European Mobility Week

The European Mobility Week participation report came out a few days ago with interesting facts about this top European action on promoting sustainable mobility. European Mobility Week and the Car-Free Day are major awareness raising campaigns aiming at sensibilising citizens to the use of public transport, cycling, walking and at encouraging European cities to promote these modes of transport and to invest in the new necessary infrastructures.

 This year 2.268 cities participated with an estimated population of more than 156 million people. The tenth anniversary edition of the European Mobility Week set a new record again in terms of participation – the sixth consecutive one!

As in the previous year, the cities mainly focussed on:

•       Mobility management, such as launching awareness-raising campaigns, elaborating educational materials, or developing urban mobility plans.
•       Accessibility, such as lowering and enlarging pavements, removing architectonic barriers, or creating wheelchair ramps.
•       New or improved bicycle facilities, with enhancements to both bicycle networks and facilities such as bicycle stands in public areas.

Even though it is a European event, a lot of cities from countries outside Europe participated: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Taiwan, USA where amongst them. Unfortunately no city from Australia participated in this promotional event. Let’s hope next year Gold Coast will be the first Australia city to support Mobility Week.

Principles of Sustainable Mobility

Sustainable mobility or sustainable transport is the basic theory behind mobility management.
But what is sustainable mobility?  There are many definitions available in bibliography. My personal favourite is the one from World Business Council for Sustainable Development that in 2001 defined sustainable mobility “as the ability to meet the needs of society to move freely, gain access, communicate, trade, establish relationships without sacrificing other essential human or ecological values, today or in the future”.

So the basic principles behind sustainable mobility and mobility management are:

EQUITY Inter and Intra generation

Mobility that

•       fulfill the rights of every person regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, social and economic status.
•       meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

HEALTH for people and environment

Mobility that

•      supports complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.
•       provides options for people while remaining within the carrying capacity of the local, regional and global environments.

PROGRESS Satisfy people needs, provisioning, prosperity, joy

Mobility that

•       aims in satisfying people needs for transportation, reducing transportation cost, preparing and equipping infrastructure networks.
•       reduces people tension, anxiety and anger while enhances their prosperity and joy.

EMPOWERMENT participation, options

Mobility that

•       increases the spiritual, political, social, or economic strength of individuals and communities.
•       encourages people active participation and aims at providing people with more options.

CULTURE diversity, individuality, joy

Mobility that

•       respects cultural diversity and encourages cultural production.
•       enhances individuality and works towards happier local communities.

What is mobility management?

Mobility management is the act of organizing people and resources efficiently and effectively so as to accomplish desired goals and objectives in the field of urban traffic and transportation.

The European Platform in Mobility Management (EPOMM.eu) defines:
Mobility Management (MM) is a concept to promote sustainable transport and manage the demand for car use by changing travellers’ attitudes and behaviour.
At the core of Mobility Management are "soft" measures like information and communication, organising services and coordinating activities of different partners. “Soft” measures most often enhance the effectiveness of "hard" measures within urban transport (e.g., new tram lines, new roads and new bike lanes).
Mobility Management measures (in comparison to "hard" measures) do not necessarily require large financial investments and may have a high benefit-cost ratio.

Mobility management can help cities and people living in cities, regardless of city size to improve everyday traffic conditions in an easy and most of all inexpensive way. 

Car2Go anyone?

Three years ago a new concept in city transport started in Ulm Germany. Daimler introduced a fleet of  300 Smart fortwo's cars in a car sharing scheme. The idea is pretty simple : Whenever you need a car, one of the car2go vehicles will be waiting for you. Get in, use it for as long as you want to, then simply leave it at any parking space within the operating area. The car2go operating area currently covers Ulm and Neu-Ulm. Various car2go parkspots which are near to department stores and other popular areas are available.
Cost is  24 cents per minute including  fuel, service, taxes, insurance, maintenance etc. Moreover, for one hour a maximum price of 12,90 euros applies. All of that without security deposit and monthly fee. Only a one-time registration fee of 19,00 euros becomes due and will be charged to your banking account.
In Ulm and Neu Ulm they instantly loved it. Daimler realised they had something that can make a difference.  Many European and American cities inquired about the project. So now the same car2go car sharing scheme works in Vancouver, Austin and San Diego in America and Hambourg, Amsterdam, Wien and Lyon in Europe. In San Diego Daimler is trying emission-free electric vehicles.
I dont know if this advanced car sharing scheme is "The first personal public transport" as Car2Go website  claims but surely is a thing that we will be viewing more and more in the years to come.
Any Australian cities interested?

Welcome to mobility management Australia

I want to welcome you all to Mobility Management Australia blog.

In this blog I will try to inform you on issues of mobility management and the way they can provide solutions to traffic and transportation problems in Australian cities. This is a blog for everyone and not just traffic and transportation engineers and planners. So I will try to make it as simple as possible and avoid using "heavy" scientific terms.

There will be information on what is Mobility Management and what is sustainable mobility. There will be also information on practical solutions adopted by Australian and European cities that helped them tackle traffic problems. There will  be also interesting mobility and urban practices and article links.
The rest you will see them in time.

Hope you enjoy
Kyriakos Tyrologos
Traffic, Transportation and Urban Planner
Gold Coast
QLD