MOVE TOGETHER - Raising Citizens Awareness and Appreciation of Urban Transport Research in Europe - An EU project for sustainable mobility

The MOVE TOGETHER project focused on raising citizens awareness and appreciation of EU research on sustainable transport in the urban environment. The aim was to make people aware of what EU transport research is doing and how the research results can help – if implemented in our cities – to make urban transport more sustainable, i.e. safer, more secure, more efficient and better for the environment, and to improve the quality of life.

A key expectation is that better people awareness of the results of EU research on urban sustainable mobility may lead to more responsible choices - letting people to move away from the use of their cars or mopeds as the preferred option in any circumstance, even when time and space resources are severely limited as in today urban environments. At the same time it is important to create early a climate of open dialogue and trust between the experts and decision-makers on one side - who take care of studing and applying the solutions for better and more sustainable mobility in the city - and the citizens on the other side, who are eventually affected by the decision to implement those solutions. This might facilitate a greater use of collective transport alternatives – including any form of mass public transport, flexible on demand services, car pooling, car sharing etc. – and/or an increased acceptance of restrictions to the free individual use of private owned vehicle when necessary.

1. Developing a citizens’ appreciation of EU research on sustainable urban transport at the European Union level: this is done with the help of a transnational focus group of citizens coming from different cities in the 27 EU member States. They will participate to two workshops and an European citizens and stakeholders conference, organised at the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels, on June 16th 2008. They will produce their appreciation of the existing research based on the review of knowledge & research on urban transport, produced by the Move Together project team.
2. Raising the awareness and appreciation of EU funded research for sustainable mobility in the city of Rome: this is done with the help of a randomly selected panel of 25 local citizens, living in the different districts of the city and in the surrounding municipalities. They will participate to a local conference process in Rome, including two citizens' workshops and a final conference, in the period September - November 2008. Their appreciation will be focused on the achieved and/or expected outcomes of current EU funded research and demonstration activities in the Rome area. The local debate will take stock of the citizens’ appreciation of the research at EU level (first activity above).
3. Wide communication of the citizens’ appreciation of EU research on urban transport, as produced at the EU level and at local level for the emblematic case of Rome. This will be done until the end of 2009, by means of media events, a travelling exhibition, town exhibitions and other standard dissemination activities (e.g. newsletter). In particular, a travelling MOVE TOGETHER exhibition is planned to start in June 2009 in Wien, at the next UITP World Congress, and then travel to Nantes (World Sustainable Mobility Forum) in July, Naples (Mobility Tech) in September, Budapest in October and Brussels in November 2009. Town exhibitions will be held in a number of other cities (between 10 and 20 to be selected with a tendering procedure) during the European Mobility Week in 2009.

The project is funded by the European Commission, under the 7th Framework Programme, transport research area.