Dear reader,

Don’t miss the 19th European Conference on Mobility Management. Every year, it attracts the leading sustainable transport practitioners, policy makers and innovators for three exciting, interdisciplinary days with inspiring sessions in diverse formats, leading keynotes and fascinating excursions. In this e-update we provide a brief, handy overview.

Essentials: the theme of the conference is “Moving People; User Orientation as the Key to Success” and takes place in Utrecht from 20-22 May. The conference website, registration and programme, as well as a selection of hotels are online.

Utrecht – Epicentre of Dutch Mobility

Utrecht is the fourth largest city and fastest growing city in the Netherlands, quickly moving towards 400,000 inhabitants. It is the country’s mobility hub, with the most busy railway station just 30 train minutes from the national airport – which is the fourth busiest airport in Europe. Utrecht had the country’s first bicycle path but also the first car traffic jam. It is one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands, with an urban history dating back 2,000 years. A beautiful historical centre with typical Dutch canals contrasts with ultra-modern developments such as the brand new city hall towering over the completely remodelled central railway station that in 2017 will have the largest bicycle parking garage in the world.

The welcome cocktail of the ECOMM will take place in this brand new City Hall (Stadskantoor), which just opened in October 2014. You can find more information on Utrecht and its innovative mobility management here and you will be able to experience it in the planned excursions.

Excellent excursions

The city of Utrecht, host of ECOMM 2015 have organised six exciting excursions reflecting mobility management in and around Utrecht:

• Experience the Tour de France: as Utrecht will host the “Grand Départ” in 2015, a bicycle excursion along the route the Tour will take will bring you to the main tourist hot spots, but also to some interesting parts of the city reflecting the evolving mobility policy of the city. The excursion will be followed up by a Moving Session on The Tour and how mobility policy in cities can profit from such an event
• The Central Station conversion into a mobility hub: this highly complex construction project for refurbishing the largest railway station in the Netherlands will greatly expand the capacity and also bring trains, buses and trams and the largest bicycle parking facility in the world all together under one roof.
• The city logistics canal tour offers an electric boat tour along Utrechts beautiful historic canals, while showing and explaining Utrecht’s renowned city logistics with e.g. the Beer Boat and the Cargohopper.
• Managing mobility and large infrastructures: an interesting and unique visit to the regional traffic control centre and the construction site refurbishment for one of the largest highway bridges in the Netherlands
• Bicycle friendly new town Houten: expanded from 1970 on from 4,000 to almost 50,000 inhabitants and has a bicycle modal share of 42% - experience innovative Dutch city planning and mobility planning on a bicycle tour.

Leading keynote presentations

Some very specific mobility management challenges will be highlighted by various experts:

Paul Mijksenaar is an internationally well-known information design professor whose company specialises in wayfinding: how design and signage help people find their way in public and semi-public environments.

Stephanie Akkaoui Hughes, progressive architect, addresses the challenge of interdisciplinary cooperation, so essential for sustainable development, but at the same time so often not the common practise.

Ronald van Oeveren, director at Strukton, a large Dutch engineering company, and also active board member in the “U15” network, that is actively managing employee mobility. He will tell how and why he is involved in this network.

Nikolaus von Peter is member of cabinet of the EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc, and among other issues is responsible for clean transport, urban mobility , research and innovation as well as intelligent transport systems.

Marcel Rommerts is head of unit of transport research in the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) and thus also responsible for the Horizon 2020 projects in that field. He was one of the initiators of both ECOMM and EPOMM. Both gentlemen are going to speak about the current European Commission view on mobility management.

Moving sessions

Our objective is that these sessions will indeed move you to get closer to your next step in mobility management. Some highlights:

• Central as topic is of course “Understanding the User” with no less than five different sessions, from Psychology and Tranport via Evaluation to Segmentation.
• There will be a double session on the success and failure in new Urban Design and Mobility Management: one session covering Eastern European examples, one Western European Examples.
• In the Netherlands, cycling is of course a central topic: besides the excursions, it is possible to meet many small and large initiatives in the “Meet the Dutch” session, and there will be three additional sessions exclusively on cycling.
• The sessions are also about moving the business sector and reflecting a changing society – by new incentives, new methods, soft measures, but also by highlighting technological developments like driverless cars and carsharing.
• Presentations will be in the three different formats: (1) traditional presentations and Q&A; (2) Pecha Kucha sessions, and (3) challenge sessions, in which presenters will challenge and involve the audience to jointly find solutions.

Some more details

Book your hotel as soon as possible – ECOMM registration gives you a special discount. See ECOMM’s hotel suggestions.

Transport is easy, as Utrecht is the transportation hub of the Netherlands, train time from the airport to Utrecht is 30 minutes, from Utrecht to Amsterdam it is 25 minutes, and trains go every 15 minutes. For details click here

Win the EPOMM award and two free visits to the ECOMM 2015! EPOMM rewards the best international policy transfer with a free ticket including travel costs for both the exporting and importing organisation. Download the Award Application here and find info on past award winners here. The deadline for submission is 25 March 2015. The award will be handed over in a ceremony at the ECOMM.