Mobility in ports (1): container terminals

Versión en español

Port of Barcelona

Productivity and safety are two fundamental factors in the processes that are being executed in commercial harbours. Productivity because they are installations which basically have to generate benefits if they function correctly, but also safety, because the harbour activities have one of the most elevated indexes of occupational accidents, which have to be corrected with tenacious occupational prevention politics. Security is also potentiated, because the ports are deposits for goods where fiscal and customs inspections are being carried out.

Principal consequences of an occupational traffic accident

Versión en español

In Spain nearly a third of the fatal occupational accidents are caused by the traffic. A study conducted by the National Institute for Workplace Safety and Hygiene (INSHT) in 2010 confirmed that the majority of the occupational traffic accidents produce themselves on the way from home to the working place or vice versa (commute), which in technical terms is called “in itinere”. According to the study 71,6 % of the 65.446 occupational traffic accidents which have produced themselves this year, occurred “in itinere”, whereas the remaining 28,4 % occurred “in mission”, which means during the journeys made due to the working place.

Transit places, hypermobility and anonymity of postmodern citizen

Versión en español

Frankfurt International Airport

Globalization proposes an urban model based on the “meta-city” (city of cities), supported by a worldwide web of transport and communication means with megalopolis distributed all over the surface of the world which act as points of intersection in said network.

The anthropologist Marc Augé years ago elaborated a conceptual framework about the space that human beings use, a concept that interested me as geographer. I refer myself to the book “Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of over-modernity. Los no lugares. Espacios del anonimato (una atropología de la sobremodernidad) GEDISA editorial (2008) (1ª edición en 1992)” In this essay the anthropological space is described as a place, where our experiences take place in accordance with the environment that surrounds us.

Aggressive drivers and road violence (english version)

The human body is the chariot; the self is the driver;

  thoughts are the reins; and feelings the horses.

 (Plato)

Creative Common, Photo by  Antonio Herrera

The occidental society encourages competition from our childhood age. Already in school we are prepared for a world, in which – where losing is concerned – it might better be you than me. Competition is seen as something positive to evolve and advance in our civilization; and to diminish its pejorative character we talk about ambition. However, competition is also a source that generates environments prone for aggressiveness. The fight for survival obliges us in many occasions to adopt aggressive behaviours – bee it to defend ourselves or to attack. In the world of traffic a lot of experts and organizations (the World Health Organization among them) talk clearly about “road violence”. 


Why some people are more aggressive when they drive?
In previous posts I have already reflected on this topic. To drive a car activates determined psycho-physical mechanisms, which grant us a bigger capacity for reaction in unexpected situations – we pay higher attention, that’s why we react faster. However, driving also provokes a higher level of aggressiveness and in many people it potentiates their violate character. We feel a higher impunity to violent attitudes we are exercising while driving: blowing the horn, inappropriate speed, incorrect security distances, we accelerate while others are overtaking us…putting aside even more extreme cases. We have the feeling of anonymity and security while being encaged inside the driver’s cab, where we feel unobserved. And, in case of problems, there is always the “brave alternative” of flight (in spite of the existence of number plates, testimonies, security cameras, car mechanics and police investigation techniques to prevent it). The car is converted into an addition to my personal distance – my territory – where only those enter that I want to. In human beings the sense of territory is as or even more pronounced than the one an animal species might have. Many people have an extremely developed competitive impulse (everyone can find a face in his memory to whom this may apply). Too much competiveness causes aggressiveness and this generates feelings of rage and vengeance which run free within the confines of our mobile territory.

“But what is he doing?” 

“Have you seen, how he barred my way?” 

“He will notice when I blow my horn.”

Sometimes aggressiveness surges as a defence mechanism when we feel uncomfortable. In other occasions we exercise pressure on the one before us, because we feel lobbied by the one behind ; in the traffic system we can observe this phenomenon in the speed management; and in the companies in the hierarchies and the flow of responsibilities.

The profile of an aggressive drivers is associated with the following attributes: cynical, rude, without empathy and that he not only exhibits them while driving but also at work or at home, but while driving those attributes of his personality are easiest to detect by his fellow passengers and his victims.


