffic congestion caused by Amsterdam post-war economic, and demographic growth (Erostrate, 2000). Although transport authorities actively greeted this development, the early construction of the first East-West metro line triggered violent riots against the demolition of houses and eviction of people in the borough of Nieuwmarkt, located in Amsterdam’s city center (Rooijendijk, 2005). Until the early 1990s, the term ‘metro’ was banned from public discourses, as it stood for social, economic, and spatial disaster which deterred public authorities from bringing up new transport plans (Verstraete, 2013). Still, in 1994, the Municipality presented its plans for finishing the North– South line, praising the new project as the solution to improve Amsterdam’s connection with the whole region of
7 Bureau for City Rails
Figure 2- Simplified example of the Former network (left) and new fishbone model [right) -metros (green) trams (red) and busses (bleu)(GVB,2016)
North-Holland, and Schiphol international airport (Davis, 2000). Some were more skeptical, considering the NSL as a political move to ‘balance capitalist interests of the growing Zuidas district (at end of the metro line), with the local urban development of the working-class residential areas in the North (Rutgrink, 2014). Besides, a local referendum in 1997 massively rejected the plan, but even then, 65% of the 120000 voters were insufficient to validate the plebis-cite (Gemeente, 2000; Verstraete, et al 2016). In 1998, the 1.3-billion-euro project was eventually scheduled to start in 2002.
After sixteen years of construction, marked by financial scandals and technical issues which several times forced the municipality to stop the construction (Verstraete, 2013), the NSL is finally complete, and will start operating in July 2018. In this context, the new infrastructure is for the Municipality and the Transport Region (TR), which is an admi-nistrative partnership of 15 municipalities making decisions about Amsterdam public transport, an opportunity to fully re-arrange the transport system in Amsterdam (GVB, 2016). Indeed, GVB will soon operationalize the fishbone model (visgraatmodel).
It will replace the former orbital networks which organized Amsterdam’s busses and tramways routes, since the early 20th century (Bertolini,1999). The latter was developed as a light-rail system, with trams and busses connecting with the city centre as single point of primacy. The new model now promotes a heavy-rail system, based on high-speed and high-capacity metro lines planned to re-connect the transit networks with the city’s growing districts (Walker, 2012)(figure 2). While GVB designed, and will operationalise the new network, the company signed a contract with the TR which determines the framework of the transport vision, and defines the strict guideline GVB must adhere to (Vervoerregio, 2016). Based on these recommendations, nine of the current sixteen tram lines will change their routes to serve more efficiently along the whole transport network. Most of them are simply being redirected to connect with the NSL, but a few will be partly removed, like Trams 14, 9 and 16, because of their low frequency (GVB, 2016). According to GVB, this ‘innovative model’ will ensure a faster transit system for 80% of the inhabitants by linking tramways/busses with direct connections to the high-frequency NSL, thus becoming the real backbone of the system (13).
Planning the new mobile metropolis
The Vervoerplan 2016 comes out of a larger ‘vision’ of the future city developing into an international metropo-lis (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2008, p.2). Discourse around the new metropometropo-lis is promoted by the TR, the Gemeente Amsterdam, and GVB to reinforce Amsterdam economic and demographic growth; For them, this is a way to remain competitive with other European capitals, and appeal to global investments (7). Furthermore, Amsterdam’s spatial expansion through a polycentric urban form in the last decades, is a central feature of the new metropolis (Bertolini, 2017). It justifies current policies to re-organize the growing flow of travellers, and to provide high-quality infrastruc-ture networks to bridge with its growing ‘multi-centered urbanized region’ (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2008). This spatial transformation symbolizes the ‘attractive’ position Amsterdam wants to hold at the international level, by reinforcing its connectivity with other metropolis centers, thanks to its new inter-connected and high-speed transit network (Bertolini, 2017). Now, this vision is being operationalized within the new Vervoerplan 2016, with a distinct focus on the NSL. It will spatially transform the city, giving better access to ‘growing residential and business dis-tricts’, like Sloterdijk area, the IJburg8 and the Zuidas, also seen as pillars of Amsterdam spatial and economic deve-lopment, and attractive locations for the global flow of capital, as well as ‘people who are expected to settle there’ (GA, 2018). Whilst valued areas will take advantage of the new network, other city districts will also see their local transport network being re-organized. Nieuw-West is one of them. This neighborhood, created in the late 1950s, is divided into the four major districts of Osdorp, Slotervaart, Nieuw-Sloten, and De Aker. Since then, this gentrified middle-class urban borough has been targeted by several spatial renewal projects (Mens, 2017). These have been lately combined with socio-economic policies to ‘fight high rates of unemployment, and feeling of insecurity in the neighbo-rhoods’ (Gemeente Amsterdam (GA), 2015). For instance, the sub-districts of Geuzenveld-Slotermeer, where about a quarter (22%) of residents have a low income’ (GA, 2018), are predominantly targeted with policies of urban regene-ration (Mens, 2017). The municipality also observes some issues with transport ‘accessibility’ in the area, acknowled-ging ‘weak transport connections within the borough’ (GA, 2015). On the other hand, the new Vervoerplan 2016 seems less concerned with this issue, as it will re-direct some the trams/busses (bus 21, 69 and trams 14) which will now lose their direct connection with the city center (GVB, 2016). In fact, the new system seems primarily re-arranged to improve fast connections between the transportation nodes of Schiphol, Sloterdjik, and the N/S line (Gemente Amsterdam, 2015). In this context, some of the Nieuw-West’s residents are protesting, as they fear the new networks reduce transport accessibility in their district9. Indeed, the protest groups Tram 14 moet blijfe10, and Bus 21 moet in Geuzen blijven complained about these ‘top-down’ measures, and fear that the new network will ‘increase walking distance’11.
