ARTÍCULO
TITULO

Reclaim Street Space! ? Exploit the European Potential of Car Sharing

Michael Glotz-Richter    

Resumen

Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) are a core element of the European Commission's Urban Mobility Package. A bundle of measures combines infrastructure; clean fuels and vehicles; and soft measures to promote walking, cycling and public transport use. Looking at the problems of cities world-wide, one crucial aspect not (yet) adequately addressed is increasing car-ownership, leading to over-consumption of space in cities creating both congestion and parking problems. The City of Bremen's SUMP, which received the 2014 CIVITAS Award and the 2015 SUMP Award, integrates car sharing as a strategic element to reduce car ownership. The ambitious Car Sharing Action Plan from 2009, the first municipal thematic plan on car sharing, set a target of 20,000 car sharing users by 2020 and, more important, the replacement of about 6,000 private cars through the service of car sharing. Annual user surveys in Bremen show that every car sharing car takes 15 private cars off the road. This figure includes only cars that car sharers report giving up after becoming car sharers and does not include car purchases that were avoided by users who may have bought a car if no option had been available. Station-based car sharing, with its wide variety of vehicles and the reliability of pre-reservation (but also the option of spontaneous bookings) has a much higher impact on car ownership than does free-floating car sharing. In its 2010 ?momorandum?, the European IEE project momo Car Sharing estimated that European cities could be unburdened of the parking needs of 600,000 cars ? end-to-end a row from London to Athens ? if other cities applied policies similar to those in Bremen (and also Switzerland). The potential is huge to improve traffic, the environment and quality of life in European cities. This practitioner's report presents municipal policies and activities undertaken in Bremen (1) to exploit the potential of car sharing (e.g. providing mobility hubs and on-street car sharing stations; integration in new urban developments; multi-modal integration; optimising fleet management, information and awareness), (2) to develop quality requirements and (3) to prepare for future developments (e.g. autonomous transport systems). It also clarifies the different roles of station-based and free-floating car sharing and their potential for different types of cities and towns. The presentation will show ? from the perspective of a municipality ? how car sharing can be integrated into both advanced sustainable urban mobility planning and into more efficient urban developments. New urban developments with integrated car sharing, bike sharing and high quality public transport do not need as many car parking spaces as conventional developments, creating potential for reducing costs and improving the quality of urban space.

 Artículos similares

       
 
Jana Pieriegud     Pág. 143 - 154
Electromobility and shared mobility on demand are relatively new areas for empirical research. Different progress has been made in different countries in these fields. The paper analyzes current trends of the development of e-mobility on demand services ... ver más

 
This research paper identifies and explores the opinions and attitudes of young people about urban transport. It is the first study on this topic, based on the survey, analysing the mobility choices of young adults (more specifically, Generation Y) in Po... ver más
Revista: Sustainability

 
Miroslaw Antonowicz, Tomasz Mos     Pág. 9 - 16
The article presents the assumptions of a modern management model of railway stations. In this model, the station is perceived as part of a multimodal hub which includes, besides the building used for passenger? check-in, also railway platforms, access r... ver más

 
Jana Pieriegud, Jakub Zawieska     Pág. 39 - 51
Urbanisation and digitalisation are global trends whose interaction results in visions and new business models of urban mobility. Smart mobility is a crucial part of the smart city approach. The concept of&nbs... ver más

 
Mike Hynes and Eibhlín Seoighthe    
As cities and towns worldwide strive to improve quality of life for citizens, debates centred on mobility are at the forefront of transportation policy thinking and urban design and planning. The automobile radically transformed cities, not always for th... ver más
Revista: Urban Science