Air Quality Information & Car Pooling (Vitoria - Gasteiz, Spain)
Large description of both actions planned for the spanish information campaign in the framework of the TAPESTRY project.
a. General education awareness and information space in the City centre
Are: household area
Context: City Centre
Target Group: the general public
Action timing: at least 7 days
Description of the informative space.
One of the actions performed into the information campaign will be to
organize a public information space that will be set up directly in the
thoroughfare of a busy street or public place of the City.
Professional monitors with large experience with the general public will
manage the site and will be responsible to inform people on the campaign
and the public transport program.
Case study developers are currently studying the possibility the set up the informative stand in a shopping arcade located in the city center. 370000 people visit this arcade every month.
Communication objectives of the information space.
The main objective of the action is to inform people on the air quality plan the City Hall is going to carry on, however in order to convince general public on the importance of their engagement into the measures that the plan proposes, the communication will also focus on
- current air quality situation in Vitoria-Gasteiz
- impacts of transportation on Air Quality and Health
- the measures that will be engaged by the City Hall in the framework of the Air Quality Management Plan
- the public transport supply in order to demonstrate people the benefits (economic, environmental, etc.) of this transportation alternative
Communication tools.
- Posters: The informative space will present a set of posters on the air quality in the city, the impacts on Health and The Environment
- Dissemination leaflet: developers will produce a brochure principally compound of three parts on the air quality problematic, the air quality situation in Vitoria-Gasteiz and the municipal plan against the atmospheric pollution.
- Transport maps and other documents related to public transport
- Questionnaire on current travel behaviour and environmental awareness.
- Travel diary for putting down urban movements and transportation mode
- Other documents.
The free public transport card program:
Case study will organise a free public transport program addressed to people who commit themselves to "test" the public transport and to participate in a questionnaire/survey on their travel behaviours (before/during/after) and on the Information Campaign. The participants should also update a travel diary during the period of the test in which they note all the movements they do and the mode of transport they use.
The participants to the free transport card program will be selected thanks to a first questionnaire on travel behaviour and environmental awareness fulfilled in the informative space. That questionnaire allows selecting participants that do not usually use public transport and avoiding to fund the travels of current public transport users.
The evaluation of the action.
The evaluation a posteriori will be ensured thanks to the persons who will have filled in the first questionnaire and accepted to participate into the free public transport card program. A database will be constituted with the mail and phone details of the participants. General public opinion and the impacts of the information campaign, as well as the results of the public transport test program (diary contents and decided changes in travel behaviours), will be evaluated by performing a phone survey among the participants (or some of them) to the behavioural questionnaire survey. A common questionnaire for the phone survey will be drafted in order to ease the result processing.
b. Carpooling actions program in the facilities of the Vitoria City Hall
Are: household area
Context: City Centre
Target Group: the general public
Action timing: at least 7 days
Description of the communicating action.
This action deals with informing the employees of the City Hall on the advantages of sharing their own vehicles and encouraging them to practice carpooling.
This second action has the same objectives in terms of information awareness than the first one foreseen for the City Center, but furthermore campaign developers will provide the participants with information and outlines on carpooling possibilities. As well the employees will be informed about the measures, apart from carpooling solutions, planned in the framework of the Air Quality Management Plan.
Communication objectives of the action.
Apart from the objective to inform the targeted population on the measures that will carry on by the local administration in the framework of the air quality management plan, this second action will focus specifically on information related to carpooling solution.
In summary, the information delivered to participants will be:
- current air quality situation in Vitoria-Gasteiz
- impacts of transportation on Air Quality and Health
- the measures engaged by the City Hall in the framework of the Air Quality Management Plan, in the whole City and in the concerned area, in order to convince people of the importance of their own engagement in the plan
- Examples and analysis of carpooling solutions to demonstrate people the benefits (economic, environmental, etc.) of this transportation alternative.
- Carpooling opportunity details.
Carpooling program.
The City Hall of Vitoria will organize a carpooling program that will be addressed to its own employees. This initiative will be a pilot action that could be extended to other professional organizations of Vitoria in case of getting positive results.
The case study developers will study the mobility needs and features of each one of the participants, on the base of the information delivered in a questionnaire filled in by the employees interested in the initiative. Therefore, developers will be able to inform each participant on the carpooling possibilities with the colleagues of the same working center.
The City Hall will encourage and reward the participants for their efforts to change their travel behaviors. The case study developers propose the following types of benefits:
- Parking for free in the municipal parking lots. Every building of
the City Hall is under the "influence" of one or several municipal
car park lots. Developer should analysis the supply and demand of parking
that corresponds to each municipal building.
For example, some buildings are located in areas where there are not problems to park car directly in the street. So developers should foreseen an another kind of benefits for the facilities in question. - Free car park lots in the areas of the working place. City Hall will grant the carpooling program participants with a free parking card that they could use only for the area where is located their working place and for the working time.
- Special fares for cultural activities of the municipality (in collaboration with the Department of Culture).
- Special parking fare for sport, spectacles events in the City.
- Gifts: to de defined.
The benefits mentioned will have in all the cases (except gifts) a limited temporal duration.
Communication tools.
- Dissemination leaflet
- Documents related to Air Quality Management Plan
- Documents related to carpooling advantages and individual study of carpooling opportunities and needs.
- General outlines about carpooling practices: legal, organizational and economical advises.
- Questionnaire on current travel and parking behaviour.
- Travel diary for putting down urban movements and transportation mode
Methodology.
Case study developers will contact the targeted population of the local administration with the help of the Telematics Department that will put at developer's disposal the available contact data of the employees (phone, professional address, email, etc.). They will establish different participant groups according to the different buildings so that the benefits policy of each group be defined on the base of the specific parking condition influences.
Developers will send the information material produced for the whole campaign with the questionnaire on the mobility and parking details. This first sending will also incorporate a letter, signed by the City Major (or a Councilor), that would present the campaign and the carpooling initiative.
Once filled in by the participants, the questionnaire should be resent to the developers who could start to carry on the data analysis in order to identify the carpooling possibilities for each one of the participants. Carpooling campaign also foresees to set up a hotline to help participants to fill in the questionnaire or to clarify the doubts that people may have.
The City Hall commits itself to respond to every employee who will have resent the questionnaire. However the second material sending will only be addressed to people who could really participate into the carpooling initiative; this selection will be made on the base of the data analysis of the questionnaire on mobility and personal details. This sending will include the following material:
- Letter that presents the carpooling action.
- Carpooling opportunity details: name, contact details of the other participant(s) who could share a vehicle and/or other costs.
- Travel diary in where the participants should note their mobility details during the action duration. The travel diary will play an important role for the evaluation phase.
After the end of the carpooling action duration, campaign will foresee
a 2 weeks period in which participants should forward the travel diary
to the case study developers.
However, developers will set up hotline help for a limited period (1 or
2 weeks). As well they will achieve phone interviews with people who will
not have delivered the travel diary. These interviews will allow identifying
the reasons for which some eventual participants will not have participated
to the carpooling initiative.
- Final case study report - Information and awareness - September 2003 (pdf, 624kb)
- Final case study report - Carpooling - September 2003 (pdf, 562kb)
Contact: Mr Bruno DUBORDIEU, ET&P-CH2MHILL
