Charlene Pace

European Mobility Week (EMW) is the largest Europe-wide awareness-raising campaign on sustainable urban mobility that wants to improve public health and quality of life through promoting clean mobility and sustainable urban transport. It gives people a role: to explore city streets and to experiment with solutions in tackling urban challenges, such as air pollution and traffic.

This campaign is an initiative of the European Commission. Every year from the 16th till the 22nd of September, towns, cities, NGOs and individuals participate by organizing activities, implementing permanent mobility measures, and holding a car-free day.

EMW is the perfect opportunity to present sustainable mobility alternatives to residents and to explain the challenges that cities and towns are facing, such as reducing car-use and transport emissions, and test new technologies and planning measures.

This event was launched for the first time in Brussels in 2002 and has been going on for these past 17 years.  Every year there is a different theme such as 2016 Smart and sustainable mobility – an investment for Europe with the slogan Smart mobility. Strong economy and 2018 Year of multimodality with the slogan Mix and Move.

This year’s theme is Safe walking and Cycling with the catchy slogan Walk With Us. An emphasis will be made on safe walking and cycling and the benefits it can have for our health, our environment, and our bank balance. Both are emission-free and help to keep our hearts and bodies healthy. Together with walking and cycling other modes of transport can be incorporated like the use of public transport.

The following are some examples of organized activities which countries around Europe implemented during the EMW: in Portugal’s capital city, residents in Lisbon could take their bike on board a train for free, giving them a real incentive to try out multimodality while in Germany the city of Lindau launched a new multimodal mobility app that enables users to plan a route using different transport modes.

This year Project Aegle Foundation (PAF) will be planning and managing a mobility action within the Debono Group for EMW. The idea would be to prepare employees to come to work via alternative modes of transport during that week. More details will be given in the near future.

This supports PAF’s main mission  to advance sustainable mobility solutions improving Malta’s traffic situation, thereby enhancing quality of life and environmental conditions for the Maltese population but we think there is the need to also set an example of the potential of larger companies in Malta “traveling” green!

Should you be more interested on EMW check out the following website http://www.mobilityweek.eu/. Let us know what you think about this and drop us a line on our Facebook page.