Dear reader,

All presentations of the 18th edition of the European Conference on Mobility Management (ECOMM) are online – most of them have even been filmed and are available for allinx members here. Some 270 mobility professionals gathered in lovely Florence to exchange experiences and knowledge on Mobility Management. We described the highlights from this very inspiring edition of the ECOMM.

Save the date!

Next year, the ECOMM will take place in Utrecht, the Netherlands, from 20 to 22 May 2015. The theme will be “Moving people: users as the key to behaviour change".

Interested in hosting ECOMM in 2016?

Apply by 31 October 2014 and find the details here

Is SUMP the new black?

Since black is always in style in the fashion industry, saying something is "the new black" means that it is the hottest new thing. The title of the opening speech referred to this. Anette Enemark, director of consultancy Tetraplan in Denmark showed the unique aspects about the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan-approach, how it forces experts to think out of the box, beyond borders and beyond demand oriented technical solutions. She concluded that SUMP is not really the new black, but rather a zebra made up of old and new characteristics. No less than four parallel sessions were about SUMP, telling about national as well as city experiences. Even the city of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, came to present their mobility management efforts.

Anette Enemark was followed by Nick Lester, the president of the European Parking Association, who spoke about the importance of parking management and its opportunities for mobility management. The same topic is addressed by the new EU project Push & Pull, presented during the pecha kucha presentations.

Secrets of our behaviour

Two sessions were devoted to the drivers behind human behaviour and the ways to influence them. The first session made a strong plea to recognize the importance of emotional identification with the mobility solutions we want people to use: it has to feel right for them. John Porter explained how we create psychological constructs about the world surrounding us, while Willy Raimund revealed five different profiles of how people behave and feel towards their household energy consumption, which obviously could include their car use. In the next behaviour change session however, Camilla Pärlbäck and Cristina Graner demonstrated how the link between attitudes and behaviour is not as strong as we might think. Many people with positive attitudes to sustainable mobility still use the car a lot, because infrastructure simply is not good enough to get them to cycle. Odette Van De Riet concluded by stressing the importance of literally talking to people to understand why they behave the way they do, so you can design a good tailor-made intervention which is both practical and emotionally involving.

Power to the people!

The most heart-warming stories came from community-projects that involved citizens to experiment with new, sustainable mobility behaviour and serve as an inspiration to their local community, see for instance the presentations of Vincent Meerschaert and Mario Bellinzona. But for some people, financial resources are scarce, and as Els Van den broeck explained, this entails many limitations to their mobility that we often do not even think about.

Exciting new EU projects

Several EU projects presented their activities at the ECOMM. Cities interested in mobility management activities for schools were invited to join the Traffic Snake Game Network (primary schools) or to become a follower city of theSTARS project (primary and secondary). The EVIDENCE project launched a call for input on – obviously – evidence for the proven economic benefits of sustainable transport and SUMP. The SUPERHUB project in their turn presented their user-centric approach to improve multimodal mobility, while PTP Cycle is transferring the personalised travel planning approach that has been so successful in the UK, to other European projects. Other (poster) presentations included the ENCLOSE project on urban logistics, and TIDE and PIMMS CAPITAL on the transfer of mobility measures. The CIVITAS Initiative organised a highly interactive training on long-term evaluation of mobility measures.

Some nice visual presentations

As always, Pecha Kucha sessions were well visited. We present some cool ones nice to watch even without voice and some other presentations that are nice to watch:

• Friso Metz on sustainable city data – an new Dutch database
• Victor Furundarena with a smart bicycle storage system
• The mayor of Pontevedra (Spain) came himself to present impressive advances in his city illustrated by a beautiful presentation
• Els van den Broeck showed the difficulty of providing access for poorer persons
• David Knapp explains that young urban vacationers are not offered the different type of mobility they wish for when on holiday
• Eric Schreffler showed a brief world tour on Mobility Management in Mega Cities

And the winners are… Almada and Munich!

The EPOMM award for best international transfer of good practice went to the cities of Munich in Germany and Almada in Portugal for the very successful transfer of Munich’s Gscheid Mobil welcome package for new residents. This resulted in a New Residents Welcome Kit in Almada, which was accompanied by a welcome letter from the Lady Mayor of the city. As a result, new residents who received the kit showed a 13% increase in public transport use and a 6% decrease in car use. Thanks to the novelty of the campaign in Portugal, the project attracted a lot of media attention.

ECOMMs’ key messages to the EU and the Italian EU-Presidency

Together with the conference participants, the EPOMM members drafted a paper with key messages for the EU institutions and the Italian EU-Presidency. It stresses the potential of mobility management to help overcome the significant challenges the EU is currently facing and the need for mobility management to become an integrated part of policy on all levels including the EU, and in all sectors affected by transport.

EPOMM looks forward to another series of inspiring presentations and discussions at the next ECOMM. See you in Utrecht!

Recorded Focus Sessions

Allinx has recorded a selection of Focus Session presentations during ECOMM2014 in Florence. You can find links to the videos in this article . The videos are only available for Active and Premium allinx members. Not a member yet? Become a member here.

Upcoming events

• TIDE e-courses
  May-July 2014
  www.tide-innovation.eu
• CIVITAS Forum Conference
  23-26 September 2013 in Casablanca, Morocco
  www.civitas.eu

For more events, please visit the EPOMM Calendar.