What motivates aggressiveness while driving?
The casuistic in road violence is very extensive and I will only make an approximation. There are internal casuistics which remain inside of each individual and there are external or environmental cases. Each person has an irritability level where the offensive aggressiveness or the sensitivity is potentiated, which concludes in defensive aggressiveness. Each person has different tolerance levels to a large variety of emotional states: for example sadness, preoccupation, frustration, rage, excitation…, and they modify our reactions in different ways to a higher or lower degree of violence. In the end it will be our capacity to control those emotions in an adequate way, that will make us control many of the impulses we have while driving. Among the external factors, heat or the degree of humidity have to be pointed out (see anterior post). Also the acoustic level is important, above all if its volume or duration are not taken into consideration, which provoke irritation and aggressiveness. Finally we must not forget the traffic jams, which according to its duration or our time available can provoke frustration and which can conclude in very aggressive actions.

Degrees of aggressive behaviour:

Phases	Actions
First phase: The objective is that the other driver feels bad making a moral attack.	To ridicule, blaspheme, insult, to make inappropriate gestures or faces.
Second phase: the objective is the same but the argumentation deteriorates	Gradually the characteristics described in the first phase are aggravated, one starts to lose rational thought.
Third phase: the other driver is directly provoked	He is harassed (light flashing, irruption in the path of the other’s car, producing an abrupt detention in front of the other’s vehicle…)
Forth phase: the other driver is attacked physically	The auto-control disappears and verbal and physical violence open their path toward the other driver.

Learning by observation is one of the natural ways we have to gain experience, no matter whether it is positive or negative.

“If I see that somebody is behaving badly but reaches his objective, I will do the same”.

This posture adopted by a lot of people contributes to the extension of bad behaviour on our roads. Road violence extents itself due to imitation, due to the lack of education about the correct behaviour in the traffic system, and because we are in need of an effective socio-cultural coercion which fights this egoistical lifestyle.

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Another posts:

New values for shared mobility

2012 the European Year for Active Ageing. The Safe Mobility an Intergenerational Challenge

What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

Tourism and urban mobility "ad hoc"

Our relations with “the others” in mobility (english version)

Writers - tireless observers of our society - have reflected in their works the different forms of sociability which our mobility provides; examples of which we find in novels like “Murder on the Orient Express” or in films like “Titanic”. In these stories the plot unfolds on a journey, the sociability is reflected in the dialogues of its characters as well as the social segregation which the means of transport itself exerts on its passengers. First and second class in the 19th century, in the 20th century the business and tourist classes and now in the 21st century we have the low-cost class…We are collective animals, we live in society and when we move, we do so through her. We are surrounded by persons - like ourselves –who cause us – knowingly or unawares – different emotional reactions, some of them positive and some of them negative. Travelling causes us a change of rhythm, which we wouldn’t have in different circumstances (with regard to the different rhythms we go through, since we get up until we reach our workplace, changes we will feel still more if we are subject to a fixed work schedule which obliges to use collective transport). Another aspect which might influence us emotionally – more or less according to the character of the person – are the short distances. We know this very well if we go by underground, bus or train and more if those are overcrowded. We all have our personal space which in this case necessarily is invaded, by the body heat or by body odour…if we go by public transport we are not only going from one place to the next, we are also travelling through society perceiving in an anonymous but direct way the multiple forms that the human diversity acquires. Mobility obliges us to share public spaces with strangers and here the concept of unconquerable proximity comes up where glances play their role: Brief glances which avoid visual contact or which cross themselves with those of the other person, sideways glances with which we are prying about what our unknown companion is looking at or reading.

I include in this blog a video about the luxury train Andean Explorer which gets to circulate at the height of 4.000 m. In this recording of a private person, I like especially the fact that it reflects the view of a traveller through such an extraordinary society as is the Andina, but from the bubble of a upscale train.

Source: YouTube (Amesh2009)

George Amar talks in his essay on “Homo Mobilis” about the personal relations in the transport and more concretely about the co-presence and the promiscuity of the users of public transport, which traditionally has been viewed as something depreciative and which is exceeded by individual or restricted transport where one can decide freely if he or she wants to travel alone or in company.

