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How Stockholm, Madrid, and Munich meet the challenges of sustainable urban mobility
Sustainability is at the core of European policies in any area imaginable – from social cohesion and economic measures to face the challenges of today to environmental and energy sustainability.
Transport is one of the industries that pollutes the most and bears the responsibility for a very large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions in urban areas. Three cities in Europe are fighting this problem under Horizon 2020 CIVITAS ECCENTRIC program.
Some of the main goals of ECCENTRIC are sustainable mobility in suburban areas and innovative freight logistics. Currently, it is under development in 5 living labs spread on the continent – Stockholm (Sweden), Turku (Finland), Madrid (Spain), Munich (Germany) and Ruse (Bulgaria).
These labs serve as testing grounds for clean technologies, vehicles, and fuels. This, of course, is accompanied by research and discussions on the formulation of new regulations and their resulting services. Discussions are conducted most often between the public and private sectors in order to meet the needs of both citizens and the business.
Under this project, the Municipality of Stockholm is working with three SMEs – UbiGo, SnappCar, and GoMore, companies that develop different projects to achieve three of the main goals of the project:
UbiGo is developing the first mobility-as-a-service service. It involves the creation of a mobile application that will make available information about public transport, car sharing, rental cars, and city bikes. The application will be something like a travel planner with subscription plans for the different types of transport.
SnappGo and GoMore, on the other hand, are working towards peer-to-peer car-sharing services. These will be organized around neighbourhoods and will allow people living in one area to share their car for transport. It will also have the option for people to provide their car when they don`t need or use it.
These two major projects are expected to achieve the overall aim to raise awareness when it comes to car-light lifestyle thus reducing traffic jams and harmful emissions. Different mobility suppliers are also partners of this project.
The project is also financed under Horizon 2020 and has as its main goal smart parking management in peripheral business areas through prioritizing clean and high occupancy vehicles.
All the measures that have been investigated and researched under the project aim to reduce the overall number of vehicles entering the business centres of the capital and, as a more far-reaching goal – to reduce pollution by exhaust fumes.
Since the beginning of the project, several potential areas for smart parking have been identified. Currently, a test area is set up in order to examine the advantages and disadvantages of the project, the potential problems and how they can be solved, etc.
Germany is one of the countries that have very well-developed biking routes and riding a bike to work is something that is promoted and widely popular.
Under Horizon 2020, Munich is developing a scheme that aims at a sustainable and affordable e-trike sharing scheme for citizens with reduced mobility.
The e-trike is something as a novelty in the bike fleet of this German city. It can be booked through a mobile application – eTrikeapp. E-trikes are relatively more expensive than normal bikes and this project gives a solution to the problem for citizens that are both with reduced mobility and can`t afford the price.
Munich develops one more interesting and novelty project, this time in the field of freight transport. In order to reduce the number of trucks entering the city centre, the City Council has introduced the so-called cargo bikes. They will serve as delivery trucks for smaller packages. Due to certain space limitations in the city centre, they are a good option. In addition, they are much more sustainable and environmentally friendly than trucks, don`t create congestions and are easy to park.
The expected results are to reduce the amount of car and truck deliveries by 5%.
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The three cities present some of the best examples of how small projects can deliver big results in the future. The development of these can serve as a basis for other big European cities to improve their transport policies and make them more sustainable and environmentally-friendly.
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