Industrial parks are often difficult to reach, frequently located on vacant land on the periphery of medium-sized cities and so the car becomes the only means by which workers can reach them. The Mobility Management for Business and Industrial Zones (MoMa.BIZ) aims to alleviate this problem and reduce substantially car use and therefore curb CO2 emissions.
The Mobility Management for Business and Industrial Zones project (MoMa.BIZ) involves six zones located outside of small and medium cities in five EU countries (Bulgaria, Italy, Estonia, Spain and UK). It aims at producing a model which can be replicated throughout the EU to achieve a more environmentally constructive mobility to and from work for those working in these zones.
Its aim is to produce alternatives to the almost exclusive use of the car (used by 80% of those working in the industrial parks under consideration) while guaranteeing the flexibility demanded by employees in their transport options.
The strategy is based on consensus building among the people involved through exchange of information and the creation of local mobility groups coordinated by an area mobility manager.
Instead of rushing automatically to their steering wheels for the journey to work, people are encouraged to find solutions suitable to their work patterns in special planning sessions together with their area-mobility manager and provide the decision makers with the results of the surveys thus obtained.
The project involves a series of stages. From an opening conference on the transfer of expertise to the organisation of an international seminar on flexible transport (on demand transport) and on to the collection of data through a questionnaire administered to some 20,000 workers in the BIZ parks included in the study, the project will produce videos for each one of the six parks, one before and one after the implementation of the mobility plans.
Other methods to be used will include an ad hoc website to exchange experiences between partners, common communication tools such as press releases, newsletters, SMS and advertising on local newspapers and a certain number of hours of special training for decision makers in each industrial park leading to the creation of a network of experts in mobility management to be used as a reference point for other small and medium cities with business parks served at present only by the motor car.
The final result should be the creation of a mobility management methodology to be implemented in business parks and to be adopted by small and medium cities throughout the EU.
MoMa.BIZ was launched on May 1st 2010, has a 30 month duration and is funded under the Intelligent Energy Europe programme.