The division between public-collective transport and private-restricted transport is currently diluting itself, as means of transport appear that transcend the traditional ways. Now there is not only the taxi; the shared car; the public cycling or the car-sharing have overcome this segmentation between the private and public; between the individual or restricted and the collective. Those are changes that have been supported by the evolution of the new information technologies and they are changing our perception of accessibility and connectivity between persons. More and more the social networks are converting themselves in socializing structures which amplify our capacity to get to know far away people and places. These new digital contacts are people with whom we share determined spaces and services in places which facilitate our communication. We should not be surprised about the symbiosis between the social applications and the transport services which need Twitter or Facebook. 91 % of the accesses to internet with a mobile phone are carried out to realize socialization actions (source: www.whybrand.com). Sometimes it’s the transport companies themselves which create their own communication channels in order to facilitate this necessity to get to know each other and to generate sufficient confidence to share the journey with “the other”.

In infographies as for example the one published by www.futureofcaresharing.com the current situation about new ways to share transport means is shown (something that already existed but in a much more rudimentary form, via the traditional communication “mouth to ear”). Today we have different forms to share things in internet which we will see by means of some examples of different infographies:

Peer to Peer (P2P):
Where the owners of cars which they want to rent and drivers who are willing to pay a rent to drive them are made to coincide in the market. Examples are: Whipcar, Relay Rides, Wheelz, Getaround…Organizations which promote the use of a shared car appear like Carsharing.com, Bluemove, Carsharing, which establish contact channels by which they reach agreements on a private basis, which allows people to travel together through mutual interest; or another variant which we can find in the nautical field with Findacrew.net. There are also multiple applications to share information of interest for the drivers like Waze, very much used to localize petrol promotions, information about traffic congestions, accidents, the state of the roads…this information is growing and it is updated by the users themselves.

Business to consumer (B2C):
Refers itself to companies owners of vehicles which facilitate the interchange between its members, its employees or its clients, such as the car producers Peugot, SEAT, BMW, renting companies like Hertz…and car-sharing companies like Zipcar, GoGet…

Not for profit (NFP):
These are organizations without purpose of gain which facilitate the interchange of cars to change the habits of mobility, for example City Car Share, I-Go Chicago, Philly Car Share…

In order not to elaborate too widely in this post I would like to touch only very shortly the systems to share information Machine to machine (M2M). Intelligent mobility services based on Cloud-computing architectures for companies whose employees have a high mobility ratio with a large necessity of coordination, security and control, examples are: AddFleet, Bixpe de Abbanza, the Getaround mentioned above can also be included in this group…

Currently, many people not only connect themselves by personal computer or laptop, but the new mobile devices have achieved that internet travels with us and in turn is changing our mobility depending on the degree of our connectivity. When we hold devices in our hands that permit us to keep talking to our acquaintances, that keep us busy and informed, those devises are changing our perception of the time we need for travelling. Internet modifies the paradigm of “the other” while we are moving, because while on the one hand it approaches us to third persons facilitating us contact in a virtual socialization, on the other hand it shuts us up in a bubble which isolates us from the people at close range to us with whom we are sharing the itinerary. Currently we are making a reinterpretation of the public spaces in which we move – both real and virtual. Are we aware of this change?

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Another posts:

New values for shared mobility

2012 the European Year for Active Ageing. The Safe Mobility an Intergenerational Challenge

What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

Fatal road accidents can be avoided:Principal elements of "Vision Zero"

Autobahnen:The myth of velocity

Three viewpoints about human mobility (english version)

A road on Tenerife Island

Recently I have read an article in the magazine Ciudades signed by Blanca Rebeca Ramírez Velázquez of the “Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xoichinilco (México)” which refers to the different approaches and dimensions which mobility can have conceptually. In this post I will share some of the ideas put forward in this interesting article, adding nuances and examples which support them.

The “Real Academia de la Lengua Española” (Royal Academy of the Spanish Language) defines mobility as: Quality of moveable, whereas moveable comprises all that is moveable on its own or is capable to move by external impulse. The 13th article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes that all people have the right to circulate freely and to choose their residence within the territory of a state. The “Movilia” survey which is elaborated in Spain, defines mobility as a strategy of the persons to organize their daily activities and which has as its prime objective to achieve the highest efficiency in their use of the different transport infrastructures. The law 9/2003 about mobility of the “Generalitat de Catalunya” defines the latter as the totality of movements of people and goods for labour, training, sanitary, social, cultural or private reasons or any other reason not stated here. Yet another and more simple definition, we find in “El libro verde del Medio Ambiente Urbano (2007)” (The green book of urban environment, 2007), which refers to mobility as a medium of access to goods, services and people.

