NEWSLETTER No 2
Summer 2002

Welcome to the second edition of the TAPESTRY Newsletter.

We are now officially halfway through our project which is aiming to increase knowledge and understanding of how effective communication campaigns can be developed to encourage sustainable travel behaviour. The major part of the project involves testing 16 different experimental campaigns in different contexts across Europe. There are three "clusters" of case study campaigns:

• Intermodal - looking at campaigns to promote all alternatives to the car;
• Mode Repositioning - focussing on marketing of public transport, and;
• Health & Environment - campaigns which link to wider health or environmental issues.

At this halfway point almost all of the case studies are well into their implementation phase, having completed their 'before' campaign assessment. In this second edition of our newsletter we will update you with progress on some of the TAPESTRY case studies. There are also features on transport campaigns from New Zealand and an update on the European Mobility Week. Throughout the newsletter you will also find weblinks which will lead you to further information about any projects or events that catch your eye.

If you are working on a project which you think complements the objectives of TAPESTRY we would like to hear from you. E-mail your comments and contact details to: tapestry@eu-tapestry.org

For further information about TAPESTRY see our redesigned website (http://www.eu-tapestry.org) which now contains some of the project reports for download.

The Second TAPESTRY Thematic Workshop

The TAPESTRY partners recently took part in the project's second thematic workshop held in Munich. The workshop focussed on the importance of branding within any marketing campaign. There were four presentations from well-respected members of the international marketing world, which gave partners some good ideas to apply to their own case studies and prompted a lot of discussion. A fuller report on the workshop can be downloaded as pdf file (849kb).

ECOMM

As mentioned in the last TAPESTRY newsletter, the 2002 European Conference on Mobility Management (ECOMM) was held in Gent on 15-17 May. The event has been hailed as a great success. Recommendations from the event and a full set of presentations can be accessed through the EPOMM website: http://www.epomm.org/events/events.html.

News from the TAPESTRY Case Studies

In the first newsletter we bought you news from case studies in the UK (Hertfordshire), Belgium (Geel) and the Republic of Moldova (Chisinau). This time we thought we would update you on what is happening in Hampshire (UK), three towns in Austria and Volos in Greece.

Ask the Audience

Hampshire County Council is working in partnership with local communities to explore new and innovative measures designed to promote sustainable travel in a rural setting. Traditional information and marketing procedures in this area have had limited success in their ability to raise awareness of service provision, to reposition rural bus services as a mode of first choice rather than last resort and hence to increase levels of use.

Hampshire County Council's campaign aims to overcome this problem through the use of a new approach to 'selling' rural bus services, based on "Interactive Marketing". This technique has been promoted in selected villages via the development of "Learning Networks" and "Stakeholder Forums".

So far the "Learning Networks", consisting of members of the local community, have met to design their own campaign materials to communicate information about service provision. "Stakeholder Forums" have also be established to run alongside the "Learning Networks". These will be used to assess the viability of suggested campaigns, and to add another perspective to campaign development.

A designer was present during the interactive Learning Network focus groups to help convert local participants' ideas into reality. So far, posters have been designed to promote a new Theatre Bus and posters promoting local bus services with 'Use It or Lose It' as the slogan have also been produced. Via this "Interactive Marketing" campaign it is hoped the TAPESTRY project will increase awareness of the implications of individual transport decisions; change attitudes and perceptions towards transport modes; raise awareness of the availability of passenger transport in rural areas; and increase patronage of existing rural transport services.

For more information, contact: katya.morton@atkinsglobal.com

Learning Through Play

TAPESTRY partners FGM-AMOR are promoting the concept of sustainable mobility in schools, by holding a number of awareness raising events and activities in schools in 3 major Austrian cities, Graz, Linz and Vienna. FGM-AMOR have selected schools which are faced with traffic and transport problems around their site. Working in partnership with each school and other local stakeholders, awareness raising and physical measures are being developed.

The methods used to raise awareness have included:

• Enforcing walking by establishing walking pools and "school way partnerships" (e.g. older pupils accompanying younger ones)
• Cycling seminars and training in real traffic situations
• Offering public transport alternatives to teachers and pupils
• Reducing the numbers of cars in the schools' surroundings through action campaigns and installation of special stops for parents dropping off their children

For more information please contact:
Wolfgang Red or Gudrun Uranitsch (uranitsch@fgm.at)

Volos

It's not just the full TAPESTRY partners that are implementing campaigns. TAPESTRY has recruited several 'follower cities' who have been attending the consortium meetings, participating in the discussions and learning with the other participants. One of these followers is the City of Volos in northern Greece. They decided that they wanted to build on the provision of pedestrian areas in their city centre by running a campaign to encourage people working in the city centre to walk to their workplace. For people living close to the city centre the campaign will focus on persuading people to walk for their whole journey rather than using their car. For people who travel from further away the campaign will aim to persuade people to leave their car at an edge of town car park and walk the last section of their journey, so removing pollution and congestion from the city centre. The Volos campaign is well into its planning phase and will be implemented after the summer holidays when maximum impact can be achieved. For more details contact: demekav@volos-m.gr

