ECF-TG set up research lines on sustainable transport for Bergen at the European Mobility Week 2010

The ECF-Transport Group met with occasion of the European Mobility Week 2010 in Bergen. The goal of the meeting was to set up a work plan to go ahead with the transport strategy agreed last June at the Bybanen Conference. The ECF-TG met at the City Council representatives of the Bergen mobility sector, among other groups of interest.

Commissioner Lisbeth Iversen and Eva Britt Isager, Head of the Climate Section, welcomed the attendants and highlighted the need for new strategies that balance an increasing personal mobility with more sustainable and administrative affordable transport policies.

Bergen Kommune, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Friends of the Earth and research institutes such as the Nansen Centre and the Bjerknes Centre discussed over different options to address the transport problems in Bergen.

Aida Abdulah, Project Manager of the ECF-TG, presented the research proposal “How would you like to move in your city? Stakeholder Dialogs for Sustainable Transport in Bergen”.

Nils Tore Skogl, Friends of the Earth, made an overview of the results shown by the working group Klimakur 2020 of the Norwegian Ministry to reach the national GHG reduction targets by 2020.

Prof. Gunnar Eskeland, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, stressed the need for additional measures supporting the current Bybanen network and remarked the character of cities as machinery which should minimise transport.

Dr Igor Esau, Research Director of the G.C. Rieber Climate Institute at the Nansen Centre, focused on the assessment of urban health damage patterns caused by traffic emissions estimated with a turbulence- resolving model in the framework of the EU FP7 funded Project Megapolis.

The city of Bergen is on the move – a lot of activities are going on!

Next steps after this meeting will be as follows:

1. State of the art regarding mobility in Bergen- building up of a knowledge bank. We will examine all existing surveys, reports and studies from all actors related: the city administration, the county, public transport operators, etc.
2. Establishment of next steps in the framework of the Cities of the Future Program and the new Climate and Energy Action Plan, including cooperation with the Hordaland region.