Urban mobility
Wednesday 15 June 2022 – 10.00-12.30 CEST At this year’s PIN conference we’ll be assessing how improving road safety can help countries reach the 2030 target to cut road deaths and serious injuries by 50%. We’ll also be presenting the 2022 PIN Award to a country that has made outstanding progress on improving road safety. This will be an online-only event using the Zoom platform. A draft agenda can be found here. To register for the event, please fill out the form below. Loading…
The International Energy Agency and the European Commission have outlined a range of simple steps that people can take to reduce their energy use and save money, and that would save enough oil to fill 120 super tankers and enough natural gas to heat almost 20 million homes if adopted by all EU citizens. The measures include the suggestion to reduce highway speeds, and to walk and cycle or take public transport in urban areas. The actions, designed to help Ukraine by cutting the […]
The winners of the annual European Mobility Week Awards, the Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning Award and the EU Urban Road Safety Award were crowned earlier this week at a ceremony in Brussels. The Urban Road Safety Award was won by Rethymno in Greece. The jury commented that it was impressed by, “Rethymno’s inclusive approach to road safety, which targets three main pillars: upgrading the public transport system, increasing and encouraging behavioural change through a variety of activities, and the establishment of integrated cooperation with […]
An initiative in Germany to push for local government powers to set 30 km/h limits has signed-up its 100th city. The “Lebenswerte Städte durch angemessene Geschwindigkeiten” campaign, which can be roughly translated as “Liveable cities need reasonable speeds”, is calling on the federal government to change the law in order to let local authorities introduce 30 km/h speed limits more easily. The current road traffic law sets narrow limits for the local authorities and only allows speed limits to be changed when specific hazards […]
A letter published in today’s edition of the Financial Times: The move by the EU to phase out imports of Russian oil by 2027 is a welcome development in light of the barbaric invasion of Ukraine (“EU plans emergency measures to control surging energy bills”, Report, March 12). Urgent action is needed. We would like to recommend a measure that could be taken quickly and relatively simply to significantly cut oil imports in the EU in the short term: reduce speed limits across the […]
A new ‘urban policy initiative’ from the European Commission will seek to encourage towns and cities in the EU to move towards a more sustainable balance of transport modes, encouraging walking, cycling and public transport and with better monitoring of modal split as well as road injuries and deaths. ETSC welcomes these intentions but questions whether enough is being done at EU level to help cut road deaths and injuries by 50% by 2030 – the EU’s agreed target. 72% of the population of […]
The European Commission has proposed new rules governing the Trans-European Transport (TEN-T) networks, which include the major roads and motorways that crisscross the continent. The major piece of legislation, which covers many aspects of rail, air, maritime and road transport in the EU, also touches on road safety in a number of areas. One update is to ensure so-called TEN-T roads meet the standards for safety set out in the 2019 road infrastructure safety management directive. Specifically, the new regulations set a timeline for […]
The European Commission wants labour regulations in future to be based on the assumption that workers for online ‘digital platforms’ are employees, and are not ‘falsely misclassified’ as self-employed, according to new proposals published this month. This could result in millions of workers for so-called gig economy platforms such as Uber and Deliveroo receiving the same guarantees as employees on health and safety, sick pay and working hours, with knock-on benefits for road safety. Research co-authored in 2018 by Heather Ward, co-chair of ETSC’s […]
The French capital has introduced Europe’s largest 30 km/h zone, covering the entire city for the first time with the exception of several main roads, such as the Champs Elysée and the main ring road. 30 km/h limits already covered two thirds of the city, but the zone has now been extended in a further bid to reduce collisions, noise and pollution. The southern city of Montpellier also introduced a city-wide 30 km/h limit on 1 August. The changes in France came as officials […]
The European Commission has launched public consultations on two road safety-linked issues. The first consultation looks at current EU rules on driver licensing, ahead of an update to the legislation scheduled for next year. Relevant issues could include medical fitness to drive, and the need for graduated licenses for young and novice drivers. The second has been launched in preparation for a new EU urban mobility strategy, which ETSC hopes will contain more in the way of concrete measures to improve urban road safety […]
