EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK sat down with the 2021 EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK award for larger municipalities winner – Kassel - to learn about the City’s upcoming plans for sustainable mobility development and to collect advice for towns and cities looking to follow in its footsteps.

Creating sustainable urban environments requires improving how people get from A to B, and everywhere in between. The German City of Kassel understands the importance of implementing key changes in local transport to encourage a culture of sustainable mobility. In close collaboration with the District of Kassel and the municipal public transport company NVV, the City’s comprehensive efforts, which include installing road safety signs near schools, the renovation of busy streets to better promote cycling infrastructure, and the organisation of creative awareness-raising activities for children and adults, helped it capture the 2021 EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK award for larger municipalities at an award ceremony in Brussels this spring. Kassel then repeated its success at the German EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK Award ceremony, once again winning recognition for its sustainable mobility efforts.  

So what’s next for Kassel? How will the City continue to foster an inclusive sustainable mobility culture and develop measures that allow people to make more sustainable travel choices? EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK spoke with Christof Nolda, City Councilor and Head of the Department for Urban Development, Building, Environment and Transport, to learn more about what Kassel has in store.

What does winning the EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK award for larger municipalities mean for Kassel?

Winning the award meant recognition and tail wind for our approach. It confirmed that Cities, Districts and regional public transport companies can only benefit from joining forces. It assured us that we are on the right track in sensitising citizens on sustainable mobility. It obliged and encouraged us to continue on a path of transformation towards a more secure, joyful, liveable and sustainable region.

The sustainable mobility journey is one of constant adaptation and improvement. What exciting plans does Kassel have in store for the future?

We will build on the successes of last year and attempt to grow in depth and size, i.e. reaching out to even more citizens, cooperating with even more initiatives and becoming even more interactive. During the EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK, our key focus is on removing (mental) barriers and showcasing alternatives for sustainable mobility. Beyond that, in the next years will see infrastructure developments geared towards the mobility needs of humans – instead of cars.

What advice would you give for cities looking to follow in your footsteps and win the EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK award?

The more interactive and fun your approach, the better. We provided a number of low-threshold activities: Children proudly wore their self-painted high-visibility vests when walking to school. For people requiring a rollator, a dedicated "rollator training" lowered the barrier to use public transport. Meanwhile, a (cargo) bike trial day made mobility alternatives tangible. These activities were not expensive nor too complex to organise – even less so when you team-up with strong partners from administration, public transport and civil society.

Follow along to see what Kassel is planning for this year’s campaign and find out what your own town or city are doing for sustainable mobility, here.

In line with the European Commission’s REPowerEU plan, EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK calls on towns and cities to increase their efforts to implement mobility measures that reduce fuel consumption, while creating a more liveable urban environment for people.

Reducing fuel consumption to create more resilient and liveable cities has always been both a cornerstone of the European Commission’s policy approach to building a better future and a fundamental part of EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK’s campaign to encourage a sustainable mobility culture. With the unwarranted Russian invasion of Ukraine, the need to reduce Europe’s dependency on oil has become even more urgent.

Encouraging a sustainable mobility culture to rapidly reduce fuel dependency

In response to the ongoing war in Ukraine, the EU launched the REPowerEU Plan to help accelerate Europe’s transition to a clean energy infrastructure. Thousands of towns, cities, organisations, schools, associations, and more, participating in EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK are already helping to reduce fuel consumption by encouraging sustainable mobility choices and implementing fuel saving measures.

To continue supporting the reduction of fuel consumption, the REPowerEU plan and EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK are asking towns, cities and people to step up their efforts to implement sustainable mobility measures and to adopt an ‘avoid, shift, improve’ mind-set that will help drastically reduce the use of fuel.

Examples of sustainable urban mobility measures and choices that can easily be organised and replicated across Europe, include:

• Lowering prices for public transport and rail;
• Reducing speed zones;
• Implementing car free zones;
• Creating bike-sharing and micro-mobility schemes;
• Incentivising employees to commute using public transport;
• And more.

Car-Free Days & improved public transport: support EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK & REPowerEU

Two effective ways for EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK participants to support this endeavour, and continue contributing actively to the campaign, are to 1) organise multiple Car-Free Days and 2) improve public transport by implementing relevant permanent measures. These actions will help avoid the use of private vehicles - which are directly correlated to increased fuel consumption - and encourage a shift to trams, metros, buses, bicycles, etc.

Car-Free Days could be organised on a weekly, monthly or ad-hoc basis and have great potential to radically reduce fuel consumption. Meanwhile, to promote a greater shift to public transport use, towns, cities and employers could introduce special offers, additional services or reduced fees.

