Cycling: green and efficient transport for the future - Main contents

Cycling has an enormous potential when we acknowledge that almost half of all car trips in cities are of less than 5 km. I am a cycling advocate myself, as it is an efficient way of using scarce space in urban areas, and is healthy, clean and affordable.

This week I met with the European Cyclist Federation to discuss ongoing work and see what we can do to better support and promote cycling in Europe.

I am happy to see that currently, EU is world's leader in the area of cycling innovation. Transport and urban design specialists from EU member states are being commissioned to redesign public spaces and introduce innovative mobility schemes all over the world, and EU based manufacturers of electric assisted cycle technology lead the way in e-mobility.

Cycling has also proved to be very beneficial for the economy - bicycle innovation boosts jobs and growth and supports EU industry through new technology and services. In 2014, 21 million bicycles were sold in the EU, outnumbering newly registered passenger cars by more than eight million. Together, all cycling related manufacturing and services employ 650,000 people in the EU.

However, we need to do more to encourage people to see cycling as a fast, convenient and cheap transport mode. Last October, the informal meeting of EU ministers for Transport in Luxembourg adopted a Declaration on Cycling as a climate friendly transport mode. Then, ministers called upon the Commission, Member States and local authorities to consider a number of actions to improve the environment for cycling.

As a result, we work on better integration of cycling into the multimodal transport policy. We have reinforced cycling aspects within the current initiatives and campaigns, such as CIVITAS and the European Mobility Week . We are also encouraging cities to adopt Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans which should address cycling and walking, and have launched the urban mobility portal ELTIS, which promotes the exchange of urban mobility best practice and includes more than 550 case studies. These are only few of the on-going projects - more about our efforts to support the development of cycling can be found here: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/urban/cycling_en.htm

As European Commissioner, I pay a lot of attention to new technology. The development of cycling is steering several technological innovations. We want to effectively incorporate cycling into connected and smart transport networks of the future. Smart cities will be driven by technology, which, if properly implemented, has the power to introduce a behavioural change. Such change is needed for the widespread adoption of new concepts and smarter and cleaner modes of transport, such as bike sharing schemes and multimodal integration.

Kolo: zeleno in ekonomično prevozno sredstvo za prihodnost

Glede na to, da je skoraj polovica vseh voženj, ki jih z avtomobilom opravimo v mestu, krajša od 5 km, ima kolesarjenje velik potencial. Tudi sama rada uporabljam kolo, saj pripomore k boljši izrabi prostora v mestih ter je zdravo, čisto in poceni.

Ta teden sem se srečala s predstavniki evropske kolesarske zveze. Pogovarjali smo se o trenutnih projektih in priložnostih za razvoj in podporo kolesarjenja v Evropi.

Veseli me, da je EU trenutno na področju kolesarskih inovacij vodilna v svetu. Evropski strokovnjaki za promet in urbano načrtovanje sodelujejo v projektih za preoblikovanje javnih prostorov in uvedbo inovativnih programov mobilnosti po vsem svetu, proizvajalci električno podprtih koles pa orjejo ledino na področju e-mobilnosti.

Kolesarjenje se je izkazalo tudi kot zelo koristno za gospodarstvo. Inovacije na tem področju spodbujajo zaposlovanje in z novo tehnologijo in inovativnimi storitvami krepijo evropsko industrijo. V letu 2014 je bilo v EU prodanih 21 milijonov koles, kar je osem milijonov več kot je bilo to leto prodanih avtomobilov. Skupaj proizvodnja in storitve, povezane s kolesarjenjem, v EU zaposlujejo kar 650,000 ljudi.

Toda narediti moramo več, da ljudi spodbudimo k uporabi kolesa kot hitrega, priročnega in ekonomičnega prevoznega sredstva. Lani oktobra smo na neformalnem zasedanju evropskih prometnih ministrov v Luksemburgu sprejeli deklaracijo o kolesarjenju kot okolju prijaznemu prevoznemu sredstvu. V njej ministri pozivajo Evropsko komisijo, države EU in lokalne službe k ukrepom, ki bodo izboljšali pogoje za kolesarje.

Na podlagi te deklaracije želimo doseči boljšo vključenost kolesa kot prevoznega sredstva v multimodalno prometno politiko. Okrepili smo vlogo kolesarstva v obstoječih projektih in kampanjah, kot na primer CIVITAS in Evropski teden mobilnosti. Mesta spodbujamo, da ustvarijo trajnostne načrte urbane mobilnosti, ki vključujejo kolesarjenje in hojo, prav tako pa smo zagnali tudi portal urbane mobilnosti ELTIS, ki vzpodbuja izmenjavo dobrih praks in vsebuje več kot 500 študij primera. To so le nekateri izmed projektov, ki jih izvajamo - več o naših aktivnostih za razvoj kolesarjenja lahko preberete tukaj: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/urban/cycling_en.htm

Kot evropska komisarka veliko pozornosti posvečam novi tehnologiji. Razvoj kolesarstva vzpodbuja mnoge tehnološke inovacije, zato želim, da postane sestavni del povezanih in pametnih prometnih omrežij prihodnosti. Tehnologija bo igrala ključno vlogo pri razvoju pametnih mest in ima potencial, da, če jo pravilno uporabimo, spremeni vedenjske vzorce ljudi. Le z drugačnim dojemanjem prometa bomo lahko dosegli masovno uporabo novih konceptov in pametnejših ter čistejših prevoznih sredstev, kot so na primer sheme za so-uporabo koles in multimodalna povezanost.