The region of Attica supports OASA with modern and environmentally friendly buses

The region of Attica promotes the “green” urban transport.

More specifically it supports the Athens Urban Transport Organization S.A. by financing the supply of 92 hi-tech buses, with a budget of 30,000,000 euros. The aim is to achieve the minimum possible environmental footprint and meet the requirements of the European and national legislation.

The purpose is the reduction of the pollutant emissions and the operating vehicles’ costs, as well as the overall improvement concerning the public transportation services. It concerns the supply of 92 new urban buses hi-tech that will offer high lever security and comfort to citizens. In more detail, it consists of 20 medium sized vehicles, 60 large sized articulated buses and 12 low power electric buses that maintain their own movement autonomy.

​The replacement of certain types of older vehicles used by OASA is necessary, as they tend to surpass their maximum permitted level of usage. At the same time, the pioneering choice of technology of electric buses ensures the minimization of the pollutant emissions in relation with the diesel buses and also highlights the current appearance of the transport system towards the benefit of the environment and its citizens.

For more information: click here.

Policymakers should not give up on multimodality

As the EU moves into the era of “smart mobility”, Dan Wolff wonders whatever happened to the idea of multimodal transport. Just because road freight innovates faster than other modes doesn’t mean policymakers should give up on multimodality, he argues in this interesting article.

​Back in 2001, the European Commission was all about modal shift from road to greener transport modes. In the 2010s, multimodality and intermodality became the new EU religion for transport. It seems that we are now moving to an era of smart mobility, regardless of how many modes are involved.

Rail freight struggles to remain competitive and continues to lose market shares. While the EU average modal share of rail freight reaches 18%, the road sector still reigns supreme with 75% despite being responsible for over 70% of transport greenhouse gas emissions. This is far from the objective set by the 2011 White Paper on Transport, which called for shifting “30% of road freight over 300 km to multimodal transport by 2030, and more than 50% by 2050”.

​Policymakers should not give up on multimodality just because road innovates faster than other modes. However, the future of rail freight also lies in its own ability to innovate (interoperability, automation, signalling, noise mitigation…).

Dan Wolff is managing partner at  Eurotran, an advisory firm specialised in EU transport policies. Laure Roux is a consultant at Eurotran.

​For more information: click here.

Urban Transport Roadmaps Tool from DG Move

The urban transport roadmaps tool is a web-based tool to help city authorities develop urban transport roadmaps that address the most pressing environmental, social and economic issues faced by their transportation systems between now and 2030. The tool was launched in April 2016.

The tool provides cities with the ability to identify, develop, screen and assess different transport policies and measures. In particular, it helps cities to quickly and easily assess the likely costs and impacts of measures that could help them improve the sustainability of their transport systems. Cities can explore combinations of different policy scenarios and assess the impacts of these scenarios on the environment, safety, mobility, the economy and the city’s transport system. This type of scenario analysis helps cities to rapidly identify which policy measures are likely to be useful in supporting their own urban transport sustainability goals.

A key benefit of the tool is that users do not need any prior experience in transport modelling. The tool has been developed for DG Move by Ricardo Energy & Environment and Trasporti e Territorio.

For more information: click here.

European Transport Innovation Challenge 2017

The EU is committed to cutting CO2 emissions by at least 40% by 2030 and by 80% by 2050. With transportation accounting for one quarter of CO2 emissions, there is a need to radically transform the way people and goods are transported.

The European Commission launches the European Transport Innovation Challenge 2017, a new award offered to young transport innovators for creative solutions for goods and services that will contribute to reducing CO2 emissions in transport. This Challenge will help move the EU along the path of decarbonisation and sustainable growth.

The solutions can be the result of research, can be in any transport mode, and in many different sectors linked to transport, such as solutions in healthcare, retail or food sectors. The key word is innovation.

The prize will be an all-expenses trip for 12 young innovators aged 18-35 to Strasbourg (France) for the ITS Congress and Exhibition in June 2017.

The deadline for applications is 2 May 2017 at midnight.

For more information: click here.

Rewarding behaviour change from EPOMM

Making individual travel behaviour more sustainable is a difficult task. The ordinary management strategies are based on punishment and enforcement. However, it is accepted that people are more motivated when rewarded rather than punished, because of the creation positive associations with the behaviour. According to NBS report on Driving Social Change, people should have three elements in order to achieve changing behaviour: the ability, the opportunity and the motivation to change. It is clear that for triggering motivation, rewards are an excellent tool and could be either material (money) or virtual (rankings).

Directive for Alternative Fuels Infrastructure development in Greek legislation

The proposal regarding the incorporation of alternative fuels infrastructure Directive into the Greek legislation has been given for public consultation a few days ago. The Directive’s goal is to minimize the dependence on conventional liquid fuels and to limit the environmental impact of the current transportation system.

The proposal, among others, sets the minimum requirements for constructing the alternative fuels infrastructures, as well as the technical specifications regarding the recharging and the refuel points. Moreover, it defines the most convenient means to be adapted, in order to properly inform the users.

For more information: click here.

ENGATIA ODOS measures the environmental pollution

“EGNATIA ODOS S.A.” aiming to prevent and minimize the environmental and health impact will implement a new set of measurements related to environmental pollution using two mobile Air Quality Monitoring Stations in North Greece during June. Simultaneously, the company is trying to develop and implement a simulation model for the calculation of carbon footprint which takes into account the contribution of the road axis as a linear emission source. For more information click here.

EU Travel: an optimodal platform

The potential societal, environmental and economic benefits of multimodal travel information, planning and ticketing services are huge. Societal benefits arise from supporting passenger rights to information, including those with special needs. Environmental benefits result from itineraries optimised for environmental criteria and increased use of public transport and other modes, such as cycling and walking. Economic benefits include new business opportunities for service providers in a growing market.

EuTravel delivers an Ecosystem promoting and supporting Optimodal travel which is populated with tools that tap into existing mainstream IT travel reservation systems and sources of travel data.

Environmental Impact of GYM project

GYM platform is expected to encourage car drivers to shift to public transport by promoting co-modal and environmentally efficient transport patterns and reducing CO2 emissions. For every individual who stops using his/her private automobile, the amount of emissions that can be saved is on average 205g CO2 eq. / pkm.

On the other hand, every person shifting towards the public transport does not necessarily increase the amount of CO2 eq. produced by the public transport sector, since the vehicle would anyway be operating on the same route with or without the additional traveller (assuming that the weight of additional passenger does not increase significant the total weight of the vehicle).

Not just move, but green your move!

As journey planning platforms are gaining more and more ground in the field of individuals’ transportations, more and more countries in Europe are trying to develop their own journey planning platforms.

Some of these platforms are country level, such as the “IDOS” in Czechs Republic and the “9292” in The Netherlands, but there is also the Irish “Hit the road”, which helps commuters plan their route exclusively in the city of Dublin. Other journey planners cover all means of transport, such as the “Rutebok.no” in Norway, which includes rail, public transport, ferry, air, cycling and walking in its options, and other cover only daily use means of transport such as the Austrian “Scotty”, which includes rail, public transport and walking in its options. Additionally, there are journey planners which provide fare information such as the “SBB Online Fahrplan” in Switzerland and the “NMBS – SNCB” in Belgium. All these options are really helpful, but they are not enough!