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Hydrogen-based vehicle technology in the electric transport sector is starting to compete with conventional fuels, such as diesel and petrol, for long distances. Its benefits include that it is quiet, does not need long to refuel and it emits only water.

The Finnish town of Kerava is one of the few European cities that will trial the use of electric buses powered by fuel cells.

Fuel-cell buses are an interesting solution for public transport because they produce no carbon dioxide or particulate emissions and thus have a low impact on the environment. The vehicles generate electricity from hydrogen, stored in high pressure tanks, combined with oxygen from the air. This chemical reaction in the cells leaves only water and heat as by-products.

In Valencia, Spain, new methods are be trialled to monitor the performance of hybrid and electric buses in order to minimise pollution.

As part of the trial, hybrid and electric buses will have sensors to monitor their power consumption and passenger comfort. Researchers will use these data to improve the performance of public transport and to reduce pollution

A report on the outcome of the most recent meeting of the G20 Transport Task Group (TTG) on the future of mobility has been published. 

The new public bike sharing system of the Italian Municipality of Trieste was officially inaugurated on Monday, 3 February 2020 in the city's Piazza Libertà.

The Italian capital, Rome, has recently released a new urban mobility plan that follows the principles of a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP). 

Cities are invited to join the CIVITAS network to learn and take part in exciting initiatives alongside other, like-minded European cities.

The CiViTAS Park4SUMP project works to improve the integration of innovative parking management solutions into Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans. In February 2020, Park4SUMP published a new brochure on “Good reasons and principles for Parking Management”.

Public transport, walking and cycling in cities are still the most environmentally sustainable mobility options, even with the introduction of electric scooters and car ride-hailing, according to a recent report from the European Environment Agency (EEA).

Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia, is taking steps towards more sustainable urban mobility thanks to a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

A lack of funding has always been a barrier to the implementation of bold measures in favour of clean transport in the city, despite the wide support from local politicians for such measures. Now the city is initiating a project on urban mobility worth €246 million, €50 million of which will come in the form of a structured loan from the EIB. The agreement was signed at the end of 2019.

In 2019, the Finnish capital Helsinki recorded, for the first time since it started recording the relevant statistics, a year with no pedestrian fatalities from road traffic accidents.

The Finnish capital keeps, as do many cities, statistics on road traffic accidents and has been doing so since 1960. Only in 2019, did Helsinki, for the first time, record a year with no pedestrian fatalities from road traffic.

The EU research programme Horizon 2020 has created Vital Nodes which is a project that aims to improve the interconnection around Europe whilst developing sustainable mobility in the urban areas of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).  Vital Nodes concentrated on the multi and inter-modal connections between long-distance and last-mile freight logistics.

New public funds are available to promote innovative new initiatives with the aim of improving transport and mobility across Italy. In particular, the allocation of a €50 million fund is the result of a fruitful collaboration between the Ministry of Economic Development (MISE) and the Agency for Digital Italy (Agid) that will identify the areas where the public administration is most in need of innovation.

An EU-funded research project has just published a report about how to develop public transport outside of cities in order to improve accessibility and to reduce exclusion.  

A new study has identified the urban design features that help to reduce accidents and injuries on the roads of major global cities.

The study, published by “The Lancet Planetary Health”, investigated how urban design is influencing road accidents and injuries. Researchers categorised 1,632 cities world-wide into nine design types based on each city's urban design characteristics taken from a sample of maps. The categories ranged from cities with well organised road and rail networks to those where public transport hardly exists and the urban area is well spread out.

The region including the French capital Paris, Ile-de-France, is launching a call for expressions of interest for new projects in the freight and logistics sectors. The region will fund initiatives aimed at the supply, circulation, storage, distribution, delivery and removal of goods throughout different business areas.

As in many other regions, in Ile-de-France consumption habits are changing. The growth and demands of e-commerce are leading to a need to bring storage centres and end consumers closer together.

After a series of fatal accidents involving trucks making a turn and cyclists, Hamburg plans to equip the entire urban fleet with turning assistant systems in an effort to improve the safety of vulnerable road users. The measure was announced on 22 January 2020 by Hamburg’s Senators for the Interior, Andy Grote, and Transport, Michael Westhagemann, who invited private transport companies in Hamburg to join the initiative.

Eltis recently reported that the UK city of Birmingham plans to restrict vehicular access to the city centre in an effort to reduce air pollution and promote mode change. The Birmingham transport plan has been modelled on ideas that were first introduced in Ghent’s zone-centred traffic circulation plan of 2017.