8 https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/living/about-living-in-amsterdam/neighbourhoods/ijburg
9 Retrieved from: https://www.parool.nl/opinie/-busverbinding-tussen-sloterdijk-en-schiphol-door-onze-strot-geduwd~a4247409/
10 [Tram 14 must remain] https://www.facebook.com/pg/tramlijn14/events/
In this context, I consider the design of the new plan, to understand which vision(s) are being inscribed in it to re-imagine the new mobile city, and to which extent this is transforming the Nieuw-West mobility system so as socio-spatial position within the broader urban landscape namely: How does the new transport map, as a socio-tech-nical object of design, transform Nieuw-West’s socio-spatial position, within the broader re-organisation of
Amsterdam’s transport network? To answer this question requires to follow a specific red line framed by three main sub-questions specifically:
1) To what extent does the design of the new transport map
reflect the intricate relations of a variety of actors, as a product for
urban change?
2) How does the map transcribe a ‘politic of speed’ that aims to
re-connect with the city’s polycentric form? And, how is Nieuw-West
involved with the socio-spatial transformation?
3) To which extent does Nieuw-West’s resident’s daily mobility
relate to the new urban world of socio-technical assemblages
prescribed by designers? How might these evolve differently through
alternative design?
To examine the new transport plan, (Vervoerplan, 2016) so as to view the new transport map as a socio-technical object of design used by planners to re-imagine the new mobile city, I will rely on Callon (1987), Akrich (1991), Latour’s (1992) actor-network theory, (ANT) and the concept of script. This framework bridges with Graham and Simon’s (2001) notion of unbundled network infrastructure to reflect on modern urban design as a symbol of infrastructures splintering. This approach illustrate the way designers may in-scribe a politic of mobility (Creswell, 2010), more speci- fically, a politic of mobilities-design, within the technical content of the transport map. It may transform bodies’ prac-tices of movement (Grosz, 1998), as well as the socio-spatial character of the place in which people move in (p.7). The whole framework helps to consider the production and impact of the Vervoerplan 2016, from its design, to the imple-mentation of a new transit system, that will deeply transform the very nature of the city.
a - Actor-network theory: descripting socio-technical design
The research considers urban planners’ work, and particularly conventional practices and cultural assumptions that they may tend to carry within the socio-technical content of their design. According to Bender et al. (2011), ‘the concept of design […] refers to developing an idea about a product, system, or policy to meet human needs, and devi-sing a plan for executing that idea’ (p.13). Following this definition, critical design thinking (Kimbell, 2011; J. Bardzell & Bardzell, 2013) has deeply questioned the ways designers increasingly draw on ‘cultural assumptions, combining their work with managerialist discourses’ […] and relying on ‘standardized subjective cultural knowledge within their work’ (Bourdieu, 1977). However, I do not simply aim in this research to consider urban design as the mere results of designers’ subjective cultural assumptions. In fact, I draw on ANT to consider the way urban design is framed, through a variety of actors, or actants, making decisions according to action programs, which represent the inte-rests, ideas, or visions they may support (Latour, 2005). Therefore, action programs encompass the cultural assump-tions which designers may have, but mostly, shed the line on conflicting programs of actions that fuel controversies between the various actors involved into the design. This is crucial, as the final product of the transport map arises from the controversies between a variety of actors involved in its design (p.54). The transport map itself, contains what Akrich calls the script (p.208): which combines the vision, ideologies, and practices inscribed in the very content of a new technical object. The script relates to future users of the new object, in this case, travellers using the new
transport network, and determines a precise way of using it (p.209). Therefore, it is crucial to understand how tech- nical objects suggest a certain politic of use, as ‘the action program inscribed in the material definition of techno-logical artifact and infrastructures plays an important role in its usages: it allows, forbids, prescribes and suggests way of use’ (Nahuis, 2007, p.33). Indeed, artifacts are not socially neutral; they are inherently ‘political’, because they result from controversies, and affect the world in which they are adopted by suggesting or enforcing specific usage (p.231). In our case, the North-South metro line (NSL) line is a result of socio-political struggles as negotiations, and the new plan (the map) integrates them into its design, and through the hand of the designer, as a specific program of action ‘together with the actors and the space in which they are supposed to act’ (Akrich, 1997). This is a way through which the new transport map, as a socio-technical object, reflects a certain vision of the city, and its future use ins-cribed into the very design of the transport map. Based on this framework, studying the map of the designer allows us to appreciate the object of design as a powerful tool to imagine, produce, and prescribe what should become the new mobile metropolis. Still, to enforce their program of action over other actors, designers’ must close controversies (Bijker, Law, 1992, p. 109). To do so, they first count on the support from other powerful actors, such private or public entities, which gain their legitimacy into their connections with a variety of other influential actors (Callon, 1989). This comes to produce a hierarchy of actors, typically with an actor-world at the top which distributes other actors’ roles in the process of innovation (p.12). The entities in which designers work on their design are called ‘Laboratories’ (Latour, 1990). These black-boxes are closed environments in which internal practices and decisions are made invi- sible, opaque from the outside world as a result of their effective design (Latour, 1999). In these environments, desi-gners interact with complex technical instruments’, such as transport models and mapping instruments, that sustain their design. They also come to produce pills of inscriptions, such as graphs, diagrams, or maps, that will be mobi-lized as powerful devices to convince other actors, win controversies, and so reinforce the legitimacy of their action programs. In the end, instruments of design as well as inscriptions come to play a determinant role in the produc-tion of the designers’ final object. It creates an intricate relation between designers, and their technical instruments, between human and non-human actants, which constitutes the very nature of the socio-technical object that will come to transform the city. Based on this, I will consider the final object, the transport map, not merely as an object of design by the designers but, more particularly, as a ‘socio-technical entity’ (Latour, 1991) combining all the action pro-grams and socio-political processes of negotiation between human and non-human actants that have been inscribed into it (Akrich, 1997). I must therefore closely follow the methods through which designers have come to frame the very nature of the transport map, re-inventing the narrative through which Amsterdam’s transit system will deve-lop. However, as ANT remains limited for understanding large socio-technical assemblages (Farias and Bender, 2010), I will use the transport map as a dialectical medium carrying the script inscribed into it all along the analysis as a constant reminder of the process of negotiation that produced it. This framework helps to bridge with Graham and Simon’s (2001) notion of urban splintering to consider how the script inscribed in the transport map, may transform Nieuw-West through a new politic of mobilities-design.