A new “pedestrian law” has been passed in Berlin, with the aim of shifting the priority away from cars, and further towards vulnerable road users. At the end of January, Berlin’s state parliament passed a so-called pedestrian law — an amendment to a 2018 law that focused on improving traffic safety for cyclists. Both were the first of their kind in Germany, according to DW – a German news broadcaster. The new requirements include: longer green lights for pedestrians, safer routes to school, more […]
Portugal took over the EU Presidency on 1 January 2021 as the EU continues to grapple with the Covid-19 crisis, which has brought additional challenges for transport and mobility policies. In a new briefing, ETSC has outlined its recommendations on the key EU road safety policy dossiers to be steered by the Portuguese Presidency over the next six months. The issues covered include the new sustainable and smart mobility strategy, EU-Africa cooperation on road safety, the urban mobility package, opportunities for transport safety funding […]
Updated rules on cross-border enforcement of traffic offences, vehicle roadworthiness, automated vehicles, and driving licenses and a proposal to add eCall automated emergency calling devices to motorcycles, trucks and buses are among a major package of new legislative measures for the transport sector announced by the European Commission last week. The new Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy follows the pattern of recent years of bundling up an array of new related measures into a package rather than announcing them individually. The Commission also says […]
A new report from the OECD’s International Transport Forum (ITF) presents seven case studies of cities that are implementing data-driven road safety policies. It highlights relevant experiences aimed at reducing the number of traffic casualties and protecting vulnerable road users in cities. The case studies from Barcelona, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Fortaleza, London, New York and Rotterdam illustrate the diverse approaches to better understand road crashes and to prevent road traffic deaths and serious injuries. https://www.itf-oecd.org/best-practice-urban-road-safety
Ellen Townsend, Policy Director After the extraordinary period of lockdown, and an unprecedented 36% drop in road deaths in the EU, extraordinary measures are now being taken to get society and the economy back to normal, or rather, a new kind of normal. Cinemas and theatres are starting to reopen, with lots of empty seats to maintain social distancing. In Brussels, as I write this, it is now mandatory to wear a mask when outside, unless you are involved in a sporting activity. It […]
A quarter (25%) of road deaths in the European Union are the consequence of a collision involving a goods vehicle, according to the European Transport Safety Council, authors of a new report on the safety of goods transport by road. According to the new analysis, 3310 people lost their lives in police-reported road collisions involving a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) of 3.5 tonnes or above in the 27 countries of the EU in 2018. In the same year, 2630 people were killed in collisions […]
Since the last ETSC PIN report looking at the safety of goods and passenger transport was published in 2013, the transport sector has continued to evolve. Just-in-time delivery in many industries; next-day delivery of single items from online shops; clothes bought, tried on and then returned; supermarket home delivery – in the background of all these services is an international network of transport that ends with goods vehicles crisscrossing countries, cities and towns. This report looks at the toll transport of goods and services […]
The European Commission has announced the winners of four sustainable mobility awards including the first ever prize for urban road safety, awarded to Pontevedra in Spain. Pontevedra has reduced road deaths consistently since 1999, impressively achieving zero road deaths between 2011 and 2018. A host of measures ensure that safety and sustainability go hand-in-hand. The city used a clear and careful monitoring strategy to identify which policies are effective and which need to be updated, resulting in increased active mobility, such as walking and […]
The European Commission has published a series of recommendations for transport policy as Member States transition out of lockdown. The main focus of the “communication” is to advise on ways of ensuring freight and passenger transport services can operate safely, with appropriate protections and social distancing requirements. However ETSC wrote to Commissioner Valean in early May pointing out important road safety considerations to be taken into account for the exit strategy. In the letter, ETSC stressed that any flexibility or suspension to road safety […]
A letter from ETSC to European Commission for Transport Adina-Ioana Vălean on prioritising transport safety during and after the COVID-19 crisis. Download the letter.