A brief by Tamara Guirao, CAAC Coordinator
This week European cities celebrate the « European week of Sustainable Mobility », which is at the core of the strategies of the Atlantic Arc Cities. As mentioned by the Atlantic Charter of San Sebastian, Atlantic Arc Cities are engaged to “Promote a modern urban mobility, by aiming to provide high quality public transport (in terms of prices, accessibility to all sections of the population, servicing of the area), and on promoting non-polluting transport/travel modes. “
For instance, The CIVITAS Initiative (CIty-VITAlity-Sustainability) is an initiative of the European Commission to promote clean and better transport in cities. Atlantic cities involved in various aspects of CIVITAS are:
- In France : Brest, Grand Angouleme, La Rochelle, Nantes, Poitiers and Rennes.
- In Spain : Aviles, Bilbao, Burgos, Donostia – San Sebastián, Ferrol, Gijón, Irún, Leon, Ponferrada, Pontevedra, Puerto Del Rosario, Sevilla, Vigo, Vitoria – Gasteiz and Zamora.
- In Portugal: Aveiro, Beja, Braga, Cascais, Coimbra, Faro, Funchal, Porto, Torres Vedras and Vila Nova de Gaia.
- In the United Kingdom: Bath, Belfast, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Cardiff, Derry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leicester, Plymouth, Preston and Winchester;
- In Ireland: Cork, Dublin, Dun Laoghaire
After working together in several CIVITAS projects like VIVALDI or ARCHIMEDES, Atlantic Arc Cities have joined their efforts in an INTERREG IVB Atlantic Area initiative called SITE. The aim of SITE is to bring together a number of regional transport authorities in the Atlantic Area to work together on the development of smart ticketing products and to address the barriers to interoperability of tickets. New ticketing products will be introduced and evaluated in pilot projects in the different regions. The ultimate goal is that residents of the region will be able to purchase a smart ticket that can also be used in the transport networks in the other regions.
These and other ideas will be discussed in Brest at the end of this month, in the CIVITAS FORUM to be held between the 30th of September till the 2nd of October and where CAAC Coordinator will intervene in the Pecha Kucha session to explain the opportunities opened by the Common Strategic Framework.