Over the years, EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK has seen many creative activities that encourage the use of public transport including:

• Offering after-work drinks at nearby bus stops;
• Setting-up commuter challenges;
• Arranging meetings between public transport operators and the public;
• Carrying out surveys to better understand users’ satisfaction and expectations;
• And more.

As towns and cities are registering their participation for the 2022 campaign, EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK urges you to consider actions that will quickly reduce fuel consumption and help eliminate Europe’s dependence on Russian oil.

After ten years of coordinating EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK in Slovenia, Polona Demšar Mitrovič, reflects on the campaign’s impressive growth and the challenges encountered along the way.

Brussels - In May, EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK officially launched its call for registrations from towns and cities for the 2022 campaign year, which will culminate in an exciting week of awareness-raising activities from 16 - 22 September.

As soon as registrations opened, Slovenia emerged as an enthusiastic frontrunner with 93 towns and cities already registered for the 2022 campaign - the most of any country so far. This is a major increase in comparison to the country’s first year of participation ten years ago, when the National Coordinator for Slovenia, Polona Demšar Mitrovič, recalls 20 municipalities participating. After working on the campaign for ten years in the Ministry of Infrastructure in Ljubljana, Slovenia, EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK spoke with Polona about how she helped successfully grow the campaign in Slovenia, what challenges she faced and where the campaign is headed next.

Ten years is quite a long time, especially considering it is half of EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK’s life span! The campaign celebrated its 20th anniversary just last year. What changes have you noticed since you began working on the campaign in Slovenia ten years ago?

Yes, in Slovenia there have been many changes. I can tell you that we started with around 20 to 30 municipalities participating at the beginning and now, in the last two years, we have had over 80 municipalities participating, which is really a big change. But what is even more important for us, than the number of cities participating, is the quality of measures that these cities are implementing. The towns and cities have really transformed their point of view from just promoting sustainable mobility to also creating possibilities for behavioural change. For example, cities and towns are working on permanent measures such as infrastructure for walking, cycling and better public transport. This is what actually allows people to change their travel habits, and this is very important.

That is an impressive increase - from 20 - 30 municipalities to 93 already this year. You mentioned that towns and cities have now moved beyond just proposing new ideas to actually creating opportunities for new sustainable mobility developments, such as permanent measures, to arise. What do you think encouraged this change?

Well, it's a long process. And after ten years of working with different stakeholders, giving them examples of good practice, the changes are already showing. What are the possibilities? Where are the problems? Why are these changes so important? People are more aware of the importance of sustainable mobility and when starting changes at the local level, even the political level is now more aware of sustainable mobility’s importance for its own citizens. So, it was a mixture of different processes: awareness-raising, knowledge-sharing, better living conditions, encouraging altogether healthier lifestyles for citizens, this is what people understand now, which they did not ten years ago.

So in Slovenia, you’ve witnessed people change their understanding of sustainable mobility and how it affects their lives. Have you noticed a similar engagement from young people? What are you doing to involve them in the campaign?

This year is the European Year of Youth and we have started to prepare for an event, because we didn't have such a good experience a few years ago. It was quite hard to get young people on board.

So this year, we connected with different youth organisations in Slovenia. We were discussing how to involve young people, what we should do, and we decided to cooperate with young people directly. So they will show us how to best approach them and what they’ve told us - and it's very important - is not just to listen to them, but to act afterwards; not just to involve them, but to show them that what they told us matters and that we will do this for them. This is what we want.

Indeed, EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK strongly encourages the engagement of young people in all sustainable mobility related activities!

For more information about the European Year of Youth and how to connect better with this audience, visit our dedicated webpage here. To see which towns and cities have already registered for the 2022 campaign, visit our participating towns & cities page.

#BikesForUkraine is an international campaign providing bicycles for aid workers to deliver medication, food and humanitarian aid in Ukraine. Given the lack of fuel and the devastating impact of the Russian military aggression on transport infrastructure, the bicycle has become the most reliable transport mode for delivering urgent humanitarian aid and medical supplies. 

According to the United Nations, 6 million people have fled their homes in Ukraine to seek refuge in neighboring countries. Meanwhile, an estimated 6.5 million people are believed to be displaced within the country itself.

For those forced to flee to other countries, the European Union is offering key information in Ukrainian and Russian on how to best prepare and travel within the EU. However, for people that have chosen to remain in Ukraine to offer humanitarian aid to those who are unable to escape, a grass-roots campaign spearheaded by the Kyiv Cyclists’ Association (U-Cycle), Eco Misto (Chernihiv), Youth Association Extreme Style (Sumy), Urban Reform (Kharkiv) and FORZA (Uzhhorod) has emerged to increase the mobility of volunteers so that they able to reach those who need their help most.

