EcoMobility
Eco-Mobility is a term used to describe travel through integrated, socially inclusive, and environmentally friendly transport options, including and integrating walking, cycling, wheeling, and passenging. By enabling citizens and organizations to access goods, services, and information in a sustainable manner, it supports citizens’ quality of life, increases travel choices, and promotes social cohesion.[1]
It is neither a new kind of transportation nor is it a collective word to indicate heterogeneous transport. EcoMobility indicates a new approach to mobility that highlights the importance of public and non-motorized transport and promotes an integrated use of all modes in a city. Environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive, ecological mobile transport choices have low to no emission compared to the personal automobiles powered by fossil fuels. It supports the use of light electric vehicles, provided that the source of the electricity is from renewable energy sources. Incorporating Ecomobility into the development of traffic systems and policies will benefit local governments in attaining international recognition for the city and its leadership.
Features of an ecomobile city
An EcoMobile city:
- Aims to reduce the need for motorized mobility;
- Ensures that the transport facilities and areas are accessible to all its users;
- Ensures that an appropriate variety of modes of transport are available for all its users;
- Encourages travelers to walk, bicycle, and take public transport;
- Continually aims to encourage the reduction of resources use for travel; and
- Continually aims to improve its performance in planning and delivering EcoMobility.
Three major projects:
1. The EcoMobility Alliance is a select group of ambitious cities that have achieved excellent results in certain dimensions of sustainable mobility, and that strive to reach similar results in other EcoMobility fields.
2. The World Festival for Ecological Mobility will feature a neighborhood in Suwon, South Korea, with residents temporarily adopting an ecomobile lifestyle to experience how EcoMobility can influence their lives positively. The four-week-long Festival in September 2013 will present a real-life vision of car-free urban living in the future.[2]
3. EcoMobility SHIFT is a project to develop a total quality management scheme - the SHIFT scheme - to be launched in May 2013. This scheme allows cities to assess their current EcoMobility performance and evaluate the effectiveness of their policies and actions to achieve a more sustainable transport system in terms of environment, accessibility, safety, and equity.[3]