The road to more sustainable mobility: common spaces, road safety and generational transition

European Mobility Week 2024 will be held from September 16 to 22. This edition focuses on improving common spaces so that the most sustainable modes of transport can have their place, road safety is promoted, pollution is reduced and, ultimately, people’s quality of life is improved.

Sustainable mobility is not only a key element in reducing emissions and addressing climate change: it also brings public health benefits and improves the quality of life in urban environments. Since its creation, the European Mobility Week has sought to raise awareness among citizens, policy makers and the business community of the importance of promoting the use of more sustainable forms of transport, especially bicycles, electric vehicles and personal mobility vehicles, public transport and walking.

Efforts to move towards a more sustainable and decarbonized mobility are coming from all quarters. Spain has been one of the countries with the highest degree of participation in the European Mobility Week for years. This is shown by the fact that out of the 3,351 participating European municipalities, 389 were Spanish, and of these, 219 implemented permanent measures, according to data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO), the national coordinator of the European project in 2023.

In addition, Spain has a bill in parliament for a Sustainable Mobility Law. It posits mobility as a social right that must prioritize health and the environment, especially in urban environments, and aim to promote digitalization in the sector and emphasize the importance of infrastructure. However, there are many challenges and obstacles to raising awareness about the individual and collective benefits that come from changing behavior when choosing a sustainable mode of transport.

In an situation where the transport sector accounts for 15% of global CO2 emissions, electric vehicles, biofuels, and green hydrogen are becoming the way forward for achieving decarbonization goals in both heavy and light transport. 

In fact, mobility in Spain continues to evolve towards a more electrified market and broader development of infrastructure, although there is still a long way to go. In 2023, only 12% of vehicles sold were electric, compared to the European average of 21%, which represents only 1.2% of the total car fleet. As for infrastructure, the country has a growing network of electric charging points, already surpassing 30,000 points, of which around 2,000 are fast or ultra-fast, making long-distance journeys viable now. 

Safety: the first rule of mobility

An alternative to the car are personal mobility vehicles (or PMVs), which have one or more wheels and a single place propelled exclusively by electric motors. There has been a notable increase in their use in recent years. According to data from the Spanish Federation of Personal Mobility Vehicles (FEVMP), there are already around five million PMVs in the country, including electric scooters. As for the EU, only in 2022 more than 10 million light electric vehicles were sold, as detailed by the European initiative EIT Urban Mobility, which predicts that there will be more than 23 million by 2030.

This is an urban mobility option that is not only efficient but also environmentally friendly. But the Spanish Association for the Prevention of Traffic Accidents, P(A)T, considers it a priority to establish urban infrastructures and adapt them to accommodate these new vehicles so that they can coexist with other mobility options, as Ana Indiano, head of communications at P(A)T, explained to Planet Energy. With this issue in the background, P(A)T joined European Mobility Week with its Giving Life campaign, a project that seeks to raise awareness among scooter and bicycle users with the aim of avoiding accidents. They are handing out reflective armbands to PMV and bicycle users to improve their visibility and help prevent accidents. The bracelet has a QR code that leads to a website with tips on road safety, Indiano explains.

Ensuring the safety of VMP users is “a way to promote its use and reduce traffic," she adds, and a way to harness its full potential as a sustainable and safe means of transport.

In addition, this progress towards more a form of mobility that is kinder to both the environment and people, especially in urban areas, must be accompanied by a generational change. This makes education on sustainable mobility crucial. 

One of the priorities of this European Mobility Week is to create safe school roads. That is why some schools, such as the Pere Vives Secondary School in Igualada, have launched an original initiative: teaching new generations about road safety and encouraging them to travel on foot or by bicycle. Therefore, they decided to launch the Bike Bus project, as the teacher in charge of the initiative, Meritxell Tudela, explained to Planet Energy. With the aim of promoting active and sustainable mobility for students the project has set up two routes with stops for going to school by bicycle every Friday.