Overview

To become by 2050 world's first carbon-neutral continent, EU has pledged to reduce by 90% the GHG in transport by 2050, as confirmed in Dec. 2020 by European Commission's Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy.
To reduce by 55% the emissions by 2030, the Strategy calls also for the transition from a mobility system based on fossil energy consumption and private motorization to zero emission vehicles must be coherently pursued and accelerated, in a context in which walking, cycling, and use of collective means of transport (trains, buses, trams etc.) should be encouraged and favored.

Unfortunately, the COVID 19 pandemic has pushed people’s modal choice in a opposite direction; suddenly, the need for social distancing, one of the key measures to prevent viral infection from Covid-19, has given a new centrality to individual transport based on car.
As the circulating vehicles are largely still depending on fossil fuels (currently there are approx. only 4 million of e-vehicles on the EU roads, compared to EU target of 30 million by 2030), the social re-evaluation of the use of car increases gas emissions and air pollutants, in a context where the transport sector is responsible for approx. ¼ of the global greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, whilst air pollutants cause yearly approx. 400.000 premature deaths in Europe, according to EEA reports, especially in densely inhabited areas.

Due to many different factors (circulation of obsolete transportation means; lack of sustainable mobility planning capacity; scarcity of data, e.g., on air quality in many IPA countries, as revealed by SMILE’s surveys), many ADRION regions/cities are hotspots for the above-described problems.

In such a context, SMILE PLUS intends to update and spread the main tool resulting from SMILE, namely the mobility scenarios as support to new transport policies in congested urban areas.

To ensure a good value for money relationship, the activities will be concentrated in 4 countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Italy) and will consist of:
1) Update the mobility scenarios, elaborated within SMILE, to ensure their resilience to the modal share determined by COVID-19 and the consequent revamp of fossil-powered private motorization.
2) Preparation of 1 video-tutorial to facilitate a diffuse use of mobility scenarios as tool to monitor and periodically update transport planning processes.
3) 1 meeting (online, in person or hybrid) per country, on:
- the use of post-Covid 19 mobility scenarios for transport planning set up by SMILE PLUS.
- the role of ETC to promote a sustainable mobility and increase cohesion.
4) 1 event per country to provide first-hand information on managing and implementing European projects to future beneficiaries (prioritizing entities not having experiences with EU projects), focused on green transition in mobility field, based on SMILE as case study.