The “Innovations in Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans for low-carbon urban transport” project (acronym “InnovaSUMP”) held a joint meeting on action plans in Thessaloniki, Greece.
The main focus of the InnovaSUMP meeting in Thessaloniki was to facilitate the exchange of experiences, best practice and theoretical insights of partners from the first phase of the InnovaSUMP project. This activity will then support the application of solutions into the SUMPs of each city partner in the second phase of the project, starting in the summer of 2019.
The Municipality of Prague has announced that public transport will be free during declared smog emergencies, in the hope that commuters will leave their cars at home. Air pollution and smog are frequent concerns in major cities throughout the Czech Republic.
The InclusivEV demonstrator project, a €3.8million pan-European project that aims to widen access to electric vehicles (EVs) through an affordable car-sharing scheme, successfully launched its first demonstration site in the UK, in Solihull in the West Midlands in December 2018.
In November 2018, a new service for rail passengers with accessibility needs was successfully tested in the UK. The TOC (Train Operating Companies) Ability platform was developed in a research and development project of the same name that involved representatives from industry and academia.
Following the call for submissions launched on 13 December last year, 600 European startups entered the second edition of the European Startup Prize for Mobility, with the aim of becoming the European mobility champions of tomorrow. Supported by both the European Parliament and the European Commission, the programme aims to promote European startups developing sustainable, safe and inclusive mobility innovations in Europe and beyond.
App purchases in public transport are on the rise in Latvia. Over the course of 2018, mobile payments of public transport and parking tickets helped residents save around 5 minutes for every transaction, which amounts to 55 years’ worth of time in total.
The City Council of Padova has recently adopted the “Bike Master Plan” (BMP) 2018 - 2022. It contains an analysis of the current state of urban cycle paths and a road map to enhance, complete and make more safe cycling routes in Padova.
CIVITAS SUMPs-UP has launched a new photo competition. Ideally, they are looking for images that depict dynamic scenes of different transport modes mixing together in urban environments – the greener, safer and more sustainable the better!
The winning photo will feature as the front cover of the new EU SUMP guidelines - one of the EU’s key mobility planning documents.
Entries should be sent to contact@sumps-up.eu by 6 March 2019, 18.00 CET (Central European Time).
Now is the time to submit your ideas, papers and projects for the foremost global event about walking in Rotterdam. The event theme is; PUTTING PEDESTRIANS FIRST: Smart, Healthy and for Everyone! The submission deadline for the Call for Contributions is 22 February 2019.
In 2025, Denmark wants to see only zero emission taxis on its roads. This objective, alongside a set of actions to support its achievement, was published by the Danish government in January 2019.
The European Parliament is calling for there to be no mandatory liability insurance for pedal-assisted bikes, such as low-power pedelecs. In agreeing its position, Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee rejected a proposal by the European Commission that such vehicles should be subject to mandatory liability insurance.
Rolled out in 2012, the smarter travel project ‘Hike It, Bike It, Like It’ has encouraged the local community of Drimnagh (a Dublin City suburb with more than 12 000 people) to actively acknowledge and adapt how they travel, encouraging more sustainable transport modes. It has been recognised nationally with two 2013 awards and internationally with the Energy Globe award.
Last week's Wednesday, the EU member states adopted the new rules for CO2 emissions standards for cars and vans following an agreement between the EU Presidency and the parliament. Tackling emissions of cars and vans is directed to almost three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions in the road transport sector.
Professor TOM RYE, director of the Transport Research Institute of Edinburgh Napier University will talk about "How do you decide which measures to include in your SUMP to achieve your objectives and fit with your policies? This webinar will set out some straightforward ways to do this, so that your SUMP ultimately contains an package of measures that are implementable but also effective. It will cover in particular the purpose and setting of policies, and multi-criteria analysis"
The webinar is on 7th February 2019, 14:00 CET
The Korean capital Seoul faces a severe parking problem in its low-rise neighbourhoods. Altogether, around 80 % of the city's three million parking violations per year take place in these areas. One reason is that, in contrast to higher density areas, there are few car parks, including underground garages, while the available on-street parking spaces are largely reserved for residents. Residents are entitled to use their allocated parking space at all hours of the day, which effectively excludes others from using these spaces even if they are free.
The Belgian City of Leuven plans to introduce 50 mobility hubs over the next three years in order to improve multimodality in the city. The hubs will bring together different transport modes in one place, such as a bus stop, electric vehicle charging stations and various shared vehicles, including electric cars, bicycles and scooters. The initiative is supported by the EU through an Interreg project, "e-HUBS".
The Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) for Gdansk, Poland, that was completed in summer 2018, has been translated into English.
Gdansk is one of the largest Polish transport nodes of international significance. The city’s SUMP was created as part of the CityMobilNet project, co-funded by the URBACT III program, and implemented in 2016-2018.
Sofia has just signed a EUR 42.5 million contract for the introduction of smart e-ticketing in public transport. The project is financed by the Center for Urban Mobility, Sofia’s municipal company in charge of public transport.
A new service consisting of shared vehicles, especially designed for wheelchair users, is being developed in Italy. The service, Moby, is the first specifically designed to give greater freedom and independence to wheelchair users. It is a type of car sharing service with vehicles that integrate mechanics, ergonomics and intelligent assistance technologies, and which are fully electric and have semi-autonomous driving.
In spite of a recent decline in overall car use in Brussels in recent years, congestion in the Belgian capital is still growing. Recent numbers from Brussels Mobility show that car use dropped by 12 % (measured in passenger km) and 15 % (vehicle km) between 2012 and 2016. This is due to the Brussels-Capital Region implementing a wide range of measures to manage transport demand and to promote modal shift and sustainable transport.
