Before trying to work on concepts in order to reduce the CO2
emissions, it is necessary to determine the sector that is the highest emission
source in an area to reach with the elaborated concept the biggest impact.
Due to our current state of knowledge and some conferences with our client, we
assume that the mobility sector has the biggest influence on the CO2 emissions
and therefore we present three approaches to tackle this issue.
1. Increase the attractiveness of public transportation
An attractive public transportation system contributes
to a reduction of vehicles in use and traffic on the streets and reduces as a
consequence the CO2 emissions. However, which are the factors which affect the
attractiveness of public transportation?
- Price
- Frequency
- Connections
- Individual added value:
- Time for recreation
- Sensation of acting sustainable
- Wifi for entertainment, work etc.
- Route planner application
- Timetable at stations
2. City Bikes in Hamburg /StadtRad Hamburg
The StadtRad, which means city bike in English, is a great addition to the
public transport. The people living in Hamburg and visiting it now have the
possibility to not only use trains, buses and ferries to move around the city,
but they are also able to bike everywhere they need to go. This completes the
public transportation service to a great extend. With 2.300 bicycles it is the
most used bike rental service in Germany. 350.000 people use it over 2.5
million times a year. On high-usage days every bike is used up to 7 times a
day.
Every registered user can borrow a bike at any of the 200 Stations, to return
the bike one has to bring it back to a station. This does sound stressful in
the beginning, but looking at the locations of these return points it is never
a problem to return the bike in the wider area of the city center.
The best thing about the StadtRad is that the first half hour of every rental
is free, with eight cents for every additional minute and a maximum of 12€ a
day. Furthermore, if you need a bike for example for 45 minutes and there is a
station on your way, you can just return your bike and some point during your
ride and rent a new one for 30 additional minutes free of charge. Most rides
through Hamburg do not take 30 minutes, but if it does take longer this is a
very handy trick. The system is used by a lot of people who would like to move
around the city spontaneous, healthy and sustainable. For myself I had only good
experiences using StadtRad.
Website
StadtRad Hamburg
3. Carsharing
Carsharing services are available in over a thousand cities all over the world.
As of December 2012, there were an estimated 1.7 million car-sharing members.
The world’s largest carsharing network across North Amercia and Europe are
zipcar (767,000 members/11,000 vehicles) and Car2Go (900,000 members/12,000
cars). The main factors driving the growth of carsharing are the rising levels
of congestion faced by city inhabitants; shifting generational mind-sets about
car ownership; the increasing costs of personal vehicle. Carsharing contributes
to sustainable transport because it is a less care intensive means of urban
transport. Carsharing can also reduce the car ownership at an estimated rate of
one rental car replacing 15 owned vehicles(according to The Economist).
Carsharing is a model of car rental where people rent cars for short periods of
time, often by hour/day. Carsharing is attractive to people who occasional make
use of a vehicle. The organization renting the cars may be a commercial
business or the users may be organized as a company, public agency cooperative.
Government is also a stakeholder that can be a provider of cars.
