Comprehensive mobility dialogue and marketing

Summary

Through its dissemination activities, CIVITAS ELAN team helped to develop a relationship of trust between citizens and the authorities when it comes to sustainable urban mobility.

Implementing sustainable mobility

In Croatia, citizens have been included in the decision-making process regarding urban development, through public hearings and various other ways since the 1960s. However, in relation to mobility issues, the main decisions are taken by professionals and the public most often react only after decisions have been implemented. The inclusion of interested representatives of the public within the ZAGREB FORUM will help to reach appropriate decisions, reduce dissatisfaction and share responsibility for implemented measures. Exhibitions, lectures and workshops on subjects pertaining to urban development and use of public spaces will take place within the forum.

Progress

The CIVITAS ELAN Info Point was opened by the Mayor of Zagreb in September 2009, during European Mobility Week. It has become widely recognised by citizens in its role of providing information, raising public awareness on general and local mobility issues and as the venue for project-related presentations and discussions. The Info Point is coordinated by ODRAZ in cooperation with ZAGREB and all partners. 22 presentations followed by discussions have been held up until April 2012 within the "Wednesdays in tram" cycle.

One of the main activities in the later stage of the project implementation were meetings with different target groups of citizens. One of the groups are elderly citizens in elderly citizens' homes in Zagreb. There have been 15 meetings with this group and the CIVITAS ELAN team. The main goal of these meetings was to get a clearer picture of the possible difficulties and obstacles that the elderly are faced with when using public transport and when confronted with urban traffic in general. Following these meetings, a leaflet was produced with practical guidelines for elderly who use public transport and a fun promotional video about safety for elderly in public transport.

There have also been a number of meetings with the Chairpersons of Zagreb City District Councils, local committees, councillors, representatives of joint tenants, CIVITAS ELAN partners, precinct representatives and other relevant discussion partners to consider and propose improvements to traffic conditions in their immediate surroundings.

CIVITAS ELAN has also been presented in other cities in Croatia, such as in Split where representatives met with the committee in charge of spatial and traffic issues. Also, another city – Karlovac had a chance to hear more about CIVITAS ELAN activities during the European Mobility Week 2010. Citizens are continuously informed of project activities and results via the local website which was launched in 2009 followed by a new and visually improved one in September 2011. The CIVITAS ELAN Info Service was launched in November 2009 and disseminated on a monthly basis to a growing list of more than 300 members. There have been 51 CIVITAS ELAN eNewsletters up until September 2012.
Zagreb has nourished a dialogue with interested groups and individuals via a Facebook group established in 2010 which counts 1.308 fans as of October 2012.  Regular communication with the media has been established, coordinated and maintained by ODRAZ. This has resulted in about 40 press releases and a list of interested media and journalists. The first concrete results of the project’s activities have started opening new space for collaboration with specialised media and expert publications. The preparation of a local dissemination plan was led by ODRAZ engaging the entire ODRAZ team and coordinating with partners. It was delivered in March 2010. ODRAZ prepared a citizens engagement plan in collaboration with the city. It was finalised in February 2010.

In 2012, Involving Stakeholders: toolkit on organising successful consultations – a Croatian version was presented during European Mobility Week 2012. ELAN has been very active during the four last EMWs (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) - with the traditional photo contest and other activities. Also, during EMW 2012, ELAN Zagreb launched a pilot project: bikesharing scheme for students - Studocikl.

Outcomes

Since the main activities of this measure were focusing on the development and implementation of dissemination and citizens’ engagement, which would lead towards public participation in decision-making process, there were no quantifiable targets defined. However, it must be stressed that this measure played important role in promoting sustainable mobility solutions and their usage in the corridor, but also in the city in general. The most important outcome of this measure was to improve the process of information provision to the general public.

• Successful introduction of information provision and citizen engagement. This was a major innovation into the local context of solving mobility issues, as this was never done at this level in other projects of the city municipality.
• Improvement of general satisfaction level with the dissemination of PT related information. The percentage of satisfied users increased from 29.02% in 2009 to 38.06% in 2011; the percentage of very satisfied users (the highest grade in the quality of PT service survey) was increased as well (from 5.36% in 2009 to almost 12% in 2011).
• More positive attitude towards Zagreb Electric Tram services. The share of respondents who completely agree with the following statement I would recommend Zagreb Electric Tram (ZET) services to my family and friends is increased from 18.3% in 2009 to 27.36% in 2011. Furthermore, more positive general attitude towards the ZET is recorded. A satisfaction survey shows that the share of positive answers increased from 44.14% to 47.49% and the share of very positive answers from 6.31% to 8.54%, if the figures from 2011 are compared with the ones from 2009. In total, over 85% of respondents in 2011 expressed some form of positive attitude.
• Implementation of STUDOCIKL. This is the first public bicycle scheme which was implemented in the city, i.e. within the University of Zagreb, with great potential for expansion. However, the implementation came too late (second half of 2012) to be able to conduct impact evaluation within ELAN lifetime.