Blanca R. Ramírez understands mobility as an attribute or a quality regarding the capacity to move, as explains the definition of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language. The mobility associated with persons and their activities is defined by historical evolution of technology, culture and society itself. Marc Augé introduced the concept of “supermodern mobility” when he talks about the current mobility of human beings, with a degree of complexity that overburdens us with its causes and multiple parameters to be kept in mind when we want to analyse it.

In her article B. R. Ramírez envisions three approximations to the concept of mobility in our society.

In the first place she differentiates between mobilities that are carried out the same day and those with a more permanent character, defined as migrations. This would be the first criterion for differentiation: the permanent or not-permanent character of mobility. The apparition of the various statistic techniques have been narrowing this line between the movements the population undertakes daily and the migrations human beings make. The spacial and temporal scale will determine when we speak of migration and when of mobility. And for this reason they observe the characteristics of the movement (interstate or intrastate, interurban or intraurban...) and their frequency in time.

The second criteria offered by the author of the article is that mobility is an attribute to the persons and their activities and not so much of the places. The delimitation would come with two different concepts: on the one hand there is mobility that actuates on persons (I would also add the goods that the will of persons wants to move) and on the other hand the transport which refers to the media which permit persons and objects to circulate from one place to the other. If we suppose that mobility is an objective with a finality (a right, a necessity, a pleasure), we understand that there are different strategies to carry it out, for example the design of the infrastructures which are built or different tactics for their use with reference to the necessary vectors for their execution, i. e. the transport means. The totality of these strategies and tactics of use will determine the final type of mobility, which generates determinate processes of appropriation, transformation and use of territory and which will change it constantly.

The third approximation to the concept of mobility concentrates on the accessibility and connectivity, which determine the frequency in which the traffic of the different media is generated. To understand the concept of accessibility we view the verbs “enter” and “leave”, as accessibility is an attribute proper to places, defined by the transport means that accede to a building, a district, a town, a region… The diversity, the quality, the frequency of the infrastructures and of the media, will improve or deteriorate the accessibility level of the place. The concept of connectivity we understand better if we view the verb “unite” as connectivity refers to an attribute proper to networks, which in our case is formed by the combination of infrastructures and the transport means. Today mobility in modern societies disposes of a level of connectivity to an extent that it is able to generate interactions between different places without the necessity of a physical accessibility of the same. Telephony, internet and all the telecommunications in general do so. The rural areas are an example for this change or as an extreme case the mountaineers who from the top of a peak they have conquered they call a relative or friend by mobile to tell them that they have arrived. A greater extent of connectivity means a lesser extent of accessibility?

As we have seen, mobility has a polyhedral nature proper to whatever human attribute. The investigators classify and dissect it to better understand this phenomenon. Concepts and attributes that we see change with time and that make themselves more complex. However, we must not forget, that mobility also has ideologies due to its proper finalist nature, but this will be material for another post.

We perceive mobility since ours first games.

For more information view this link:

BlancaRebeca Ramírez Velázquez: “Alcances y dimensiones de la movilidad: aclarando conceptos.” Revista Ciudades nª 82 (2009)

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Another posts:

New values for shared mobility

2012 the European Year for Active Ageing. The Safe Mobility an Intergenerational Challenge

What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

Fatal road accidents can be avoided:Principal elements of "Vision Zero"

Tourism and urban mobility "ad hoc"

Using Twitter in Public Transports (english version)

In an article published in the daily newspaper La Vanguardia by Joana Bonet titled “Burbujas con pin” (bubbles with pin), the important changes which smartphones, eBooks, ipod and other electronic devices have on our manner to communicate and to relate ourselves with other human beings are mentioned. In this article three of these changes were pointed out:

The protection these devices provide us, with regard to strangers who share the same space with us (like metro or bus stations, corridors in public installations, etc.) where “people don’t look themselves openly in the eyes any more, but take refuge in their screens”. This vision clashes frontally with the one defined by George Amar and his concept of “religance” in transportation, which has been explained in a number of articles of this blog. This term maybe responds to the multifaceted vision of a human phenomenon sufficiently complex as to explain it with a single paradigm.