b - Urban splintering: bridging the design with broader socio-technical assemblages and mobile’ bodies
Within our current neo-liberal area, urban planners sketching projects for future city infrastructure networks have come to substitute the complex nature of the social world. to numbers and statistical trends, which based on mathe-matical and econometric models, merely strive for the optimal efficiency of the whole system (Graham, Simon, 2001). This new paradigm of our contemporary urban society reflects ‘the development of new homogenized but splintered infrastructure networks’ (p.106). Contemporary urban networks ‘increasingly become punctured and ruptured; […] they are unbundled and splintered, ushering in
new geopolitical and geometrical logics based on the highly uneven warping of time and space in highly localised and valued places’ (p.201). As explained above, Amsterdam is developing in a polycentric urban form, with the emer-gence of highly valued urban hubs that concentrate premium infrastructures agglomerated within residential and businesses districts (Bertolini, 2007). According to Graham and Simon, this corresponds to the passage from a func-tional organization [within cities], in which the centres are graded with a multi-level hierarchy, to interconnec-ted networks organised based on the corresponding complementarities of the nodes and the synergies produced (Graham, 2001, p.201). It fosters a geographical differentiation between valued places, and marginalized ones through an uneven repartition of urban network resources. In my research, the new transport map that aims for re-connec-ting Amsterdam’s infrastructure networks all together, may similarly further segregate the urban space. It is done through what Andreu (1998) names tunnelling. In fact, ‘in our research of maximum speed, roads have become tun-nels’ (p.59). Transport nodes have been linked together into networks that target valued parts of the metropolis and draw them into intense interaction with each other, (Graham, Simon, 2001) whilst such a tunnel effect […] bypasses much of the intervening spaces, excluding these, in turn, from accessing the networks (p.106). Graham and Simon’s framework deeply connects with Creswell’s politic of mobility (2010) introducing urbanite mobility practices into it. Creswell defines mobility as a resource which combines three different elements: the physical movement (who moves the fastest?), its representation (the meaning attached to it which is encoded socially and culturally) and the expe-rience of it (how mobility is embodied? Is it forced or free?) […] which are bounded with one another (p.19). According
to him, the form that mobility takes through these three different aspects is acutely political because these elements are based on ‘social relations involving the production and distribution of power’ (p.21). In that sense, a politic of mobility can be defined as the way through which ‘mobilities are both productive of such social relations and pro-duced by them’ (p.21). Connecting these elements of physical movement, representation and practices, delineates the basics of the politic of mobility, which relate to the differential distribution of these resources, based on social rela-tions of classes, gender, nationality etc. From this point, Amsterdam’s Vervoerplan 2016 involved a unique politic of mobility that I will frame, referring to splintering urbanism, as a politic of speed based on planners’ definitions, and shares of these mobility resources through their design. Focusing on the district of Nieuw-West, I will illustrate how the new network-design ‘creates tunnels that facilitate speed for some while ensuring the slowness of those who are bypassed’ (p.25). This will help me to consider how the ‘politics’ that is carried out within the design of the map, may deeply transform the very nature and intrinsic relations between the urban space, and more particularly body’ rhythms of mobile urbanites interacting with it (Tim Edensor, 2014). Bridging the whole, this framework follows a specific red line (see annex 1) which allows me to assess how scripts are inscribed into the new transport map, so as their displacement into the physical infrastructure delineates a larger politics of mobilities-design, which acts as a genuine instrument of urban change.
Methodology
a - A qualitative research methodThe central part of my research is to understand how does the transport map as a socio-technical object of design transforms Nieuw-West’s socio-spatial position, within the broader re-organisation of Amsterdam’s transport network? I employed a qualitative method to identify the meanings and interpretations that designers and other participants of my study give to ‘their behaviour and practices’ (Hennink, Hutter, Bailey, 2011) (Chap.2). I relied on in-depth interviews, observations, and cartographic document analysis.
b - In-depth interview and document analysis of cartographic mapmaking
I conducted fourteen in-depth interviews with most of the actors involved in the realization of the transport plan at the local and regional level, such as, expert planners from GVB, TR and the municipality of Amsterdam which are all involved in the Vervoerplan 2016. Gathering different perspectives was crucial to frame each role and action program of these diverse entities, within the design process (figure 3). For instance, the TR, that I defined as the actor-world, is in charge of distributing Amsterdam’s concessions for transport companies, whereas GVB oversees the main design of the plan, and operationalizes the new network based on the TR’s guideline.
Relying on this semiotic, I use on document analysis to gather any sources and material artefacts, which contri-bute and assembled the chain of association (Latour, 1990) that shaped the new transport map. These are essen-tial ‘facts, records, diagnoses, decisions, and rules that are significantly involved in social activities [of the designers] (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007) and produce a crucial knowledge, taking the form of inscriptions, that must be carefully described (Akrich, 1997). A qualitative study of maps will help to reveal how socio-technical objects embody and translate specific actions programs within the very content of the physical infrastructure (James Corner, 1999; Latour, 1990). In that sense, I aim to describe the dynamic form of the transit map, looking at bus routes, tram rails, residential and commercial areas etc., as well as their socio-spatial position and inter-connection on the map’ (Harley, 1988), to consider how experts’ practices both foster singular geographical arrangements of Amsterdam transit sys-tem, and inscribe actions programs within the socio-technical content of the new infrastructure. Looking at the map is then, both a way to consider the physical change of transits routes, but also, connecting it to my interviews, to reveal the dialectical movements between designers’ practices, and the socio-technical nature of the new trans-port network. In the end, I framed the transtrans-port map as a central socio-technical medium, which bridges laboratories’ practices and the outside world of network assemblies to be sustained throughout the whole analysis.
1 - Actants :
Are whatever acts or shifts actions, action itself being defined by a list of performances through trials; from these performances are deduced a set of competences with which the actant is endowed; […] an actor is an actant endowed with a character.
