Closely linked to the other activities in the multimodal pilot areas were the mobility management (MM) measures, in order to promote multimodal travel through cooperation with different institutions. City partners cooperated with schools, kindergartens, companies or investors of inner city building projects to promote sustainable mobility and aimed at a behavioural change.
Mobility Management (MM) is a concept to promote sustainable transport and manage the demand for car use by changing travellers’ attitudes and behaviour. At the core of MM are "soft"measures like information and communication, organising services and coordinating activities of different partners. “Soft” measures most often enhance the effectiveness of "hard" measures within urban transport (e.g., new tram lines, new roads and new bike lanes). MM measures (in comparison to "hard" measures) do not necessarily require large financial investments and may have a high benefit-cost ratio.” (Definition from EPOMM - European Platform on Mobility Management ).
Mobility management is demand-oriented and thus complements the other activities in the pilot areas with a bottom-up approach. The institutions (e.g. schools, companies) located in the selected pilot area have the communication channels and the authority to address all members of their community (e.g. pupils, parents, employees, clients) applying MM measures like mobility plans, education, training and promotion to achieve a modal shift from individual car use to environmentally friendly means of transport. In addition, this will create a higher demand of mobility points and information systems. As pupils, employees and clients come from other parts of the city too, through MM the effects from the selected pilot area will sprawl to the entire city and beyond.
During the project lifetime, the partner cities did:
- use a common approach on mobility management and adapted it to their local context
- plan and implement mobility management measures together with their selected cooperation partners in the pilot area
- test different tools and methods to involve their target groups
To ensure that city partners exchange on their practices and experiences and learn from each other, peer review visits were carried out in small groups.
Also 2 study visits on specific topics important for planning multimodality in cities are carried out, where the project partners visit other European cities for inspiration and networking.