Significant is the autosufficiency which we gain with the use of these devices, as we no longer have to ask a stranger how to reach a certain place or our current location. The GPS and all its applications have given us access to the immediate knowledge of our position in a system of worldwide reference. But it also has been a great progress for conjugal live, of which I can bear witness, as I’ve made a lot of kilometres on the European roads accompanied by my wife. First with a voluminous atlas and later on with the GPS receptor Tom-Tom: its many hours of stupid discussions over interpretation and execution that this little electronic commodity has spared us. It’s obvious that – although put aside – we have not abandoned the old Shell Atlas, as the technology sometimes still succumbs to various incidents which this traditional road book can endure.

And in the third place, the article highlights a new “private bubble”, expression created by the Israeli city planner Tali Hatuka to name the isolation from the phisical world, these technologies provide for us. They seduce ourselves with new forms of communication and entertainment which occupy our time, especially the time we need to move ourselves. Now we find ourselves in the strange circumstance that while travelling we can be at 20 cm of another person and easily ignore him or her. The small device creates an invisible bubble around us, which isolates us from the other passengers, more or less anonymous companions of our commute flows to and through the big metropolis.

Barcelona's underground

A few months ago I had the luck to assist to a conference organized by AMTU in Martorell, in which Sanderijn Baanders was explaining in her speech "Impact of social media in public transport. Use of Twitter in The Netherlands" some of the conclusions from the studies about the impact of the use of the social networks in the public means of transport.

Communication via internet has diversified notably: from the more conventional means as websites, newletters, electronic mails or SMS, over social networks (Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter and Youtube) until the most recent applications apps disigned for use in smartphones, as for example the QR codes. It is interesting to observe, what influence for example Twitter has on the transportation (in the conference the case of the Netherlands was explained) with the flow of information that circulates between operators with passengers and vice versa or between the passengers of public transport themselves. The speaker pointed out that depending on the kind of fluctuations, the type of information interchanged also varied. Sanderijn Baanders classified three groups of information interchange:

Of the operator to the users:
The information given in this flow of information is basically about the stops, time-schedules, news about the operating company, incidents, delays, interruptions of the service or answers to the most frequent questions of the clients.

Of the users to the operator:
The information basically refers to complaints about the service rendered by the operator, concrete or general questions, information about vandalism and to a lesser extent about suggestions for the improvement of the service.

Between the users:
The information usually are messages of sympathy, compliments and encouragements, also information interchanges about ticket controls, discussions of passengers and information about events, incidents, flash mob, even accidents that might produce themselves in the infrastructure of the transport network.

Baanders gave data of two Twitter users: @NS_online  (National Railways) Dutch train operator, now  while I'am writting this post has 46.000 followers with an average of 500 – 1.000 tweets per week and @TotalOVNL a user who informs about the ticket controls via Twitter with 11.900 followers and an average of 250 – 1.200 tweeds per week. At the end of the speech different operators present confirmed that also in Spain information systems about ticket controls to users had been detected. Nowadays, information no longer is an exclusive good for only a few, the new technologies are at the disposition of everyone (and reasonably priced); there will always be new tools for the old objectives.

Twitter is a very easy tool to use, with a rapid growth in wide sectors of the population and in which the messages send by the operators to inform their users about incidents or news related to public transport have a very good reception. Twitter is converting itself into an important information tool in comparison with the low quality of other communication means about the interruptions or incidents in the public transport. Let us keep the evolution of this tool and its utility in the mobility of the human being in mind.

 Twitter user

Do you think that Twitter is a threat for the ticket controls in itinere?