2 - Description/Inscription :
Is the opposite movement of the In-sciption by the engineer, inventor, or designer; for instance the heavy keys of hotels are described by the following text DO NOT Forget to bring YOU KEYS BACK TO THE FRONT DESK, the inscription being: TRANSLATE the message above by HEAVY WEIGHTS ATTACHED TO KEYS TO FORCE CLIENTS TO BE REMINDED TO BRING BACK THE KEYS TO THE FRONT DESK. 3 - Antiprograms: Are all the programs of actions of actants that conflict with the programs chosen as the point of departure of the analysis.
4 - Prescriptions:
Is what a device allows or forbids from the actors- humans and nonhuman- that it anticipates; it is the morality of a setting both negative (what it prescribes), and positive (what it permits). Through in-depth interviews I questioned participants on their planning’s practices, and their roles in revealing the script inscribed into their object of design. To do so, I followed the first ‘rules of method’ announced by Latour (2005): ‘We must study science in action, and not ready-made science or technology; […] we either arrive before the facts and machines are black-boxed, or we follow the controversies that reopen them’. Consequently, I focused on ‘informal controversies and compromises’ between experts, as well as the very settings in which these negotiations take place: the laboratory (Austrin, Farnsworth, 2005, p.11). As I came to step into the laboratory, I slipped inside the black-box, shedding the light of the experts’ practices, technical instruments, and inscriptions they use. Therefore, I conducted interviews using these very inscriptions, such as maps, diagrams, etc., as I aimed to reconcile the planner’s relation with non-human socio-technical actants. When stepping out of the laboratory, I interviewed politicians and travellers’ associations to emphasise everyday urban knowledge, as an essential expertise to understand the socio-historical production of Amsterdam’s network system. Urban knowledge was used both as a method of investigation (Powell, 1998) to reveal contradiction between experts’ interests, and as a grounded theory that explicates and completes the design process. Eventually, I conducted interviews with Nieuw-west’s residents to consider practices of movement, and how these may challenge designers’ prescriptions, which are embedded in their socio-technical design. The whole process was sustained through my own observations in different settings, such as Nieuw-West’s areas, planners’ labo-ratories, and the NSL that I had the chance to drive into before its opening to the public in July 22. During the analy-sis, I will refer to different actors according to their position within the design-process namely: TR or GVB’s designer, Nieuw-West’s resident, Municipality adviser etc.
Before going further I must explain here that I will use a specific vocabulary, drawing from Latour and Akrich’s (1992) semiotic of human and non-human assemblies. This lexis is necessary to explicate the ‘path building’ of design in the making, so as to examine the intricate relationship that exists between humans, signs and instruments of design:
Chapter I - Life and death of the
quasi-object
‘The world is not a solid continent of facts sprinkled
by a few lakes of uncertainties, but a vast ocean of
uncertainties speckled by a few islands of calibrated and
stabilised forms’
The purpose of this chapter is to dive into the world of design, while taking a careful look at these experts of urban planning as instruments they use to sketch the shape of our future mobile cities. Also, if the Vervoerplan 2016 that will reorganize Amsterdam’s metro system, mainly came through experts’ practices (GVB, 2016), they progress within a specific institutional structure which guides and administrates them, orienting their socio-technical design within a complex and black-boxed system, and concealing inter-exchanging procedures of compromises between a diversity of actors. This new structure will first be scrutinised to understand how it has driven various ideas, even sometimes contradictory ones, of what the city transit system is to become. Secondly, I will illustrate how this structural orga-nization involved a unique but intricate world of compromises, dominated by the actor-world and the laboratories (Callon, 1987; Latour, 1990). This is an attempt to describe the transport map’s design from the emergence of an idea, a quasi-object (Latour, 2005), to its closure as a two-dimensional transport map on paper. Through new narrative(s), I explore the ‘politics’ at play in this Vervoerplan 2016 by (somewhat) re-inventing the map as a socio-technical object of design.
Part 1- Opening the black-box(es)
‘[Black-boxing] is the way scientific and technical work is made invisible by its own success. When a machine runs efficiently, when a matter of fact is settled, one need focus only on its inputs and outputs and not on its internal complexity. Thus, paradoxically, the more science and technology succeed, the more opaque and obscure they become.’
- Latour, 1999
a - Actor-world and actor network
To open the black-box means to trace back the different parameters that intertwined diverse human and non-human actants, as part of the process of innovation (Callon, 1986). In my case, the first aim is to understand which are these actants, and how they come to identify and reinforce each other’s roles, within an institutional context that struc-tures the whole as a black-boxed system.
Researcher: What is your role in the regional council?
D66 (city council member): Good question. Almost nobody knows. Nobody in the city knows we exist’
There are four different actors involved in a convention composed of the Transport region, transport companies, and the RAR12 . These made decisions in 2000 in the Passenger transport law 2000 (Wp200) (Ministry Traffic and Transport, 2000). This law, voted by the European Commission in 2000, and applied by the Dutch government to the whole of Holland, prescribed an exclusive form of governance vis-à-vis transport related decisions in Amsterdam. It levied several tasks that cities must respect, the main one being the share of different concessions13 of the Amsterdam City Region (SRA) between different operators, based on an ‘open tender’ procedure. In this new arran-gement, transport companies proposing the best offer obtain the concession granted by the TR, and operate it in the region assigned to them. Each actor in this network is also responsible for explicit roles (Wp2000), and so disposing of various competences despite uneven powers of action.
