New mobility services for tourists

Summary

Cleaner transport services, including bicycle access, can greatly increase visitors’ enjoyment of the city. Improved mobility encourages visitors to follow tourist routes around cultural and historic sites without contributing to pollution and congestion.

Implementing sustainable mobility

The historic city of Burgos has been attracting increasing numbers of visitors in recent years, especially during the summer months. However, very little information is available for tourists on traveling to cultural or historical sites of interest. They are frequently faced with congestion or parking difficulties, or need guidance on using public transport to sites on the city outskirts.

The measure was therefore designed to:

• coordinate mobility for visitors using cleaner forms of transport;
• provide incentives for visitors to travel to the city by collective transport (e.g. reduced entrance fees to historical monuments);
• design tourist routes around cultural and historical sites in the city;
• promote the use of bicycles, tourist taxis and collective transport among visitors;
• encourage hoteliers/taxi drivers and information services to participate in the scheme;
• provide visitor information points and discounts for travel on public transport;
• support intermodality; and
• promote the tourist taxi initiative, using vehicles running on cleaner fuels.

The measure was coordinated by Burgos Council’s Tourism Department in cooperation with Instituto Tecnologico de Castilla y Leon. Training was provided for council employees with responsibility for tourism on clean mobility options in Burgos.

Progress

A study was carried out on visitor mobility, and guidance was produced for travel agencies along with information on preferential tourist parking places, collective urban transportation and tourist taxis. An important aspect of the measure was to develop good cooperation with hotels, taxi companies and the tourist board.

Outcomes

• Good acceptance of tourist taxis in the city (96 percent of comments received).
• Good awareness of the public transport offer and of alternative means of transport (85 percent).
• Nine tourist taxis running on cleaner fuels by the end of the project.
• More than 400 tourists used the bicycle loan system.