Europeans in the fast lane

Planners organising Mobility Week 2006 (16-22 September) did not have to look very far when deciding on an overarching theme to define this year’s event. With climate change now perceived as one of the biggest threats facing the world, it was perhaps inevitable that the week’s events should be focused on promoting the sustainable transport policies that will lessen society’s negative impact on the environment.

One of the key messages that organisers of the week want to put across is that each individual can make a contribution to improving air quality in their local area. "The theme has been chosen given the severe need to act. We are calling on local authorities to engage with their own environments and to raise awareness among their citizens, to clarify what getting into a car entails in terms of [climatic] effects," says Ulrike Janssen, of the Climate Alliance of European Cities, which is helping to co-ordinate the event. The week is being co-funded by the European Commission.

Public transport will be accorded a special place in this year’s activities, with ‘intermodality’, or improved links between buses, trams and trains a key priority. "We have actively been promoting this event among our members," says Aline Talabard, press and communications manager at the International Association of Public Transport (UITP), which is one of the organising partners. "Public transport, particularly in urban centres, is an essential part of mobility. There is a wealth of innovative actions that already exist around the world," she says. Initiatives such as free bus services in Hasselt, Belgium, and in Compiègne, France, are particularly noteworthy.

By encouraging their citizens to make more use of buses, trams and trains, local authorities could help to reduce drastically the number of people killed on Europe’s roads (an alarming 45,000 each year).

Local initiatives could potentially give a badly-needed boost to EU efforts to halve the number of road deaths by 2010.

Throughout the EU, 949 towns and cities will be participating in the week’s events. They will be joined by cities in non-EU countries such as Serbia, Canada and Brazil, which have linked up with the EU campaign to launch their own initiatives such as bus lanes, park-and-ride stations, bicycle stands, road safety campaigns and car pooling. "We have slightly lost control of it, which is exactly what we intended," says Barbara Helfferich, European Commission environment spokesperson.

The aims of Mobility Week 2006 are ambitious but it is by no means certain that people will change their habits. The Commission and its partners co-ordinating the week are trying to change the behaviour of citizens who have become immune to endless media coverage of looming environmental catastrophe.

But Helfferich is hopeful. "150 million citizens will be participating," she says, "Even if only a fraction of the 150 million people decides not to take the car to work, it is still making an enormous impact."

Planners organising Mobility Week 2006 (16-22 September) did not have to look very far when deciding on an overarching theme to define this year’s event. With climate change now perceived as one of the biggest threats facing the world, it was perhaps inevitable that the week’s events should be focused on promoting the sustainable transport policies that will lessen society’s negative impact on the environment.