In 2000, the Wp2000 set the basis of a new way of organizing transport infrastructures with the goal of ‘promoting better coordination of the supply of passenger transport on demand’ (Dutch Ministry of Traffic and Transport, 2000, p.12). The European commission’s decisions were locally implemented in Amsterdam, with some notable exceptions in this official procedure that will later be considered. It granted new roles to the legal entities in charge of transport decisions. There are four distinct actors: The TR, which is the actor world here, GVB, Amsterdam municipality (GA), and Rover Amsterdam which is part of the RAR (along with other associations)14. All of them embodied different sets of competencies and responsibilities. The municipality and Rover, an organization working for travellers’ access to good public transport, are merely advisers of the Vervoerplan 2016. In the Wp 2000’s status, they can only comment on the future decisions of GVB and TR:
“We advise the councillors of the municipality and we can only react on the plan of GVB after it was presented to the Transport Region which is the boss” (Municipality’s adviser)
The GA still has a word to say regarding other means of transport, such as biking and cycling in the city, and deciding about small changes such as bike lanes or street circulation; at the same time, it fully owns the current transport
12 RAR: Reizigers Advies Raad; Until the Passenger Transport Act 2000 came into force, individual travelers could object to a new or changed timetable. Today these
are represented by the travelers advise council.
13 the license to be allowed to carry out regional public transport for a certain period (8 years in Amsterdam)
14 independent advisory body for public transport and issues solicited and unsolicited advice to the Amsterdam Transport Region and the public transport
companies. It is composed by Rover, the Association of Urban Transport Interests, the Civic platform Zaanstad, the Elderly organization, the Client’s interest in Amsterdam, the National Student Trade Union LSVb and the Cyclists’ Union.
infrastructures such as tracks, rolling stocks, etc., which may become a genuine instrument of negotiation with other actors in period of controversy. On the other hand, decisions about rolling stock15 investments are endorsed by the TR. The entity was created in 2013 as part of the Wp2000 law, and reformed in 2015; before it had competencies in every public sector of energy, transport, housing development etc. (Stadsregio, 2012), but these responsibilities were reduced to transport to limit its control over the whole public infrastructure system (Vervoerregio, 2015).
Today, the TR controls the ‘rules of the game’. As an actor-world, it translates the Wp2000’s measures to other actors through an investment agenda guiding future local decisions. The TR receives yearly subsidies guaranteed by the Dutch government, which are eventually shared with the different concessions operating the public transport infrastructures. However, under the Wp2000, TR’s subsidies have been cut down by 60% by the national government, because of the need to reduce the ‘operational cost of transit networks’ (Vervoerregio, 2015). In Amsterdam, GVB has been operating as a public company in Amsterdam for one hundred years with the city owning 100% of its shares, and making all of the decisions. Yet, since the introduction of the Wp 2000, the law changed GVB’s status, which is now being run as a private enterprise applying similar cost-saving strategies as other private companies to cope with the decrease in subsidies.
Meanwhile, the authority of the municipality over its transport system has been substantively cut-off, as the TR has come to replace it in its main assignments under the Wp2000’s law. In the end, both GVB and the TR have become the main actors responsible for the Vervoerplan. This yearly Vervoerplan 2016 usually concerned small adjustments in the network, such as ‘timetable changes, removal or creation of a new stop, or maintenance and repair with the renova-tion of a trams track for instance’ (Vervoeregio, 2012). However, in 2016, GVB in cooperarenova-tion with the TR, decided that it was time to shuffle the whole network (GVB, 2016). This big shift came within the context of a cut on subsidies, but more particularly, with the opening of the NSL which questions the entire arrangement of the former system.
b - TR’s action program
Although GVB has the competences, and the legal charge of carrying out the design of the new plan, it must translate the TR’s prospects, who remains the actor-world determining allocated subsidies and the guideline to follow. I must then consider the way through which the decisions and the design of the Vervoerplan 2016 have been translated and displaced, within a specific structural form of decision-making. It is crucial to consider ‘rules of the game’, and the ‘program of requirement’16 (Vervoerregio, 2014) set by the TR, and that translates GVB’s ‘scenario of action’ (Callon, 1986). This guideline provides an assurance that GVB, which serves its own programs of action in trying to keep its concession, will follow the main goals of the TR. It gives several rules which restrict GVB in its design:
Figure 4 - TR’s head-quarter
1 - Providing metros/trams/bus stops within 400m for 90% of every address in Amsterdam, with yet two exceptions: hospitals and elderly-houses must be at 250m from a stop, and metro lines and R-net lines, which, as high-rail lines, may cover a perimeter 800m from every address (vervoerregio:2017).
Action Program Transport Region (TR)
2 - GVB must respect the TR vervovervisie (Transport Vision) (figure 5) which delineates the main changes that must be included by GVB in the new transport network, such as 33% fewer trams in Leidsestraat and 50% in the Veerstraat, and 35% fewer trams using the Rembrandtplein (Vervoeregion, 2017).
15 wheeled vehicles of a railroad, including locomotives, freight cars, and passenger cars (such as metros, trams, busses)
Figure 5 - TR’s action program (Vervoerregio, 2017)
Overall the program of action of the Transport region is closely following the Wp2000 program. It must cope with cuts on subsidies, while maintaining the citywide accessibility for the majority of the travellers.
‘we are for a good, faster and affordable public transport’
- TR’s portefeuille holder
c - GVB’s plan of action
Within this guideline, GVB received a lot of authority to act from the TR. They can pretty much re-organize their rolling stock system (200 busses and trams, and 100 metros) at will, as long as they respect the main guidelines explained above. From this point, GVB’s program of action is clear; it does not want to ‘run in hot air’, it has the res-ponsibility and competencies to adapt the network, but remains pressured by institutional, economic, and urban development agendas. In this context, full economic ‘efficiency’ is the main goal GVB wants to reach. I must outline three examples to clarify GVB’s program of action:
1 - GVB considers that users should better use the new NSL, which guarantees a faster connec-tion with the city center and other areas in Amsterdam. For them, the metro system is easier to operationalize, and can transport more passengers than a Tram system for instance. This deci-sion accordingly transforms the former routes of some trams and buses, which used to have a direct connection to the city center to now be redirected to other parts of the city. (GVB, 2016). 2 - The second measure is to fully cut off what is seen as ‘social’ lines, which are running ‘empty’. This is the case for the tram line 14, currently going from Nieuw-West to centraal station, which will be partly cut-off in July.
