Overview
The EU made a considerable effort to promote sustainable urban transport for quite some time. An example of this is ELTIS with its databases with best practice examples and teaching and learning materials for universities.
The prime objective of PARAMOUNT was to make these instruments (news, databases, materials, etc.) more user friendly and to provide the best possible support to users in obtaining information.
PARAMOUNT was a specific support action to disseminate information on clean urban transport as well as to transfer know-how in sustainable mobility between relevant actors and stakeholders.
The project primarily maintained, updated and expanded the ELTIS Portal on clean urban transport practices and disseminated training materials for urban professionals by:
- considerably increasing the number of examples, materials and translations offered and including new content such as low emission vehicles & alternative fuels;
- increasing the number of users through brand building and professional marketing (ELTIS is to be the Google search engine for the world of transport);
- offering a focus on the new EU Member States through training, traineeships, dissemination workshops and the translation of the most important examples into the languages of the new Member States and offering active end user support ;
- forging strong synergies between ELTIS and CIVITAS;
- offering not only hard facts but also emphasising a complementary perspective with a more emotional approach and non-traditional forms of knowledge transfer.
The project contained a work package on disseminating European good practices globally and responded to the increased need for global knowledge exchange on sustainable mobility. By promoting European knowledge, transferring know-how and enhancing capacities, the project contributed to enabling an environment for dialogue on clean urban transport between Europe and other regions in the world.
The work package on global dialogue covers the following tasks:
- needs identification and priority setting;
- ensuring ELTIS transferability;
- regional dissemination workshops and site visits to Europe;
- policy dialogue; and
- integration and dissemination.
As a result the project strengthened existing networks and alliances for a continued exchange on clean urban transport issues. A report on the Global Dialogue was published towards the end of the project.
The project was led by experienced project managers of FGM-AMOR (coordinator of PORTAL).
REC, the leader of the dissemination phase, has representatives in all new EU Member Countries. More than 150 000 contacts can be accessed directly through different networks. This guaranteed that the project had a widespread impact. Non-European partners were also integrated because, on the one hand, Eastern European, Asian and Latin American cities and stakeholders provided new incentives for the successful exchange of knowledge and Europe, on the other hand, promoted its approach on a global level and contribute to a global dialogue.
Funding
Results
The main achievements of the project, in line with the project objectives, were concerned with the maintenance, updating and improvement of the ELTIS web site and brand.
More in detail the results of the project activities are as follows.
1) Increasing the number of news items and new case studies published on ELTIS
Thinking that only an information website with regularly appearing news items could be accepted as the N° 1 information platform on urban transport, during the project period of four years, an average of 5.5 news items per week were posted, which means a steady average of 1 news item per working day. Furthermore, a new structure and template for submitting case studies was created in order to improve their quality and quantity. In fact, the number of case studies increased by about 400%. In particular, the number of case studies from New Member States and Accession/Neighbouring Countries has increased by 1 000%.
2) Overcoming barriers to using ELTIS through an ambitious translation exercise and better user interface
The interface has been improved by installing a new search function with a full text search. A substantial number of case studies were translated from English into 14 languages. The amount of each language varied from over 420 into German to 8 into Russian. The total number of downloads requested from the ELTIS website increased strongly during the project (from about 164 000 per month at the beginning of the project to over one million at the end).
3) Obtaining an added value through linkage with other good practice databases and websites to broaden the search facilities of ELTIS
The search function was also extended to enable direct searches in a range of other databases based on cooperation with other projects and their managing consortia, including, among others, EPOMM (European Platform on Mobility Management) and CIVITAS. Particularly close co-operation was achieved with ManagEnergy (energy sector), CIVITAS (city administrations), the PEP and ProNET (health sector) database with a significant exchange of information (newsletter recipients, case studies, news etc.).
4) Assessment of technical performances of the website
The general technical performances and the development of the website were rated as mostly satisfying. Users rated access to and the stability of ELTIS very highly. Users also declared that the use of ELTIS improved the satisfaction levels with regard to EU
Technical Implications
The main general recommendations and considerations for the future maintenance and development of ELTIS are:
T1: This project has clearly shown that ELTIS is a valuable resource for practitioners and an excellent tool for disseminating information on improving local transport systems and reducing environmental impacts. In the future the service should further improve its visibility and content (both increasing content and keeping existing content updated).
T2: The European Commission should ensure to continue the promotion of ELTIS, stressing to other EC projects how important it is that they contribute to ELTIS content and, in turn, use ELTIS information, content, achievements and results in their projects. It would be very effective if the EC would explicitly require, in work programmes and/or within contracts, that projects reserve resources in order to contribute to ELTIS, for example as part of dissemination programmes.
T3: The ELTIS content and material should be made more visually attractive, in particular adding more visual content, images and videos consistent with the latest Internet state of the art. For example, ELTIS could add a best practices video library where examples and live images on specific case studies and transport approaches and systems could be easily consulted.
T4: Training was a very successful part of this project. The training area of the platform should not only provide information on training opportunities and training materials but accompany typical face-to-face events with blended, remote and web-based courses, optimising costs and facing more efficiently language and localisation issues.
T5: This project has also demonstrated the importance of making resources available in local languages. Efforts in this direction should be continued in the future.
T6: Considering the volume of material and information added to ELTIS in the last few years, the problem of finding an effective approach for keeping information updated and reliable represents a key challenge. ELTIS should consider using modern Internet strategies such as offering stronger recognition and rewarding mechanisms to contributors to ELTIS, including features such as rating or similar mechanisms that could stimulate further contributions, help keep information current and assist in organising the information. Another strategy to consider is the use of WIKI type subject overview pages that link to the appropriate case studies and m
Policy implications
P1: The experience and the work conducted by this project in terms of international co-operation should be continued, in particular identifying suitable fields for cooperative actions, research and networking with relevant third countries that have developed specific experiences from which Europe could learn relevant approaches and systems, and with whom Europe could form fruitful partnerships.
P2: This project demonstrated the need for a comprehensive approach to tackle urban mobility issues. An extensive and cooperative international platform is deemed necessary for exchanging experiences at the regional and global levels.