Tuesday, 19 March 2024
InfrastructureNews

European Cyclists Federation joins forces with global sustainable development org to drive active travel uptake

The European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) have announced a partnership on SiMPlify, the WBCSD’s Sustainable Urban Mobility project.

The cycling advocacy organization, alongside the WBCSD will now engage cities in Europe to develop comprehensive sustainable urban mobility plans based on a fact-based and holistic approach. To this end, the ECF endorses WBCSD’s sustainable mobility indicators and multi-stakeholder engagement methodology and will provide support to a number of European cities in deploying WBCSD’s approach. In making the link, the ECF has helped to optimise the cycling-related indicators by updating WBCSD’s mobility tool to ensure that cycling safety is measured based on exposure data.

ECF Advocacy Director Ádám Bodor said of the cooperation: “Working with WBCSD in the framework of SiMPlify gives us an excellent opportunity to contribute to this global project with our expertise on cycling and to show the potential of cycling as an integral part of today’s sustainable mobility solutions to cities around the world.”

Formerly known as SMP2.0, SiMPlify was launched by WBCSD to tackle the challenges of sustainable urban mobility. SiMPlify is a data-driven, multi-stakeholder approach that helps cities accelerate progress towards multimodal, inclusive and low-environmental impact mobility. The methodology offers an integrated solutions portfolio based on global best practice, including cycling. Solutions match a city’s priorities; advance decision making and help cities to respond to implementation challenges.

With nineteen indicators identified to describe sustainable mobility in urban areas, the SiMPlify process has been tested in a range of cities as a basis for mobility plans tailored to specific characteristics and objectives. As such, SiMPlify has experienced success across six pilot cities: Bangkok (Thailand), Campinas (Brazil), Chengdu (China), Hamburg (Germany), Lisbon (Portugal) and Indore (India). In 2016, the European Commission endorsed its indicators and has deployed support for 55 cities in Europe to use the SiMPlify approach in their sustainable urban mobility planning.

In 2018 through 2019, SiMPlify will be deployed in 50 cities in Europe to support the development of sustainable urban mobility plans. While the indicators aren’t focused specifically on cycling, they do look at infrastructure, access to bike sharing and cycling safety, thus allowing for tailor-made city mobility plans to take into account the needs of cyclists.

Building a case for cycling in your city yourself? Let CI.N help you with our library of data available to advocates fighting cycling’s corner.