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Another posts:

New values for shared mobility

2012 the European Year for Active Ageing. The Safe Mobility an Intergenerational Challenge

What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

Tourism and urban mobility "ad hoc"

Six goals for the european transport market development (english version)

Intermodal station "Quatre Camins"

The European Commission puts great importance in its strategy to strengthen the political body, which is the union of the European continent, with the development of a potent infrastructure network to join its vast territory of more than 4 million m2 and a population which already surpassed 502 million inhabitants in the year 2011. The working document:  (White Paper) Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area - Towards a Competitive and Resource Efficient Transport Area System, is the most recent report which I was able to read about European infrastructure. Published in 2011 by the European Commission, this report highlights the importance of transport infrastructures for the economic activity: for job creation, the stimulus of Commerce, the improvement of geographic accessibility and the mobility of goods, services and persons which travel through its territory. I think the mentioned document might be quite interesting because of its proposition to project and plan the European Communities’ vision of the future European transport system concretizing the major operative lines to be developed in the next years, which can be classified in three big blocks:

INFRASTRUCTURES:   
Creation of a European transport market on the basis of the infrastructures project TEN-T, the objective of which is the reduction of the current traffic congestions and a substantial improvement of the accessibility to the whole European territory on a small and medium scale level (continental and regional).

ENERGIES:
Reduction of the big dependability of the European transport system on petrol and the design of new contingencies for the foreseeable scarcity of fossil fuel in the near future (Peak oil). In the report the following fact is pointed out: In 2010 the imports of petrol to the European Union amounted to approx. 210 billions. €.

ENVIRONMENT:   
Reduction of the greenhouse gases in order to minimize their effect on the climatic change.

This document proposes quite concrete actions for each of these three fields for the next four decades (comprising a horizon until the year 2050) which I tried to classify in the following 6 major goals as indicated at the beginning: 

1. Reduction of the greenhouse gases by  60 % before 2050 for the complete transport system, with the milestone to reach a reduction of 20 % in 2030 in comparison to the emissions produced in 2008.

2. Change of the transport model: Development of considerably cleaner vehicles, a strengthening of the collective transport where the individual transport only will be used as the “last mile” of the journeys, creation of high speed train lines and corridors for the rail transport of special goods at medium range, thus enabling a sutureless mobility within the territory with a good intermodality between the different means of transport. A change of the transport model based on the intensive use of technology, not only to improve the transfers between the different modes of transport, but also in order to improve its infrastructures (ITS, SESAR, EMTS, SafeSeaSafety, RIS…) and in order to reach with this model a level of economy of scales that permits the apparition of multimodal and multinational logistic operators.

3. Creation of a multimodal transport network between the major cities of the European Union, with train corridors and motorways, by strengthening the intermodal character of the sea ports as well as of interior waterways and by connecting the high speed train network with the European airport network. The creation of a unique European airspace, the creation of a unique train space and the creation of a “blue belt” for the European network for short distance sea shipping.

4. Implantation of a sustainable urban transport system, by using mobility plans in the cities or in the companies and big public installations; by introducing intelligent transport tickets and by using tariff systems by areas and not by mode of transport, by car-sharing, Park & Ride systems near big connecting stations, by potentiating active mobility (like walking, biking,…) and by harmonizing movements of the commuter traffic in the big metropolitan areas.

5. Maintaining the European Union as world leader for road and labour security, by the development of politics of security, responsibility, accessibility and quality of the services and working places in the transport and logistics sector. The European Union has the objective to reduce the number of traffic victims by half until the year 2020 and to reach 0 deaths by traffic accidents in 2050.

6. Internalization of transport costs. Costs on a global scale with the raising of taxes for energy use and with the creation of a market of the emission of greenhouse gases. For the costs on a local scale (noise, pollution and high traffic accumulation) a “toll” for the use of the infrastructures will be introduced and fiscal adaptations in the sector will be made according to the prerequisite: “who pollutes, pays”. This will be established in two phases: In the first phase until 2016, the taxes applied to the sales of cars with combustion engines will be revised. This means, on the one hand, the application of the regulation of the “Eurovignette” (road tax disc) – “who uses, pays” and on the other hand the modification of some of the tributes (those that allow for it) by highlighting the environmental impact they produce to discriminate positively the cleanest vehicles. In a second phase (between 2016 – 2020) this fiscal policy will be consolidated and the costs for pollution and noise level of the harbours and airports will be included. Obviously this document is a lot more extensive and those interested in its content can access to the original via the link which I mentioned at the beginning.

