Citizen, Teaching, Industry, Cities for Future Mobility

• -

  
  

  

  Public Realm activity in 4I4U: "Actions to raise awareness on urban mobility issues"

  Participants: 90 participants of the Hackathon “Solving city problems regarding urban mobility”, around 3000 UPC students and around 100 anonymous citizens

  Responsibles: Mónica Aguilar, Alexandra Hoesli

  Assistants: Alberto Bazán, Adrian Catalin, Jose Manuel Ordoñez

  Data: 1st November 2022 to 28th February 2022

  Location: Plaça Telecos, Campus Nord, UPC

  The project 4I4U aims to engage young citizens on the mobility of the future, empowering them to become actors for change who participate in the transformation of their cities. We want to encourage them to contribute to improving urban mobility to make cities more livable. We designed two actions carried out in various buildings and prominent spaces on the Campus Nord (UPC) where UPC students, employees, visitors and professors usually spend their time or pass by.

  The first two activities consist on small-scale and temporary changes of the physical environment of the Plaça Telecos in the Campus Nord at the UPC. The low-cost intervention, though, pretend to be a first step to raise long-term awareness regarding urban mobility issues and encourage use of nearby sustainable transportation options around the Campus.

  The two last activities consist on two online forms that helped us to achieve a twofold objective: on the one hand we give informative pills about main issues related to urban mobility; and on the other hand we collect the opinion of the participants about their mobility habits and their personal experience about the problems observed in urban mobility.

  Action 1: 400 adhesives arranged along the Campus Nord (UPC)

  Taking advantage of the celebration of our Hackathon “Solving city problems regarding urban mobility” on November 16th, and the coincidence with the UN Conference on climate change (COP27, from November 6th to 18th), and knowing that the UPC is very involved, we have completed this action in collaboration with UPC Sostenibilitat, and the UPC kindly allowed us to carry out this action at the UPC facilities.

  This way, we count on the 90 participants of the Hackathon, and during 5 minutes they helped us to paste the adhesives following a map, so that each student should quickly paste 1 or 2 adhesives in a given location.

  

  

  

  This is the result of the activity, it was a lot of fun, and many people who passed by asked us about the action and the project. In addition, it was also a kind of very useful icebreaker action at the beginning of the Hackathon.

  

  

  

  We invite you to watch the group shout of the slogan 4I4U, as starting point of the Hackathon.

  Additionally, we placed 200 stickers on the walls of about 30 toilets in buildings A1 to A6 that house the Campus Nord classrooms.

  

  These adhesives include informative pills about urban mobility problems (focusing on pollution and derived serious problems) and we invite people to participate with the 4I4U project by filling in a Form to help improving urban mobility in Barcelona.

  

  

  Action 2: Roll-Up "Project 4I4U-EIT Urban Mobility"

  We prepared 3 roll-up to show them during the Hackathon. Afterwards, we placed them in three very representative places on the Campus Nord, where students pass through: the library, the cafeteria and the classroom corridor. The UPC kindly authorized us to have them there till the end of February 2023. In the roll-up we show all the logos of the participant entities in the 4I4U project and the QR code to invite people to fill in our anonymous form "Helping to improve Urban Mobility in Barcelona".

  

  

  Action 3: Form "UPC Sustainable Mobility - 4I4U Project"

  Additionally, we prepared two forms to gather information about mobility habits in Barcelona. The 1st form was sent to the UPC students of the Master in Urban Mobility of the Urban Mobility Master School-EIT Urban Mobility, and to the participanst of our Activity "UPC Sustainable Mobility". We have 23 answers, being 70% aged 18-25 and 30% aged 26-35; 61% male and 39% female.

  Most of them either use public transport (mainly metro and bus) or walk, and just a few use car, motorbike, e-scooter or e-bicycle.

  

  Action 4: Form "Helping to improve Urban Mobility in Barcelona"

  So far (9th Dec 2022), we have received 80 answers in the Form with very interesting comments, suggestions and reports about urban mobility issues and personal experience about urban mobility in Barcelona. We have disseminated the Form using several means: roll-up, adhesives in the walls of the Campus Nord, email and Tweeter. The age range of the participants is mostly 16-25 (53,2%), being 62,3% male and 37,7% female.

  

  1. How could we decrease the number of vehicles in Barcelona?

  • 41% chose "Car pool or ride sharing instead of driving alone".
  • 87% chose "Improve public transport, for instance Rodalies in the Barcelona metropolitan area or the FGC train network".
  • 54% chose "Consider teleworking or staggering your work hours to avoid jams, wasting gas and pollution during peak rush hours".
  • 68% chose "Walk, ride a bike or use micromobility (e-scooter...) instead of your private car/motorbike".

