The CIVITAS Forum 2019 registered a record number of 650 participants gathered in Graz, Austria, to share ideas and best practices on how to make mobility in European cities more sustainable. This year’s theme was Back to the Future.

ECF work

The revised and updated version of the SUMP guidelines has been released at the CIVITAS Forum 2019, to support cities even more in their efforts to create an integrated Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan. This is the first update of the Guidelines, initially published in 2013, that had such a great impact on helping cities improve the way they are designed and making their mobility systems more sustainable. Together with the guidelines, a series of 'Practitioner briefings' were published, including one on how to fully integrate cycling in sustainable urban mobility planning, written by ECF.

ECF was also featured at the Achieving Vision Zero session on road safety, outlining the urgency of this issue and proposing effective solutions to be implemented right away. A staggering 25,000 people die every year on European roads and 135,000 are seriously injured. In this framework, Ceri Woolsgrove, ECF Road Safety Policy Officer, clearly stated that

Cities should demand more European funding from national governments for cycling infrastructure and projects

ECF’s projects

Several of the projects in which the European Cyclists’ Federation is involved were present at the CIVITAS Forum in Graz. Susanne Wrighton from FGM Amor joined a panel discussion on how cities can operate urban logistics more efficiently and sustainably. She presented the first recommendations and measures implemented in the CIVITAS project CityChangeCargoBike, that is deploying cycle logistics in 15 European cities. A lively group discussion followed, where participants had the opportunity to ask how specific measures can be implemented in cities EU-wide.

Yannick Cornet from the University of Zilina presented some preliminary results of the data collection campaign of the MoTiV project (Mobility and Time Value), carried out throughout 10 European countries. The project aims to achieve a broader understanding of the Value of Travel Time (VTT) by studying its “behavioural” component more in depth. A more comprehensive understanding of VTT, both qualitative and quantitative, can have direct implications for data-driven policy making.

On the day before the official opening of the CIVITAS Forum, the MORE project (Multi-modal Optimisation for Road-space in Europe) launched the Exchange Forum with an official side-event. The Exchange Forum is a platform to discuss and exchange ideas relating to road/street-space allocation on main roads in cities (including kerbside management) with outside interest groups and to provide feedback on the MORE tools and research results.