Overview
CIVITAS (City – Vitality - Sustainability) is a European Commission (Commission) initiative to promote cleaner and better transport in cities. Through the CIVITAS Initiative, the Commission aims to generate a decisive breakthrough in clean and better urban transport by supporting and evaluating the implementation of ambitious integrated and sustainable urban transport strategies that make a real difference for the mobility and quality of life of citizens.
Under the umbrella of the CIVITAS initiative, five European cities were clustered in the TELLUS project: Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Berlin (Germany), Göteborg (Sweden), Gdynia (Poland) and Bucharest (Romania). Within the TELLUS project 48 demonstration measures were implemented, which varied in number and differed widely regarding contents, type and underlying policies. Particular local circumstances, specific city characteristics as well as needs expressed, problems faced and priorities given shaped the selection of a specific set of innovative transport measures in each city.
The TELLUS project set itself ambitious transport-related, environmental and societal objectives to be reached after four years (2006). Moreover the project formulated target quantifications also for 2010. This orientation towards objectives emphasised the process character of the project not ending with its financial assistance but bringing effects for the city beyond this phase.
The specific objectives of the project were to:
- increase the modal share in favour of public transport;
- increase public transport use;
- reduce road casualties and injured people;
- reduce congestion;
- reduce car kilometres;
- increase bicycle kilometres;
- reduce air pollution and noise to levels below national and EC directives;
- Reduce NOx emission from heavy traffic;
- reduce traffic related CO2 emissions and energy use;
- improve intra-organisational co-operation at the city level;
- achieve extensive political and public awareness for TELLUS;
- Improved public-private co-operation.
Each city implemented a set of measures. There are no two cities that had exactly the same mix of measures. The number and spectrum of measures differed from city to city according to the focus identified as relevant for the respective city and the city’s role within the CIVITAS-Initiative (leading cities and followers). Rotterdam implemented 26 measures, Berlin 10, Göteborg 8, Bucharest 4, and Gdynia implemented only 1 measure.
The TELLUS demonstration measures were not an isolated attempt to improve the living conditions of the citizens, but they were integrated into the cities’ urban transport policies and plans. In general, the focus of the TELLUS project was on translating urban transport policy into practical implementation of innovative measures, whereas ‘innovative’ is understood in the city-specific context. However, not all measures were concerned with implementation, but some aimed at preparing the ground while others supported strategies and measures by developing a concept to be implemented later and/or through a different scheme. Out of the 48 TELLUS measures 28 were aiming at direct implementation, 17 at concept development and implementation, and 3 measures developed concepts only.
Funding
Results
This form reports on the TELLUS results relating to the CIVITAS policy field “New Forms of Vehicle Use and Ownership” according to the demonstration site (Berlin, Bucharest, Göteborg, Gdynia, Rotterdam) and measure. If you are interested in the TELLUS results relating to other CIVITAS policy fields, please see the form "TELLUS (Overview)" available on the TRKC website to identify the exact name of the policy field and search the corresponding form on the TRKC website.
1) Berlin (Germany).
- Metropolitan Fleet Car –business/private shared use of fleet cars.
Description.
The objective of this measure was to introduce the shared use of fleets by companies and car sharing providers. The underlying assumption was that the usage patterns of these fleets are complementary and bringing them together can make their operation more cost efficient. Furthermore the concept of car sharing was intended to be promoted by increasing the number of car sharing cars available, the opening up of new car sharing sites and the availability of a larger range of cars. At the same time, getting companies to make their cars available to car sharing during off-business hours also strove to make better use of the cars that are already present in the city.
Results.
While being implemented successfully in other German cities, in Berlin MFC encountered a number of difficulties that were partly due to the specific structure and characteristics of companies and public bodies there, especially with regard to their handling of car fleets. The spatial component (i.e. larger businesses situated in the periphery of the city where car sharing demand is lowest) as well as the lack of cost transparency (in (semi-) public entities) and the still prevailing attitude of company car users to hold the vehicles as ‘theirs’ all hindered the successful implementation of the measure. As a consequence, instead of trying to convince companies to provide their fleets for car sharing, the service was integrated into the portfolio of the leasing service of DB Rent, focussing on companies that were already established or potential fleet management customers of DB Rent and that had thus already taken on a more rationalistic attitude towards their company cars. Unfortunately, the processes required for re-shaping the strategy and m
Technical Implications
1) Rotterdam
- Electric two-wheelers
Product improvement is necessary (more reliability, not easily damaged and less maintenance) to be able to implement the e-bikes as company bikes. The e-bike happened to be most successful, even without subsidies, in the group less-mobile which was not included in this project.
Barriers that have to be overcome in order to increase the use of e-bikes are: the rate of theft; scarcity of safe public storage facilities; insurance costs which are currently higher than those for mopeds; the quality of batteries which is still insufficient as well as their high costs of replacement; the weight, which is about 30 kg; low speed; scarcity of after sales services provided by local bike retailers.
Policy implications
The policy implications relating to the CIVITAS policy field “New Forms of Vehicle Use and Ownership” according to the demonstration site (Berlin, Bucharest, Göteborg, Gdynia, Rotterdam) and measure are as follows.
1) Rotterdam (The Netherlands).
- Electric two-wheelers
The important lesson learned from this project is that careful consideration of the expected target group is a necessity for the implementation and the choice of appropriate implementation instruments.