#BikesforUkraine is an international campaign that calls on cycling community organisations, international and European institutions, and towns and cities for support. Among the many devastating consequences of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian mobility infrastructure and public transport have been damaged, making it almost impossible to travel within and between cities. As a result, the bicycle has surfaced as the main mode of transport and often is the only option for volunteers to deliver critical health and humanitarian services.

To ensure humanitarian aid is accessible in different Ukrainian cities, #BikesforUkraine is asking for help.

You can support by:

• Independently purchasing bicycles abroad or in Ukraine and transferring them to U-Cycle;
• Collecting and repairing used bicycles in your city and organising their transfer to Ukraine;
• If you are a cycling business – donating bicycles;
• Funding the purchase of bicycles in Ukraine via bank transfer or PayPal transfer to U-Cycle.

Bank transfer information:

Account number: UA403052990000026001006209584
Bank: CB PRIVATBANK Kiev
Bank code 305299
PayPal: nastia.makarenko7@gmail.com
Anastasiia Makarenko is an Executive Director of U-Cycle, Kyiv Cyclists’ Association.

Your donations will help purchase:
• 1 new bicycle – 250 euros
• 1 used bicycle – 100 euros
• 1/2 of a used bicycle – 50 euros
• 1/4 of a used bicycle – 25 euros
• Cable lock for a bicycle – 10 euros

By supporting #BikesforUkraine, you can help simplify logistics for vital humanitarian aid and support the Ukrainian economy. To help, fill in the form: https://forms.gle/66J2U5QBBo2ufRwf8

#BikesforUkraine also accepts requests for bicycles from organisations, youth centres and humanitarian hubs in Ukraine. Priority is given to cities and villages that are severely affected by hostilities and where public transport and infrastructure are inoperative. The initiative will also consider applications from cities accepting displaced persons. Apply for bikes here: https://forms.gle/M6Ago7zsCdhrHCDb9

Supporters of this initiative include the staff of the European Commission.

As Türkiye’s (Turkey) National Coordinator for the EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK campaign, Ayben Okkali Aktaş believes it’s important to practise what you preach.

Brussels - In 2021, the EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK campaign recorded its highest ever participation of towns and cities across Europe, and beyond. Türkiye boasted an astonishing number of registrations, with 617 towns and cities organising awareness-raising activities, implementing permanent measures or hosting a Car-Free Day.

As EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK prepares to launch the 2022 campaign, we sat down with Ayben Okkali Aktaş to discuss the importance of sustainable mobility role models, integrated campaign planning, the European Year of Youth and challenges related to the rising popularity of e-scooters in Türkiye. Ayben works for the Union of Municipalities in Türkiye and has been the National Coordinator since 2018.

Turkish towns and cities have demonstrated a strong interest in EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK over the past couple of years. Nevertheless, many people may not know about sustainable mobility or related behaviours. How do you think we can continue to increase awareness and, more importantly, encourage behavioural change?

Yes, I think it's an excellent question. And I appreciate you giving me a chance to discuss this. So it's clear that we have problems related to global urbanisation, not only in Turkish cities, but also in European cities and other parts of the world as well. And we have heavy traffic, problems with air and water quality, and environmental disasters that are happening due to climate change and so on. That's why we have to move toward sustainability. We have to find a solution for sustainability and we have to find a solution for public transportation because we need to be mobile; this is a human right: to go to work, follow an education and so on.

A good starting point is to invest in infrastructure, of course, and we should provide alternative forms of transport in our cities. We should also work to reduce citizens’ dependence on cars. This is very important, especially for short distances where we need to encourage our citizens to ride or to walk, or just to use public transportation. We should encourage our citizens to use alternative modes of transportation, like a car-sharing system.

Most importantly, from my point of view, we should increase awareness in the younger generation by being the ones who are setting a good example of these behaviours. While doing this, we should include city stakeholders, local partners, universities, cycling organisations, and so on.

I would like to point out that I walk from my apartment to my office. I know that I am a minority. I live in a metropolitan city, which has 6 million inhabitants. I am very lucky because my office is only one and a half kilometres away from my home. I don't have a car and I don't have a driver's licence, actually, because I am not interested in driving a car. I walk to work because I was born and raised in a small town.

My father was a municipal employee and he was always riding a bicycle or walking to work. So when I was growing up, I saw him riding a bicycle to go to the office and come back every day, sometimes four times a day, because he was going back and forth for lunch and then he'd go to the office and back home again, by bicycle or by walking.

