Temporal Efficiency, Temporal Justice and Urban Mobility

Urban areas are producers of the most productive and maybe efficient artefacts of humankind. They are characterised by different types of rhythms and temporal structures. The contribution analyses temporal (in)efficiencies in urban mobility and illustrates how these inefficiencies might be measured and made transparent. Exploring temporal inefficiencies and rhythms in transport and mobility offers hints at differences in mobility access and the distribution of space and time, that reach beyond pure questions of efficiency. Urban mobility involves important questions about equal and just mobility chances and options for all users of a city. Hence, temporal inefficiencies in urban mobility also raise questions about temporal inequalities and injustice and might call for redistributive action. To get to terms with temporal justice, the relations between transparency, equal access and individual temporal autonomy are disentangled. The right to one’s own time is taken as a yardstick for an urban space-–time policy, which is also oriented to temporal justice. The concept of temporal justice is not yet established, but the authors are convinced, that temporal justice should get more attention in the development of a more time-related welfare policy.