3 - The last key change is the speeding up of bus and tram lines which are often combined with redirection or removal of tram and bus lines. This consists of increasing the speed and/or the capacity of these transports on slow lines, such as bus 21, which ensures a direct connection with Nieuw-West.
Overall, these three points mainly define GVB’s program of action toward maximising the efficiency of the network. Nonetheless, GVB is still not an all-powerful architect during the design process; it remains in a close relationship with the TR, which supervises and monitors GVB’s designs all along the project.
d - A ‘formal’ decision-making process
Similarly to the Île-de-France Mobilities (IDFM) in the Paris region, an elected assembly makes decisions about trans-port. The TR’s main decisional entity is the regional council,17 which is composed of 56 seats with elected coun-cil members coming from Amsterdam, and its 15 different regions. It gathers a diversity of political parties, such as VVD, SP, D66, Groenlinks etc. (Vervoerregio, 2017); Every council member has space to debate about public transport, mainly regarding the investment agenda for public transport. However, and surprisingly, they do not have the power to interfere on the decision concerning the yearly Vervoerplan:
‘For most of the things, we [regional council] make the decision. THEY make proposals about a budget with all kind of arrangements, and if the majority say yes, they can go on. Most of the decision is made by us. But not for the Vervoerplan […] We can say something about it, but it always remains an advice’
- SP’s former council member.
Within this regional council, two other distinct entities are seated: The Daily Management Board18 and the Portfolio holders19. The law gives the power of decision making concerning the Vervoeplan, to the Executive board composed of seven council members in charge of transport in their own municipality (Vervoerregio, 2015). It entertains a close relationship with Portfolio holders in the TR regarding shares of subsidies for different concessions, and the valida-tion of the final Vervoeplan. Meanwhile, GVB is constantly negotiating with the transport region. Officially, GVB’s role is simple: they have to come up with the plan, while respecting the guidelines, and then present it to the Regional council that will debate, and may adopt it.
17 Regioraad
18 Dagelijks Bestuur
In this part, I will consider the way urban planners came to be at the center of the decision-making process, and the design of the Vervoerplan 2016. To do so, I will attempt to reconstitute the process that fosters the emergence of a quasi-object, the Vervoerplan as a vision to change the city, that is being raised through intricate yet informal proce-dures of negotiation and compromises between designers. According to Latour (1993) in Aramis and the love of tech-nology, a quasi-object, at first, is a simple argument; ‘a dream that captured or not the passions, interests’ for an innovation (p.8) before it materialized itself in a real entity to change the city.
a - Quasi-object and laboratories
‘We started the plan with the previous executive member of the TR, now Secretary of State in the Hague. He was someone who liked to solve riddles. This one was quite a nice puzzle. We told him about our problem and two week later he came with drawings. He made a nice plan. He said, ‘Let’s do it this way’. But we told him ‘You cannot do this’. Yet, he replied: ‘Of course you can’. So we went to the regional council, but we thought no one will ever buy it. Yet, he started it. We had cut in our budget, so he started to tell everyone, we had to change something, we cannot wait for the N/S line to be opened. We can do it all at the same time, and manage the cut on subsidies. And he was right, look, we are doing it now’
- TR’s designer
The quasi-object is born and starts to spread over the rest of the network, progressively shifting from a ‘dream-pas-sion game plan’ to a real object of urban change. However, if the quasi-object of the transport map would have stayed at this stage, it probably would not have ever existed. It needed something else, a place to grow, to transform itself in a genuine object acknowledged by all (Latour, 1993):
‘What GVB does, and what we do is a lot of working together. Formally, GVB makes a plan, shows us the plan, and we bring it to the political leaders, they decide, and its ok. This is the formality. But, we don’t do it that way [hesitates]. Of course, we make the big steps, but in between those steps there are a lot of other steps. When GVB started couple years ago, they forgot that the ver-voevisie [transport vision]. They started with a ‘tabula rasa’; they started designing with an empty map. Well, we were a little bit pissed. Then we got to talk about it, and it comes to us: ‘We got there with our ideas when they brought us a plan, and if we don’t like it, we are not going to bring it straight to our political leader, but it must fit within our program first, with our policies. If it we cannot bring it further, we are not doing it by ourselves, but with the city and we have reason to do; that is the game.’
- TR’s designer.
This moment characterizes the birth of the ‘labo-ratory(ies)’ at the center of the design-making process (Latour, 1983). These are composed of few experts, planners, and their technical instru- ments, working in the shadow of the official politi-cal representatives but playing a major role in the re-arrangement of the network (figure 7). Indeed, what happens is a process of displacement out-side the formal political procedure, and translates to the designers’ workplace. Laboratories came to be the most effective way to overcome the rusted institutional structure, which is no longer adap-ted to take major decisions (Winner, 1980; Bovers et al., 1995). It is ‘the continuation of politics by other means’ (Latour, 1987). It has also become a way for the actor-world to effectively preserve control over the design of the plan, without much opposition from the ‘outdoor’ socio-political landscape (Callon, 1986). However, what is central here are in-between procedures, the very ‘game’ of conciliation played between GVB’s, and the TR’s laboratories . The genuine story is comprised of a contentious network of compromises and negotiations between at least two distinct laboratories trying to implement their own program of action, serving the interests they are defending within their own established network:
Part 2- How do laboratories change the world?
