Overview
Many regions in Europe, especially those with a long industrial history, have a high density of industries and employees in particular zones. In the majority of cases, these industrial estates were developed without public transport access. In order to reduce both the pollution caused by private car traffic and mortality rates from road accidents, a comprehensive transformation of transport models towards more sustainable mobility patterns is needed in industrial estates.
The aim of the project was to promote sustainable mobility in six industrial parks by establishing management mechanisms and through the active participation of the institutional, economic and social agents involved in these estates. Having identified the main mobility problems, a consensus would be sought amongst all stakeholders on the proposals made for sustainable mobility. Based on this, a management system for sustainable mobility would be set up, and awareness would be created to promote behavioural change by the workers and managers in industrial estates. The project would seek to transfer the management expertise gained to other industrial estates and areas. It was hoped that the project would lead, in the medium- and long-term, to reductions in primary energy consumption, atmospheric emissions, noise pollution and land ocupancy by transport infrastructure.
Funding
Results
The project has developed all the foreseen actions to a high standard, achieving the expected results.
Mobility plans were produced for each of the six industrial estates. These shared a common methodology. Establishing joint actions with the different agents in the area, who were not used to working together or to managing mobility in industrial zones, was one of the biggest challenges that the project faced.
To this end, mobility boards were set up to involve the full range of relevant agents and actors in the planning process. The sharing of experiences with all the stakeholders gave added value to the mobility management guidelines produced. A new post of Mobility Manager was created to coordinate actions.
Pilot actions were carried out at each of the six project sites, including the distribution of free bus tickets to promote public transport, the addition of zebra crossings and other measures to improve pedestrian safety, and communication of the benefits of car pooling and alternative modes of transport. These actions also helped to improve accessibility, safety and mobility guidelines. Further dissemination activities included a trilingual website (English, Spanish, Catalan), brochures, leaflets, mobility guides, three awareness-raising workshops and a closing project seminar.
The project calculated energy consumption and emissions of CO, NOx, suspended particulate matter, hydrocarbons and SO2 for each of the six industrial estates taking part. After the implementation of the actions foreseen in the mobility plans, these same parameters will be measured again for comparison.
Thus, the LIFE GESMOPOLI project has established the tools - planning, management and awareness - to enable the development of more sustainable transport solutions in industrial estates.