Overview
Developing effective communication programmes to support sustainable transport policies in Europe is a key issue for Public Authorities: a significant part of such programmes would be enhance travel, health and environment awareness. It is however necessary to assess the efficiency of these programmes in terms of cost effectiveness, socio-economic influence and their contribution to sustainable travel patterns.
The TAPESTRY project built on the achievements of previous research and campaign programmes such as INPHORMM and CAMPARIE (in which many of the members of the TAPESTRY consortium were involved), and took forward the key issues that had emerged from these projects. Particular attention was given to the development of partnerships between different economic and social sectors, public and private bodies and the general public, in promoting sustainable transport, and the integration of communication programmes with wider transport policies and plans.
The overall aim of TAPESTRY was to increase knowledge and understanding of how to develop effective communication programmes to support sustainable transport policies in Europe. TAPESTRY's two primary objectives were therefore to:
- encourage European travellers and goods operators to adopt a more sustainable, intermodal travel behaviour, by assessing the effectiveness of travel awareness, publicity, information and education initiatives;
- provide a series of recommendations, guidance and practical advice on the potential of multi-modal travel awareness campaigns and their cost-effectiveness.
These two aims were achieved through the application of best practice to three clusters of case studies, each comprising campaigns in a given topic area. The cluster topics were:
- The promotion of an integrated package of sustainable transport modes,
- Improving the image of a specific public transport line or mode
- Linking transport to campaigns in other sectors such as health and environment.
The TAPESTRY work programme was built around seven main tasks:
- The production of two technical Deliverables: the State of the Art Review and the Common Assessment Framework which were used to inform the campaign design process and shape the assessment of the case studies.
- The production and maintenance of a European-wide state of the art on the principles and practice of promoting sustainable transport and its assessment, drawing on the consortium's past experience in projects such as INPHORMM and CAMPARIE.
- The development and implementation of clusters of case studies, in which the ‘state of the art’ principles and best practice can be applied, monitored and evaluated.
- The development of a common assessment framework for all case studies covering the life cycle of design, implementation and review, allowing for a local assessment, a European cross-site assessment and a thematic assessment.
- The setting-up of an active network of interested individuals and organisations across the case study and elsewhere, in order to share good practice in the use of communication tools to deliver transport policies and plans, including links to partners in the USA, Central and Eastern European Countries and Iceland.
- The production of guidance, best practice and resource materials for organisations and transport professionals in the field of communication, marketing and community development.
- The active exploitation of the project results in all European countries, through both existing city co-operations networks and the network developed during the project lifetime itself.
Funding
Results
TAPESTRY produced:
- A state-of-the-art survey of recent EU and National projects dealing with multimodal awareness.
- In addition, a complete assessment of TAPESTRY campaigns were conducted, which concluded that 6 case studies demonstrated statistically significant increased uses of the "target transport mode", while 3 case studies demonstrated a statistically significant decrease of private-vehicle use.
- "Campaign Assessment Guidance" and "Best Practice Guidelines", methodologies for designing and managing a campaign, and then measuring it's outcomes and eventual induced behavioural changes.
Technical Implications
N/A
Policy implications
- The TAPESTRY project forwarded policy recommendations, setting out a framework which shows the role of the TAPESTRY outputs in linking strategic policy considerations with local case studies and with future campaign practices.
- The development of the framework highlighted existing gaps leading to proposals for future actions and research work, linking the TAPESTRY project to EU, national and other policy directions.