The actor-world and its network may have slightly different plans of action, and so may disagree as ‘any transla-tion always occurs with some kind of resistance’ (Callon, 1986: 26). GVB is run as a private enterprise whose program of action, the maximization of the transport network efficiency and maintenance of its concession, is channeled by the TR’s contractual agenda. These interests can sometimes work together, as was the case for the tram 14 removal, which was a decision from the TR, but also satisfied the goals of GVB which could save a few drivers by removing the lines. At the same time, they may disagree on other aspects like for the bus 21 removal in the Eendratch, which the TR (partly) disagree with, while it could not counter GVB’s decision which was respecting the official guideline. These set of compromises rising from controversies between distinct laboratories shed the light on the complexity and struggle for the actors to impose conflicting action programs. Nevertheless, laboratories are far from being ‘immune from [external] social forces’ (Latour, 1983). Amsterdam’s council members also play a role into this process, for ins-tance, by ‘lobbying’ for housing investment, they must negotiate with GVB a bus or a tram line to connect with future dwellings. This has occurred for the housing development in the Ibjurg which will welcome 50,000 new homes in the coming years (GVB, 2016). On the other hand, some actors are almost fully excluded from this process. Public transport users are not part of the decision-making process anymore, as it has been replaced by the RAR under the Wp2000 agreement and their interests are not represented by regional councillors as illustrated during a meeting where some protestors and politicians discussed the future changes:
“The honest story is not always a nice story. The law says that as a board member you do not have anything to say about the OV.” (D66)
“One woman shouts: “It can!”, and another, “No! Stop it! We don’t want that. We don’t want metros!”. Response from D66: “We do!”. Last woman again: “Well, nobody will vote for you then!”. (personal observation, meeting #1, 9th March)20
In fact, if strict rules seems to organize the decision making-process, these remain quite unknown from the gene-ral public. What first appears as a homogeneous and well-ordered entity, becomes an obscure system that is hard to grasp; an assemblage of expert technicians and politicians, with different legal responsibilities, gathering together to frame the powerful but opaque laboratories. Moreover, as these relations between TR and GVB’s laboratories tend to be concealed in such a way so as dismissed from public consideration, it considerably re-enforces the legitimacy of their decisions and their power of action over entities who may have contradicted them. In that sense, ‘domination is never a capital that can be sorted in a bank. It has to be deployed, black-boxed, repaired, maintained’ (Latour, 2005, p.118). Therefore, both laboratories, as black-box entities, become the very places where planners’ designs have come alive while (quasi) immune from counter-action programs that may undermine their interests.
b - Combining Human and non-human agency
I quickly outlined the production of ‘laboratories’, and I must now consider socio-technical instruments used by designers, and the way they produce inscription devices to support their program of action hanging over the deci-sion-making process. I illustrate this process by making a small digression to Latour’s work (1990) on ‘the agency of mapping’ looking at the intrinsic relation existing between human and non-human actors:
‘Commercial interests, capitalist spirit, imperialism […] are empty terms as long as one does not take into account Mercator’s projection, marine clocks and their markers, copper engraving of maps, […] that La Pérouse carries with him. […] But, on the other hand, no innovation in the way longitude and latitudes are calculated, clocks are built, log books are compiled […] would make any difference whatsoever if they did not help to muster, align, and win over and unexpected allies, far away, in Versailles.’
- Lynch and Woolgar, 1990, p.66
In Lynch and Woolgar’s book, Latour takes the example of La Pérouse, a French naval officer, sent overseas by the King of France to ‘bring him a better map’ of the world (p.66). Latour considers how the goal of La Pérouse is closely intertwined with several technical instruments that can be mobilized to bring back precious cartographic informa-tion to Versailles. Without ‘dozens of innovainforma-tions in inscripinforma-tion, in projecinforma-tion, in writing, […] his displacement through the Pacific would have been totally wasted’ (p.66). This illustrates that technical objects cannot be separated from the goal pursued by the designers, nor is the goal separated from the instruments that render it possible. In our case, GVB’s ‘mission’ is to re-arrange the whole network, to create a new map, a better map of the city of Amsterdam by
20 Translated from Dutch
‘Everything we do is all, in the end, is a result of negotiations. Everything is a compromise. And there are reasons behind these compromises that we make; every compromise can be one of these reasons for another actor’
re-organizing its transport system. To do so, designers rely on technical instruments described below. These instru-ments cannot be detached from the designers’ work. They allow designers to create visibility over the chaotic nature of the outside world, to bring in samples or representations of the world by simplifying the wildness of the city flow into clear-cut diagrams and maps; they produce and toughen GVB’s laboratories. Therefore, I consider the design of both TR and GVB’s urban designers, these actors that make the laboratory, as centers of calculation (Lynch, Woolgar, 1990, p.71). Additionally, I will consider the way by which products of both human and non-human actants, become currency in a system of knowledge production that sketches Amsterdam’s future transit routes on the map.
c - Socio-technical instruments of design
To explore these centers of calculation, we must consider the different human and non-human actants that make up the TR and GVB’s laboratory, and participate in drawing its network. These are transport maps, advisers, trans-port-models, OV-chipkaart data, housing plans, etc.
I. Main technical tools
Overall GVB’s transport models are based on frequencies of travellers using the current network, and its re-organiza-tion in the most efficient way. Most of these planning tools are used to make visible flows, and numbers of travellers getting in and out, at any time, in any place on (almost) any kind of transport modes in real-time situations to adapt the new network to it (Van Oort, Cats, 2015). This is made possible by GVB’s full access to OV-chipkaart data used by travellers. It allows GVB to precisely count the number of people getting in and out at each stop, showing which stops are used, and which are not (figure 8).