  Other interesting open suggestions where:

  • Make car itineraries more difficult, while improving public transport, bikes and PLEVs (Personal Light Electric Vehicles).
  • Change traffic rules to enforce speed and acceleration limits and street design to shorten distances for walking and cycling. This will allow to change traffic signals to be low speed vehicles friendly and discourage the use of private vehicle based on exceeding speed/acceleration limits.
  • More “Superilles” and other traffic limitations during certain days of the week.
  • Improve infrastructure (safe and wide bike lanes). Incentives to use public transport, that should be efficient, fast, with a correct frequency and above all, governments must invest in maintenance (which is not happening now).
  • Vehicle usage is determined by the maximum capacity of the roads. The only real way to limit it, is reducing road capacity.
  • Discouraging car use by reducing lanes and restricting some areas only for resident. Urban toll is an option as well.
  • Reducing the number of vehicles in the interior of Barcelona requires the creation of vehicle parking areas on the city limits, so that those who come from outside can park and access the interior by public transport.
  • Tax use of car inside the city for non essential vehicules (as London example).
  • Make the electric chargers free of charge to estimulate these cars in front of gasoline cars.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Action 5: Suggestion of installing a bicicling service in the campus. Additionally, we have proposed to the Bicing company the installation of a bicing stop inside the Campus. In any case, there are already four very close bicing stops (4 to 6 min walk) around the Campus, although a bicing stop on the Campus would further encourage UPC students to use them. Also, we have suggested UPC Sostenible that they also request the new bicing stop from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) itself.

• 87% chose "Improve public transport, for instance Rodalies in the Barcelona metropolitan area or the FGC train network".
• 54% chose "Consider teleworking or staggering your work hours to avoid jams, wasting gas and pollution during peak rush hours".
• 68% chose "Walk, ride a bike or use micromobility (e-scooter...) instead of your private car/motorbike".

Other interesting open suggestions where:

• Make car itineraries more difficult, while improving public transport, bikes and PLEVs (Personal Light Electric Vehicles).
• Change traffic rules to enforce speed and acceleration limits and street design to shorten distances for walking and cycling. This will allow to change traffic signals to be low speed vehicles friendly and discourage the use of private vehicle based on exceeding speed/acceleration limits.
• More “Superilles” and other traffic limitations during certain days of the week.
• Improve infrastructure (safe and wide bike lanes). Incentives to use public transport, that should be efficient, fast, with a correct frequency and above all, governments must invest in maintenance (which is not happening now).
• Vehicle usage is determined by the maximum capacity of the roads. The only real way to limit it, is reducing road capacity.
• Discouraging car use by reducing lanes and restricting some areas only for resident. Urban toll is an option as well.
• Reducing the number of vehicles in the interior of Barcelona requires the creation of vehicle parking areas on the city limits, so that those who come from outside can park and access the interior by public transport.
• Tax use of car inside the city for non essential vehicules (as London example).
• Make the electric chargers free of charge to estimulate these cars in front of gasoline cars.

2. How could we encourage people to use public transport more?

• 73% chose "Increasing the offer and frequency of public transport services".
• 49% chose "Make public transport more cost-effective".
• 14% chose "Increasing fuel prices to disincentivize driving".
• 36% chose "Discourage driving by closing streets to cars, and increasing parking prices".
• 37% chose "Provide discounted bike-share or car-share memberships".
• 67 % chose "Make transport cheaper for employees/students".
• 56% chose "Promote active transport (biking, walking, jogging...) with available infrastructure at the workplace/University (showers, lockers, bike rooms...)".

Other interesting open suggestions where:

Action 5: Suggestion of installing a bicicling service in the campus. Additionally, we have proposed to the Bicing company the installation of a bicing stop inside the Campus. In any case, there are already four very close bicing stops (4 to 6 min walk) around the Campus, although a bicing stop on the Campus would further encourage UPC students to use them. Also, we have suggested UPC Sostenible that they also request the new bicing stop from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) itself.

• 87% chose "Improve public transport, for instance Rodalies in the Barcelona metropolitan area or the FGC train network".
• 54% chose "Consider teleworking or staggering your work hours to avoid jams, wasting gas and pollution during peak rush hours".
• 68% chose "Walk, ride a bike or use micromobility (e-scooter...) instead of your private car/motorbike".

Other interesting open suggestions where:

• Make car itineraries more difficult, while improving public transport, bikes and PLEVs (Personal Light Electric Vehicles).
• Change traffic rules to enforce speed and acceleration limits and street design to shorten distances for walking and cycling. This will allow to change traffic signals to be low speed vehicles friendly and discourage the use of private vehicle based on exceeding speed/acceleration limits.
• More “Superilles” and other traffic limitations during certain days of the week.
• Improve infrastructure (safe and wide bike lanes). Incentives to use public transport, that should be efficient, fast, with a correct frequency and above all, governments must invest in maintenance (which is not happening now).
• Vehicle usage is determined by the maximum capacity of the roads. The only real way to limit it, is reducing road capacity.
• Discouraging car use by reducing lanes and restricting some areas only for resident. Urban toll is an option as well.
• Reducing the number of vehicles in the interior of Barcelona requires the creation of vehicle parking areas on the city limits, so that those who come from outside can park and access the interior by public transport.
• Tax use of car inside the city for non essential vehicules (as London example).
• Make the electric chargers free of charge to estimulate these cars in front of gasoline cars.

Action 5: Suggestion of installing a bicicling service in the campus. Additionally, we have proposed to the Bicing company the installation of a bicing stop inside the Campus. In any case, there are already four very close bicing stops (4 to 6 min walk) around the Campus, although a bicing stop on the Campus would further encourage UPC students to use them. Also, we have suggested UPC Sostenible that they also request the new bicing stop from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) itself.