And to get to the main point, to change our citizens’ mobility related behaviour, we should understand their needs first. This is important. We need to also work with children. We should be role models for them and then I believe we can influence their behaviour and integrate sustainable mobility into their lives. If we say you should choose sustainable mobility methods, but after the speech is delivered, we drive a car, it won’t work.

Your father’s mobility habits clearly had a big impact on you growing up. Being a role model is important. It doesn’t encourage anyone to adapt or change if we don’t practise what we preach.

I am located in between two bus stops and each of them is only two minutes away by foot. I can take a bus to go to the office, or I could use shared taxis, but this is not necessary. It's not only my office though; I also prefer to go to other places by walking. I always choose walking if it is less than two kilometres or I walk to one stop, then change my mode of transport and go by metro or bus. Sometimes, I even use E-scooters. We have E-scooter systems in some cities in Türkiye. I always do my best not to ask my relatives to drive me someplace. Instead, I always search for alternative methods of transport.

You mentioned the importance of having role models for children, what about young people between the ages of 18-25. What is Türkiye doing to engage with young people for the European Year of Youth?

I think we should start by investing in children, but of course, we need to reach young people who are older than 18, but are still young adults. So mostly university students in our cities. They don't usually have enough income to afford a car; car sharing systems could be an okay solution, but still, they need more sustainable methods of transportation. Basically, they need public transportation. So to change their outlook on car dependency and to search for alternative methods, like public transportation and beyond, we need to work with young people.

We need to make a real connection with young people: we have to go to them and ask what do you need?
For example, I am thinking about adding one more stop in front of your university. What do you think about that? Do you think you need it? Or do you need another direction to go by bus? We need to go and talk with young people about what they want.

It’s important to hear about their needs directly from their mouths.

We already have organised events for young people, but that doesn’t always work so well. Instead, we intend to organise events with young people and we need to include them more and more. Every year if we reach, for example, 100 young people from one city, the next year we should reach more university associations or bicycle federations or other NGOs. We just need to go and knock on their door and ask their opinion.

It's great that you mentioned this because we know young people want to participate and that they have a lot to contribute. So allowing them to organise an event with you will help ensure they are part of the solution.

I will say one more thing: so this past year, many of the municipalities organised great events in Türkiye. For example, there are the traffic-teaching campuses in our municipalities and they teach children how to ride a bike. However, they make an effort to include the parents, especially mothers, who don't know how to ride a bicycle. They integrate not only the children, but also the parents. So the kids also influence the parents’ or their family’s behaviour.

If the municipalities brought all the children to these campuses for a day, this would be a very enjoyable experience for the children and would work with mothers, or parents, at the same time to change their behaviour.

Engaging young people and families is very important. Could you share some advice on how to reach out to local partners in different organisations so that you can build those connections too?

Of course. So in our organisation, we organise at least two main events every year. One is organised with our President, Fatma Şahin. She joins us during a press conference where we invite journalists to brief them about the theme of EUROPEANMOBILITYWEEK for the year, and also to inform citizens and municipalities about upcoming events.

For the second event, we always organise a kick-off event or a final event, which is done in a different municipality each time. We invite the district municipalities to join us as well. As a host, the Union of Municipalities of Türkiye does most of the organisation. For example, in 2019, we invited other public institutions to join the campaign. One good example was that we invited the General Directorate of Turkish Post Offices to distribute their packages and letters by walking, and they joined the campaign. And of course, it was a successful event because we also registered their activities as MOBILITYACTIONS. We also invited other ministries to join our campaign and to encourage their staff members to ride bicycles to go to the office or to walk. It was a successful cooperation! As I already said, it is important to include local stakeholders, schools, parents and bicycle associations. We always recommend our municipalities do this.

Is there anything exciting that you would like to share that's coming up for this year’s campaign in Türkiye?

In the past, E-scooters were not that popular in Türkiye, but in the last two years they have become more and more popular. After the restrictions of the pandemic, people, and especially young people, decided to choose E-scooters, however, they are not always riding scooters safely because they don't wear helmets. So we decided to focus on safety and we are planning to organise some informative campaigns on social media about safety first. And, of course, we are working on the regulation of E-scooters in Türkiye because people are still confused about where to park and how to leave the scooters when they are done using them. We don’t want the E-scooters to cause any problems for parents with a baby carriage or people in wheelchairs, elderly people that might be accompanied by someone on the street, etc. So we need to think about these people as well when informing people about how to use scooters, and we don’t want people to leave scooters in pedestrian areas. We are planning to focus more on safety and thinking about how other citizens that are living with us are affected by these decisions.

Basically, we have many things to do! And in my organisation we have an amazing team; we are young and energetic, and ready to work. So let's see.