[5.8] Step-by-Step Project

Awareness Raising for Clean Urban Transport
[Domain: Travel Awareness]

The ‘Step by Step’ project (www.eu-stepbystep.net) is co-financed by the European Union’s SAVE Programme and has as project leader the Austrian FGM-AMOR (www.fgm.at). AGENEAL (Municipal Energy Agency of Almada) is a partner in this project. The goal of ‘Step by Step’ is to demonstrate that the methodology elaborated during the project TAPESTRY may be applied to differentiated realities, representing different stages of awareness raising in matters related to transport and its associated problems, and that it may also lead to effective proposals in the field of the required stimulus for the use of more sustainable transport modes.

This project is intended to revert the present tendency for the use of individual transport, rather than public transport and soft modes (walking and cycling). In the medium term, the methodology of TAPESTRY is intended for successful use on urban management models and in the definition of awareness raising campaigns to raise the awareness level of decision-makers, transport operators and users, contributing in this fashion to the increase of a more sustainable urban transport with greater energy efficiency.

A demonstrative action was developed in Almada to promote public transport. In collaboration with the associates Almada City Council and Municipal Services of Water and Sanitation of Almada (SMAS), AGENEAL evaluated and quantified, in an universe of 390 municipal civil servants, the potential users of the South Tagus Tram (MST), including: the means of transportation used; the degree of satisfaction; the degree of knowledge about the new tram; the intention to change the mode of transportation used in favour of the new tram. Specific promotion materials were produced and disseminated. These were elaborated taking into account the results of the research that defined the patterns of current transport use, aiming at helping this group to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the new tram as a viable alternative to other modes of transportation used whilst commuting. The produced leaflet intended to identify the problem, of which the group was a part of, and clarify its consequences in order to involve the group in a possible solution, which would be dependent in each and everyone’s individual behaviour.