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In 1997 a strategy for a
sustainable transport system called LundaMaTs was adopted in the Swedish city of Lund. In
1998, the mobility centre in Lund was
established as part of LundaMaTs.
The mobility centre was among the first four selected projects to start and had
to trigger and assist the development towards more sustainable transport,
through mobility consulting, information services and awareness raising about environmental and health implications of
traffic. The mobility centre provides mobility consulting directed to inhabitants
and employees in the region of Lund. The
aim is to achieve a better use of the existing infrastructure through mobility
management. The activities should contribute to a higher use of alternatives to
the car and thus to a modal shift. Also a more responsible use of the car
through car-sharing and ecologically friendly cars is incorporated in the objectives.
Since January 2000, the mobility centre has
on average employed 4 employees, working on five main projects:
1.
Mobility management in the
city: awareness raising campaign on
green travel policies among decision makers, multipliers and employees,
education in eco driving, pilot on teleworking
2.
Mobility management in
companies in Lund: awareness and
consulting campaign in companies with tailormade brochures including
information on travel time, travel cost, emissions and energy consumption
3.
Pilot project in Soedra
Sandby: village near Lund where it was tested whether travel behaviour can be changed
only by combining several mobility management activities
4.
Eco cars and carsharing: information campaign to increase sales of more
environmentally friendly cars, brochures about carsharing
5.
Local production and local
services: contests in the context of leisure
activities
Results show that inhabitants are quite aware of
most of the projects and activities. In general, 90 % of the population
considers the LundaMats investment as (very) good. Almost 10 % of the
population states that LundaMats has influenced their travel towards more
sustainable modes.
The close co-operation between
the mobility centre and the comprehensive LundaMaTs scheme with its
combination of physical measures and mobility management is probably the most
important reason for success. Behavioural influence entails hard work, especially as in the beginning it can be difficult to
achieve measurable effects. The City of Lund is
obviously on the right track since effects have already been recorded after a
relatively short period. There are good reasons to expect even larger effects,
assuming that the investments in LundaMaTs will continue. One can also see synergy effects
when several measures are being conducted at the same time.
Sometimes it was rather
difficult to convince partners, i.e. the public transport operators, companies
etc. of the idea of mobility management. The search for a win-win situation has
been of great importance, but is not always easy to prove in the beginning. The
mobility centre will continue to work on mobility management even after the
MOST project, focusing on encouragement of sustainable mobility behaviour, more
sustainable urban and land use planning and the support of the use of Eco-cars.
The Lund project has profited from a favourable situation,
as there is strong local co-operation, enough resources are available with
national support, there is a consensus-building policy
style and a strong focus on participation of the target groups.
Source: http://mo.st
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