With the ongoing crisis we are informed “through the grapevine” by the media of new reductions and fiscal changes applied to different aspects of our mobility (a right our governments should preserve for us). Many of those measures are more than simply rumours, provoked by economically burdened Governments, and are part of a strategy designed by Brussels to achieve the change of model for our transport and mobility system, which leave little manoeuvring space to the national governments (such as for example delay of measures like the introduction of the “Eurovignette” (Euroviñeta), in the case of Spain, or the modification of the contribution levels which can be applied in different fees). We’ll have to be more and more aware of what is happening in Brussels, as what is decided there, will be more important than what is being legislated in any of the capitals of the member states of the European Union.

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Another posts:

New values for shared mobility

2012 the European Year for Active Ageing. The Safe Mobility an Intergenerational Challenge

What kind of european policies promote the intermodality in the transport?

2012 the European Year for Active Ageing. The Safe Mobility an Intergenerational Challenge (english version)

http://europa.eu/ey2012/

This year 2012 has been declared by the EU the European Year of Active Ageing and Intergenerational Solidarity, for this reason I want to review the interesting technical dossier about road safety, published in 2006 by the Catalan Traffic Service, dedicated to the elderly. In these documents I‘ve found answers for the questions that many people might be interested in:


What means ageing and what effects does it have on the mobility of human beings?
Ageing is a change process in life that gradually reduces the reserve mechanism in the organs of the body, increasing its vulnerability to external or internal aggressions. Ageing also means the loss of ability for adaptation to the changes that are producing themselves constantly throughout our life and it generates certain morphological changes in our body.

The following table classifies principal ageing transformations that can affect mobility.

Physical Transformations	Decrease in auditive and visual capacity
	Increased sensorial confusion
	Low reaction capacity
	Joint stiffness and degeneration of bone structures
	Increased vulnerability to illness by weakening of the immune system
Mental Transformations	Low capacity of attention
	Low capacity of selection and differentiation of stimulus
	Greater possibility of confusion and disorientation
	Decreased short-term memory and appearance of senile dementia
Social Transformations	Retirement
	Limitation of certain social contacts, for example professional links
	Low purchasing power

 Table prepared from data provided by:

 Dossier tècnic de seguretat viària. La gent gran: vianants i mobilitat urbana segura. (2006) SCT

These features (described above) have important implications for the mobility of elder people. Good mobility for these persons means an active social life that allows them to maintain contact with their families and friends, go alone to the nursing home or maintain relationships with other people moving through public spaces. Good mobility for older people is fundamental to enjoy a quality ageing. Safe mobility is an intergenerational challenge.

Elderly people mainly are travelling either walking or by public transport, so streets are key areas for them: a place to meet, a place to communicate or to distract themselves. Older people prefer short trips (for example no more than half an hour), without big slopes or steps, they like banks to rest, in short: sites they can feel safe.

In 1999 the World Health Organization defined active ageing as the participation of older adults, individually and collectively, in any public or private social area, and there is not active ageing without mobility. In Spain these ideas have been officially accepted by all governments.

Accessibility symbol

What needs for accessibility do the elderly have?
Accessibility is the ability for everyone to make use of a space on the principle of equality. In the Spanish national law 3/1998 of 24 of June the requirements for accessibility are established and the conditions for the removal of barriers for citizens. From 2004 to 2012 the IMSERSO (ageing administration) has been developing the First National Accessibility Plan as an essential criterion in public administration as well as a means to extend the “design for everybody” not only in products but also in infrastructures and services. Architectural barriers in buildings and streets, the intense and aggressive motorized traffic and citizen insecurity create an inaccessible environment for elders, causing greater insecurity and isolation to them. If this is not remedied, old people fall into a dependency and low self-esteem, which might result in the creation of their own alienation to everything that happens outside their homes. Finally without mobility elderly people only know what happens outside by radio, TV, internet or whatever visitors will tell them. Accessibility and safe mobility are two key objectives for the development of an active and healthy ageing.


What's safe mobility?
Safe mobility is considered the right to move by foot or by any vehicle without risk and with guarantees for physical integrity of persons and goods. Therefore, safe mobility should be preventive, respectful with the standards, adapted to the circumstances and based on values such as prudence, respect and responsibility. This type of mobility can become a comprehensive strategy for a transversal intergenerational social action, applicable to different environments: family, school, neighbourhoods, municipality... Safe mobility is a topic of dialogue between citizens allowing them an intergenerational communication (grandparents with grandchildren, parents with children, teachers with students, associations with citizens ...) and in this way to give a solution to this social need: the intergenerational contact, where the city becomes the reference space for this education and relationships. Save school roads, for example, are a clear tool in this strategy of collaboration for safe intergenerational mobility, however, these activities are not only designed for children, but for all citizens especially old people.

