Sustainable Urban Transportation in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Region

Lviv_tram Worldwide, numerous cities face problems in the transport sector, but smart solutions are available: During the past few years a wealth of best practices and easy-to-implement solutions for urban mobility has been developed with positive impacts in both the short and long term. In general, these solutions consist in reduction of vehicle mileage, strategies of non-motorized transport alternatives and modal shift to more environmentally-friendly public modes. Of course every city has its specific situation: Some have huge traffic jams, others deteriorating conditions of public transport or numerous accidents. Besides the individual benefits, social, economic and ecological consequences arise with growing car ownership and use in our cities.

In that sense, our project “Climate-friendly Mobility in Ukrainian Cities” works with decision-makers and planners in developing concepts, in applying international best-practices and implementing these approaches to create modern public transport systems. The project is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the context of the International Climate Protection Initiative.

Beyond that, UNITAR and GTZ SUTP joined forces to facilitate the continued exchange of information on sustainable urban transport in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. To download the flyer for the SUTECA Project, click here for English and here for Russian.

Mobility during Mega Events

alt Climate-friendly mobility cannot be separated and limited exclusively to the period of a special event – be it a sports event, a concert or a religious celebration. Rather, concepts and measures should kick-start a move towards long-term climate-friendly conditions and behavior. This document provides an overview on issues and recommendations as well as a comprehensive reading list.

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NEW: Module 1f: Financing Sustainable Urban Transport

alt Urban transport has historically not received the attention, careful planning and financial support it deserves in order to function in a sustainable manner. As a step to address this issue, this new GTZ Sourcebook module provides detailed information on available options for financing urban transport. It presents different financing instruments and ways in which they can be best used, and how to optimally combine them. This module is dedicated to policy makers, financial sector specialists and urban planners/practitioners working on key challenges related to financing urban transport systems. The module provides options to close the gap between the ever growing demand for efficient, equitable and environmentally friendly urban transport systems on one hand, and the dwindling financial resources available to state and local authorities on the other.

The all-Ukrainian Bikeday 2010

At the end of May in Ukraine took place the all-Ukrainian ”Bikeday 2010“. Thousands of cyclists in different age participated in this event, which started at the same time in Kiev, Lviv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Doneck, Zaporizhia, Luzk, Zhytomyr, Ivano-Frankivsk and other Ukrainian cities. The Bikeday as a bike parade was held to a fourth time. In 2004 the cycling community of Kiev for the first time organized the action ”Bicycling to work“, which transformed eventually into all-Ukrainian bike parade.

The number of participants in the bike parade is increasing from year to year. More and more people in big Ukrainian cities understand and realize that bicycles represent an environment-friendly, economical and healthy alternative to the traditional means of transport. The goal of the event ”Bikeday 2010“ is to popularize the healthy and active life-style. The participants of the Bikeday stand for safety, mutual respect on the roads and for creating civilized conditions for cyclists in Ukraine.

NOW IN UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE: Intelligent Transport Systems (Phil Sayeg, TRA; Phil Charles, University of Queensland)

4E-ITS-UA

Technology has been playing an important role in promoting vehicular safety, reducing driving stress, comfortable travel and increased efficiency of the whole transport system. These technologies applied in a package are called “Intelligent Transport System (ITS)”.

Often, policy-makers are in a situation where they are not properly informed on the right technological choices. The GTZ Sourcebook module on “Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)” focuses on choices for a city and also informs the reader of the various available ITS options, their function and advantage. The module was written by Mr. Phil Sayeg and Prof. Phil Charles and also updated by the authors.

The Ukrainian version can be downloaded by clicking here (4.62 MB)

The English version is available for download from http://www.sutp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1795&Itemid=1&lang=en

Transport and Climate Change

GTZ announces the release of the Ukrainian version of the module "Transport and Climate Change". The module summarises the challenges that climate change mitigation has to face in the transport sector and presents the major options and instruments to deal with them. The module is a comprehensive summary of sustainable transport policy options and sketches out their potential for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.