Another essential tool of GVB concerns the current housing development in the city. As explained below, the muni-cipality is providing large subsidies for various plans of urban development and expansion in different areas in the city (GA, 2017; Van Heelsum, 2007). These usually appear in specific parts of the city, particularly along main trans-ports hubs of the Zuidas, Sloterdijk, Bijlmer arena, Amsterdam Nieuw-west, and the Ijburg (GA, 2016). However, these places require a new infrastructure network due to the number of people coming and settling there. By using hou-sing/urban development maps, GVB can foresee necessary infrastructure investments to cope with the municipality’s plans. Both the OV-chipkaart data, and the housing plan are pillars of GVB’s planners’ technical apparatuses, and foster its program of action within the actual institutional structure of decision making. These tools are combined within two black-boxed socio-technical instruments, two transport models that become genuine actants of the deci-sion-making process (see figure 9). These are largely unknown from non-expert users, while few planners have the knowledge to understand how these devices really work, further blurring the designers’ work. The first instrument is the VMA-model, the Amsterdam model for number of travelers21. The model, built by the city of Amsterdam, is based
21 Verkeers Model Amsterdam
on infrared-lights, an automatic counting system placed in trams and buses counting people getting in and out, com-bined with travellers’ growth expectation divided into three different scenarios:
‘This is a transport plot. It shows the different plots between 2016 and after the implementation of the transport plan. We have chosen the middle expectation. In the map, the negative is red, positive is green. Green you have too little traffic, red means extra passengers’
- TR’s designer
The VMA-model illustrates how, based on existing data and travellers’ growth estimation, the network ‘should’ be re-organizedé. Compiling expected socio-demographic trends, the capacity of the rolling stock system, and the nodes they are connected to, the model first allows one to see which lines require extra investments for potential expan-sions, due to an increase in passenger frequency. Simultaneously, it displays (in green) which ones run (too) ‘empty’ and may be cut-off or redirected. The second model used by GVB is the called the light-OV (figure 11). It is based on OV-chipkaart data, and is only accessible by GVB which uses it for smaller changes in the network; While the VMA requires a week to examine the data, and release its results, the light-Ov model can be operated in ‘a couple of hours’. Yet, both are complementary, considering their sectors of reliability. If GVB’s designers only use the light-OV model, they may face counter-action programs which could distort the outcomes:
‘A lot of people check- out before they arrive where they have to get out. So, the consequence is that you see a stop where you know that there is rarely any people getting-out while, at the same time, the model shows the
number of people exploding. You need both models’.
- TR’s designer
It is then necessary for designers to combine both models to strengthen the reliability of their data (Latour, 1989). However, there are some inhe-rent limitations to it, as they cannot predict every different travellers’ conduct regarding the desti-nation and the routes they take. For example, the models predict that if a metro stop is a bit fur-ther from a tram stop, but allows travellers to get faster to their destination, most travellers will choose to walk further away from their house; the model preferred speed over walking distance.
Figure 9 - GVB’s designers drawing explaining to me the difference between the OV-light and VMA Model
Figure 10 - example of the VMA transport model
Yet, practically, it is not always the case because many users may eventually take the tram. Therefore, GVB must be on the ground to directly ask travellers about their journey’s start and end, to see if travellers will indeed follow the jected routes or not. They must purposely abandon the models to anticipate or react to travellers’ counter-action pro-grams (Akrich, 1997):
‘If we were following the model for tram 4 and 24 they will have to be cut off. But, we don’t believe the model. It is good to get a general idea. However, in this case, it predicts that there will be no passenger in the trams because they will walk to reach the metro station. It says that it is so good that people are going to walk, but people are not going to do that. Speed is one of the factors, but there are many other factors’
- TR’s designer
This statement illustrates the conflicting relationship that experts maintain with their instrument of designs; the instrument itself becomes a full actant that must be understood and used with great care. The worst scenario for GVB would be to follow a transport model that eventually fails to forecast travellers’ flow, and so wasting massive investments in buses running empty. In that sense, socio- technical objects are fully part of experts’ design process. They appear to be real actants in the design process, influencing experts’ decisions while experts themselves try to orient the latter in their way. The products of design get influenced throughout the design-process through ‘hete-rogeneous networks that bring together actants of all types and
Figure 12- a result of the OV-light model
sizes, whether human or nonhuman […] They contain and produce a specific geography of responsibilities, or more generally, of causes’ (Akrich, 1997, p.206) which progressively transform the very shape of the transit map.
II. Everyday urban knowledge
I have described designers’ instruments as technical objects, but I must also integrate everyday urban knowledge as part of it. It mainly relates to experts playing the role of advisers to complete GVB’s designers’ lack of experience, or familiarity with their local environment. If GVB’s laboratory is made up of urban planners, economists, statisti-cians etc., whose expertise cannot be denied, they may sometimes be detached from the socio-historical reality of Amsterdam’s transport developments. GVB must then rely on external advisers such as Rover, independent urban planners, or other experts from the TR’s laboratory (figure 12 and 13) which, through their personal life, have been fol-lowing development in Amsterdam and remember the mistakes, failures and successes of former choices which have made the current transit system. Urban knowledge of the system is a learning process in ‘which people feel their way through a world that is itself in motion, continually coming into being through the combined action of human and nonhuman agencies’ […] and emerging ‘inescapably through engagement with the world around us’ (McFarlan, 2017, p.237). In transport design this knowledge is fundamental:
‘These are in my head. You know the network if you know what is happening, you know the model if you sit in the bus, or in the trams […] I am first a consumer, I observe all the time’
- TR’s designer
Figure 12 - designer (in the center) discussing with external advisers or and non-expert users
Figure 13 - external advisers (politicians) working on the transport games created by GVB
Urban knowledge also can be a way to counter the transport models, which can not integrate this kind of knowledge in the variables they use. As they rely on rational travellers’ behavior, the socio-historical ‘value’ of a line is not inte-grated into transport model. Therefore, this type of expertise is here to remind designers what has been done in the past, and what can or cannot be done. For instance, Rover’s adviser recommended to designers not to withdraw a part of the metro line 53 (Gaasperplas-CS) which was initially part of the new plan (GVB, 2015). GVB eventually forgot its plan. This can also be the case for smaller pieces of advice:
‘When GVB is making the new timetable, they gave it to me to see if they are making any mis-takes. I can read it really fast. There are usually 400 pages, I read it in 1 hour and I can see if there is a mistake […] because I know every single line, and if there is a mistake I will see it’
- Rover’s adviser
Urban knowledge can be understood as an instrument for the ‘stabilization, legitimation, and strength’ of labora-tories in order to avoid incoherence with the historical development of Amsterdam’s transport network. However, conscious, or unconscious mistakes may create conflict, disturbing the very course of design through failed trials which may have been avoided. In summary, both technical objects and urban knowledge are crucial instruments of planners which come to delineate the path of the design. Yet, more significantly, these are also essential instruments to maintain the laboratories’ legitimacy over the scenario of action that is to follow.