Have we thought how many times in our life we need to make use of the accessibility right? At the beginning of childhood we are without autonomous mobility and we need to learn it. When we reach old age, gradually, we have less mobility, and it’s also very likely that we lose autonomy temporarily or permanently as a result of an accident or illness. Are we conscious about how long throughout our lives we will need an assisted mobility, which has nothing to do with the car? Can you think, just a minute, about safe mobility and accessibility you need now and you will need in the future?

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New values for shared mobility

New values for a shared mobility

The public bike has been an important contribution to ecomobility.
Bicing in Barcelona

People and goods transports always have had a close relationship with time. One of the economical concept foundations has been the time-distance relationship. Time is money. Time has been considered a cost to be reduced in order to gain economic and organizational efficiency. However, at present we begin to outline a different perception of time as a consumable value in itself while we travel. The information and communication technologies (IT) would modulate this new vision of time of transportation, especially when we are referring to the displacement of people.

During the last century until today another concept related to transport was consolidated with the automobile: the individual freedom of movement, which currently is highly evaluated.  But everything evolves…even the values we consider untouchables. We remind the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who said: “Change is the only immutable thing.” Although today the individual freedom of movement is still valid for us, it has become more complex to perform, when another perspective emerged in our society: the collective responsibility. From different points of view the collective responsibility is gaining more weight on our scale of values, the reason for which is the acquired knowledge of our impact on the ecosystems. An example is the traffic system. We know that when everyone does the best for themselves, they don’t necessarily do the optimal thing for the general system and they can even congest and collapse it. The most advanced societies acquire new values related to mobility, which doesn’t mean that we renounce the traditional values, which we already have assumed like precaution, safety, citizenship and sustainability. Renowned researchers like Ulrich Beck: Risk Society (1992) and George Amar: Homo mobilis (2011) explain the progress of these new values.

Nowadays any organization should be concerned about its image and the coherence of the message offered to their providers and clients through a corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy, so that it doesn’t lose market share or is expelled from it. We have obligations as consumers. We aren’t simply a number on their income statements. We are each day more conscious of our “empowerment” (a borrowed concept from George Amar referred to the access of information for the costumer, their critical capacity and influence, their decision making as a power they have on the producers and distributors to choose a product or service.)

Normally, we associate citizenship with respect for the rules created by experts and legislators, but now the participative nature of social networks redefines the concept of moderation to standard behaviours.  From the digital world, where cross-communications is the norm between users, a new way has transcended to the offline world with a citizenship linked to other forms of governance, based in dialogue and exchanging arguments between its participants. Compared to this dichotomy: rules proposal by authority and trespass or submission by the citizens, now (slowly) emerges a way to make active listening and engagement with people, where rules are adopted by consensus between all actors. The definition of new urban mobility plans should apply these new planning and management parameters.

An ecological awareness emerges when people notice the dimension of consequences on a global scale from their small and individual decisions. Environmentalism has come to our society to stay permanently. The market is well aware of this change, and it has prepared this concept for integration into the system: the eco-consumers. Transport and mobility are not indifferent to this line of thought. Eco-mobility searches the effects of carbon footprint and its rebalancing as well as the reduction of pollution. New businesses are established like carpooling, car sharing, public services on demand, soft mobility, electro mobility… that are changing the way towards more efficient social and environmental transports.

Electro mobility is not only for motorcycles or cars.
(In the photograf segway's users),

Transport and mobility infrastructures are no longer measured and studied exclusively from indicators like km of railroads, km of highways, speed average, number of passengers, time in hours or days, tons, TEU or similar variables. Progressively new parameters are seeking to measure the values that emerge in our society which evaluate the nature and quality of transport modes, such as variety of services, facilities, safety, comfort, attraction… We measure the values generating new motivations for use, and the values of the environmental sustainability movement will make our growing environmental awareness more attractive.

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