The CIVITAS Initiative

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Posted on: 14 November 2012
By: mackene
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Filed under: News

The CIVITAS Initiative (“City-Vitality-Sustainability”, or “Cleaner and Better Transport in Cities”) was launched in 2002. Its fundamental aim is to support cities to introduce ambitious transport measures and policies towards sustainable urban mobility. The goal of CIVITAS is to achieve a significant shift in the modal split towards sustainable transport, an objective reached through encouraging both innovative technology and policy-based strategies. The following reports have recently been published:

City to city. Similar challenges: Sharing experiences and solutions

As transport is a very sensitive political issue in all cities, the aspects of political decision-making, of citizen participation and of involving the media are extremely important. As important as good examples is the direct and frank exchange about “lessons learned” when things did not develop as planned. Such exchanges require an atmosphere of trust – which we found in many examples within the CIVITAS Initiative. This publication contains a number of examples how such exchange worked. It represents a range of themes and procedures.

CIVITAS guide for the urban transport professional. Results and lessons from the long-term evaluation of the CIVITAS initiative

During the ten years of the CIVITAS Initiative, more than 730 technical and policy-based urban transport measures have been developed and implemented. In several evaluations of their impacts and processes, valuable lessons for implementation in other cities were derived. This handbook adds a more long term focus to those evaluations. It shows to what extent CIVITAS functions as a catalyst for the intended paradigm shift towards new urban sustainable mobility. For mobility professionals working for city authorities, CIVITAS has much to offer in that respect: numerous examples of successful measures that, embedded in urban mobility policies, give substance to the transition towards cleaner and better urban transport. This handbook provides access to those examples.

CIVITAS cities speak out

CIVITAS aims to help cities remove the barriers that prevent sustainable urban transport, whether technical, economic, social, or political. recognizing the impact politicians have, and reflecting on the advances already made by CIVITAS member cities, leaders from seven CIVITAS cities (Bremen, Gothenburg, Graz, Krakow, Nantes, Rome and Toulouse) were interviewed on how they are changing the way their cities look at urban transport.