Mobility Week: what initiatives for your company?

Mobility Week takes place every year from the 16th to the 22nd of September. This European initiative encourages cities to present and promote sustainable transport measures and to invite the population to try alternatives to car use.

• What are the challenges of such an initiative?
• How can your company participate in initiative?
• My mobility week at BePark 

What are the challenges of such an initiative?

The European Commission has set itself two ambitious objectives for urban mobility:

• The phasing out of conventional fuel cars in cities by 2050
• The transition to emission-free urban logistics in major cities by 2030

A major challenge but nevertheless, since its introduction in 2002, the impact has continued to grow, both in Europe and worldwide. In 2018, the campaign broke its record in regards to participation; 2,792 cities from 54 countries organized activities during the week.

Source: Car-Free Day in Australia / Blog Mobility Management Australia

The week finishes with Car-Free Day, where participating cities book one or more spaces entirely for pedestrians, cyclists and public transit for a full day. Last year, 1153 cities celebrated Car-Free Day.

How can your company participate in this initiative?

The goal for companies is quite clear:  create new sustainable mobility in the context of employees' home-to-work commute. This vision can be part of your mobility plan, not just limited to the Mobility Week! There are a multiple of initiatives that can be implemented by companies:

• Employers can, for example, encourage carpooling by setting up a contact file on a Slack group. You can also create a company shuttle.
• Soft transport can and should also be encouraged, for example with the support of bicycle or company bicycle purchases.
• Remote work policies also fall within the scope of the mobility plan, as does the purchase of electric cars.
• A more systematic use of video conferencing, with a significantly reduced carbon footprint, time and productivity savings and fewer physical risks should be noted.

The multimodal Business Travel Plan (BTP), Orange France's best practice

In Normandy, for example, at the François Baclesse centre in Caen, workers who ride their electric bicycles to work are even paid 25 cents per kilometre. Will the bicycle mileage allowance soon be mandatory for companies?

My Mobility Week at BePark

The Mobility Week is a great opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and test new ways of getting around to work. I would like to take this opportunity to raise awareness among my colleagues, draw their attention to less well-known modes of transportation and exchange our experiences in the field of mobility.

In terms of personal initiative, I decided to test the car-free week! This is a real challenge for me because I live on the outskirts of Brussels, in an area where the multimodal mobility offer is less developed than in the city center.