News from Elsewhere

New Zealand

We have recently made contact with colleagues in New Zealand, where they also suffer from problems associated with increased car use and low uptake of public transport. Sarah Kempson is a road safety officer working in Hamilton, about two hours from Auckland who is currently dealing with four main projects including:

Ruben the Road Safety Bear - This is education targeted at 4-10 year olds, featuring Ruben the Road Safety Bear. His website is: http://www.ruben.govt.nz. The website contains road safety tips, activities and a road safety adventure interactive story book. There are also books, tapes and lots of other resources to support the campaign. Ruben is mainly used by Police Youth Education Officers in primary schools to complement their road safety programme.

Open Road - Road safety on the open roads or state highways is a big concern, so a project focused on reducing accidents on the roads has been set up. This has mainly been through the use of billboards on the side of the road, complemented with newspaper and radio ads. One campaign which has just finished was 'Passenger Power'. Launched in December 2001 by RoadSafe Auckland this was the first campaign of its kind to encourage passengers to "speak up to slow him down". As a passenger, it's difficult to ask drivers to slow down, but Passenger Power gave passengers the right to speak up about speeding drivers. More information about this campaign, and other road safety campaigns run by the group in Auckland, can be found through the website: http://www.passengerpower.org.nz

News from Other EU-Supported Activities

European Mobility Week

Following the success of the European "In town without my car!" campaign initiated in France in 1998 and supported by the European Commission's DG Environment, starting from September 2002 a European Mobility Week will be organised.

From 16 to 22 September European citizens will have the opportunity to enjoy a full week of events dedicated to sustainable mobility. A wide range of initiatives tackling different aspects of urban mobility will be carried out on each day of the week in partnership with local organisations. In particular, this year, Public Transport, Cycling and Living Streets / Greenways have been chosen as common themes over the whole of Europe. A list of other themes is also available for the other days and of course the Car Free Day on Sunday 22nd of September will be the highlight of the whole Mobility Week.

Any local authority can participate in the European Mobility Week providing it takes part in the Car Free Day on 22nd of September (which will represent the main highlight of the European Mobility Week) and it commits to complying with the European Charter drawn up by the European partners and the national co-ordinators. This document lays basic criteria focused on the themes of sustainable mobility, pollution reduction, noise abatement and the future of our cities and towns which each national co-ordinator must meet and may then adapt to its own particular situation (e.g. by strengthening some items).

A communication kit containing the common European communication aids and tools (e.g. logo, presentation leaflet, posters, folder) is available free of charge from the website to local authorities officially taking part in the European Mobility Week. The aim is to achieve a common and coherent identity and image throughout all participating countries. More information is available on the official web site: http://www.mobilityweek-europe.org/info/en/p-info.html

Schoolway.net

http://www.schoolway.net is the website of a European project called PROVIDER, which has set up a network for teachers, decision makers, young people, parents and schools to promote sustainable mobility for journeys to school and hence to:

• reduce congestion and pollution
• improve safety
• save energy
• improve everyone's health
• give young people independence

The main objective of the dissemination project PROVIDER is to create a European-wide Online Platform to provide tools and measures for sustainable youth mobility. Membership is gained through registration on the website.

So who can use the website?

• Teachers can use the website to download ideas and tools for the classroom and join a network to attend workshops and meet other people involved in practical projects.
• Young people can access the website to play games, enter competitions and exchange their ideas with other young Europeans.
• Schools can use the website to organise travel surveys, learn about best practice and implement travel plans.
• Parents can learn how the journey to school can become safer, healthier and more enjoyable.

Upcoming Events

The 17th Annual POLIS Conference - Promoting Excellence in Transport - Brussels 2002

The Annual POLIS Conference will be held on the 21-22 November 2002 and will assess the transport knowledge and practice built up in Europe's cities and regions. It will offer a platform of speakers from the public and research sectors and industry to present their work in four key areas of paramount importance in the move towards sustainable mobility, namely, clean urban transport, mobility management, impact assessment and monitoring, and integrated transport planning. By bringing together these different stakeholders, the objective is to provide a forum for debate on the contribution that greater collaboration could make to promote excellence. You can find more information on the POLIS website: http://www.polis-online.org

Organisational issues

For more information about TAPESTRY see our website: http://www.eu-tapestry.org

We would welcome your feedback. E-mail us your comments on:
tapestry@eu-tapestry.org

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