As every autumn, stakeholders who are active in the field of mobility gathered to participate in the Civitas Forum, one of the main annual events about cities, transport and mobility. As every year, the Forum was held in a relatively small city which had been selected based on its advancement in terms of sustainability, inclusive urbanisation, and people-oriented mobility. In 2018, we ended up in Umeå, a Sweden municipality located very close to the Polar Circle. Umeå is characterised by a push towards more efficient, greener and more inclusive transport. Despite its small size, it offers plenty of different mobility options, most of them sustainable and green ( for instance, electric taxis, bike taxis between the airport and the city centre, and electric buses). Furthermore, the city has developed an innovative, environmentally friendly and gender-sensitive infrastructure. A virtual tour is available online at http://genderedlandscape.umea.se/.
Over three days, between 19 and 21 September, almost 500 people – policy makers and politicians, city authorities, mobility providers, academics and other mobility-related practitioners – had the chance to get a first-hand experience of these features by attending the CIVITAS Forum. Besides exploring Umeå, all these visitors took part in panels and debates about sustainable urban mobility issues, focusing especially on the social dimension of it. Besides topics such as sustainability, accessibility, inclusivity, and green transportation, participants dealt with the concepts of transport poverty, gendered infrastructure, and liveability and inquired the role of citizens’ needs and triggers in urban planning. While DG MOVE representatives and public authorities discussed policy making, project representatives presented the approach adopted in the frame of a specific initiative and the results obtained. This provided inspiration for measures to bring cleaner and better transport to Europe and to promote healthier lifestyles though conscious, informed mobility choices.
Cities-4-People also shared the experience gathered about co-creation during the first project years. We talked about our Citizen Mobility Labs and the Co-creation Navigator and gathered feedback from other panellists who had complementary experience to ours.
The pictures of the event and all the presentations can be found on the dedicated page on the CIVITAS website: https://civitas.eu/forum2018.
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