QUEST - Quality management tool for Sustainable Urban Mobility and Transport –

experiences from Halmstad

UBC Joint Commission meeting in the City of Tallinn 10-12 April 2013

Maija Rusanen, UBC EnvCom & Marianne Olovson, City of Halmstad

Outline of the presentation

● Overview of the QUEST project● QUEST tool● Experiences of QUEST from the City of

Halmstad

QUEST – an effective tool for stimulating cities’ sustainable mobility policies

The aims of the project: ●to offer support to cities committed to sustainable mobility; ●to set up a quality management tool for sustainable urban mobility policies and plans;●to promote best practice exchanges among European cities; ●to create a network of cities and experts in the field of sustainable urban mobility.

QUEST Partners

5 City Partners Bath (UK); Gävle (SE); Gent (BE); Padova (IT); San Sebastian (ES) (Chomutov (CZ));

2 City networks: UBC EnvCom & Polis

46 Cities involved in the QUEST method implementation and certification from 14 countries

11 consultants and research institutions as QUEST Auditors

Main principles of QUEST tool

QUEST is not a beauty contest !

► Practical tool – no comprehensive research needed ► Every city has its own, specific context, and characteristics

that need to be taken into consideration Tailor made Action Plans for cities

► QUEST recognizes that stepwise improvements are possible at all levels of development of sustainable mobility policy.

QUEST supports European cities in making real progress towards a more sustainable urban transport system, and helps them to find solutions for achieving the desired goals.

What are the benefits of QUEST for cities?

● QUEST answers to the EU policy challenge and the call for sustainability;

● QUEST assesses organisational processes in cities and offers guidance on how to improve them;

● QUEST is especially useful for small and medium-sized cities by setting up and further developing their sustainable mobility policies and actions;

●  QUEST helps cities to identify which measures are effective in achieving energy savings in transport, and which are possible to achieve. (i.e. QUEST helps cities to make the right choices)

● QUEST awards a certificate to cities which have achieved progress towards sustainable mobility that can be used to demonstrate a city’s engagement in sustainability.

Results of QUEST

● Engagement of 46 cities in improvement programmes QUEST Action Plans

● tool for;● Development of a Quality Management Tool for

sustainable urban mobility policies and plans that has been tested and implemented in 46 cities in 14 EU-countries;

● 7 city workshops on different topics of urban mobility;● Network of cities and auditors established for

implementing the QUEST tool with the long term goal of a QUEST academy which safeguards and improves the QUEST method.

Experiences of QUEST in Halmstad

Halmstad

County town in the county of Halland

The 18th city in Sweden with regard to population

About 92.000 inhabitants

HALMSTAD

Modal Split: ►59 % cars, ►19% biking, ►9% walking, ►11% public transport

The municipality of Halmstad wants to stimulate people to walk, go by bike and public transports instead of using the car.

Focal Area for our Quest Action Plan:

Go to work without your car!

Two dialogue meetings with

• Politicians • Officials from the municipality

and the region• Heads of personnel • NGO:s, • Representants from enterprises,

the hospital and the university• Public transport• ...

In Marchmeeting with our group of citiesIn Bath

Beautiful and practical tourist information for walking in Bath

Examples from our draft to an Action Plan• Set key figures for reducing car use

• Make an inventory of the bus stops in order to make them safer

Recommend employers to give the employees who go to work by bike or bus special favours as:

●Biking to work can be included as a healthcare activity ●Subsidizing bus passes

● The municipality should plan cycle paths and public transport to be ready to use before a new housing area or industry park is adopted

Benefits of the QUEST project

● An outside view of the MM work of the municipality

● The discussions with the stakeholders in the dialogue meetings were very interesting

● The group of stakeholders will be an important reference group in future work with MM

● An excellent opportunity to discuss how to go to work without car

This is just the beginning!

Now the job starts…

Go to work without your car!After

Before

Interested in QUEST?

● Call for cities !!► If your city is interested in joining the QUEST family,

please contact us and we will find the right auditor for you!

● Call for Auditors!!► Auditors needed in: Bulgaria, Bosnia, Denmark,

Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal.

► Training organised along the Final Conference in Budapest September 6th 2013.

We believe that every city has potential to make progress towards sustainable mobility !

www.quest-project.eu

Contacts: Maija Rusanen, maija.rusanen@ubc.netMarianne Olovson, marianne.olovson@halmstad.se