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This week we try to visualize the possible changes in the use of public space, to improve air quality and reduce pollution. This year's theme was "For emissions-free mobility", with the aim of taking measures to neutralize carbon emissions by 2050.
The main objectives of the European Mobility Week have been the following:
· Stimulate citizen behavior, in relation to the use of the vehicle, compatible with sustainable urban development, in particular with the protection of air quality with the consequent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the rational consumption of energy resources.
· Raise public awareness of the environmental impacts of transport and inform them about its different modalities.
· Promote the use of sustainable means of transport and, in particular, public transport, cycling, walking and electric vehicles.
· Promote a reunion of citizens with the city, its people and its cultural heritage, in a healthy and relaxed environment.
· Reflect on how the excessive use of motorized transport affects our health. On the one hand, the air pollution and congestion they generate have a negative impact on the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. On the other hand, they promote sedentary lifestyle and physical inactivity.
Citizens already demand ecological and competitive vehicles to move around the city in a sustainable way and with clean air, as it represents a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions and spends 36% of the consumption of energy in Spain. This fact will mean that sustainable mobility will be in the majority much earlier than we think and with increasingly mature technologies and moving rapidly towards price parity with the traditional one.
In this way, we will be able to free the street from the overload that represents the excess of private mobility with motor transport modes and encourage the equitable distribution of space without any mode of transport having preeminence over the rest. Guarantee universal mobility to give priority to the most sustainable travel systems: mobility on foot, by bicycle and by public transport. Incorporate mobility planning into urban and territorial instruments to reduce demand and the number of trips in unsustainable modes of transport. And give resources to citizens for their sustainable mobility and promote their active participation and co-responsibility in local decision-making.
In this way, we will move responsibly and considering the impacts that each mode of transport has on the well-being of people, the quality of the urban environment and the environment.
Sustainable mobility planning
A first step in the process of improving mobility on the local road network has to do with the study of local viability: flows and speed of vehicles, direction of roads, modal distribution, degree of satisfaction of people using the public road, level of use of public transport, etc. This information is essential to introduce changes in the arrangement of the basic network so that traffic is more fluid and coexistence between all means and systems of travel is calm, safe and satisfactory for all parties.
Based on this information, progress can be made in the elaboration of a Mobility Master Plan (PDM) that includes both the current state of the territory and future forecasts. The PDM must be the result of a multidisciplinary reflection between urbanism, transport and the environment that allows the implementation of a policy of sustainable mobility to find a balance between the needs of people and the functions of the city and the territory as a whole. .
Traffic plans designed under the premise of moderating traffic and improving safety are based on the creation of compartments in the urban fabric. This option is the most appropriate to ensure the balance between accessibility and environmental quality. Each means of transport must be integrated into a network strategy that includes the intermodality and continuity of itineraries in order to superimpose and make compatible the various elements that form part of it (general traffic, public transport, car network, pedestrians, bicycles).
On the other hand, the impetus towards a more sustainable and safer model of urban mobility also involves drawing up plans that integrate industrial estates, work centers and shopping or leisure centers into the mobility and leisure network. global accessibility of the municipality. As in the case of urban mobility plans, the actions that can be carried out to move forward do not depend on a single social or economic agent, but must be carried out through collaboration and cooperation. of all the sectors involved: industries and companies, transport operators, competent administrations, and users.
On the other hand, confinement has highlighted weaknesses and potentialities from urban environments. The coronavirus has required us to make an extra effort to improve safety measures on both individual and collective travel.
And if we do not remedy this, the decline in the use of public transport will leave us with an increase in private vehicles moving, and therefore a worsening of the levels of air and noise pollution, and probably the saturation and collapse of the tickets to our cities.
We must act to promote other sustainable and healthy ways of moving around cities in a new normalcy that will be marked. What measures can we take?
Well, we can take, among other measures, pedestrian mobility, public transport, bicycles, private transport at 30 km / h, electric mobility and others: such as new technologies that allow us to reduce, manage and program mobility in a better way. , information and dissemination campaigns.
Europe is trying to encourage change, in this particular case with all the problems of air quality and high energy consumption that we have, what is happening to vehicles that consume a lot and pollute a lot to vehicles that have almost 0 or no emissions.
The aid that has been heard, such as the MOVES II program with a budget of 100 million euros to boost the economy and sustainable mobility (has doubled compared to 2019) also includes aid to vehicles new, because if not all those users, whether people or companies who want to purchase cars that do not meet the scrapping criteria could not participate. In the background we are introducing as much as possible cars that pollute very little in the market.
What is subsidized in this program? The acquisition of passenger cars, light vans, motorcycles and quadricycles that are electric, hydrogen fuel cell, heavy vans (including gas), minibuses, trucks (including gas) and buses. -Non-plug-in hybrids and gas vehicles are not subsidized.
It is estimated that the MOVES II program would generate savings of around 14 ktoe, with avoided emissions of around 40,252 tonnes of CO2.
Rethinking our mobility habits and assessing the positive effects of the changes we can introduce is the most powerful tool we have from municipalities and the key to moving towards a more sustainable collective mobility model and tackling the climate emergency, creating friendlier, safer, healthier and cleaner spaces.
In short, more efficient, safe, equitable, competitive, calm and healthy.
Industrial and technological opportunity are factors to be taken into account in the promotion of administrations for electric mobility and the decarbonisation of transport. It is our responsibility to deal with the climate emergency.
College of Industrial Technical Engineers of Tarragona
Tarragona, 5 October 2020