How can we catalyze the shift to sustainable urban mobility?

Tim Asperges: “The city of Leuven is a medium‑sized city with 100,000 inhabitants. What is particular about Leuven is that, in addition to these 100,000 residents, we have 50,000 students, which truly makes us a student city. We are also one of the 100 EU Mission Cities working to become climate‑neutral by 2030. One of the most important projects we implemented in 2016 was a very radical traffic circulation plan in the city centre, where we doubled the pedestrian zone and made very decisive changes to how the city would be accessible by private car. A key strategy or approach is that we do not see mobility solely as an economic issue — we also consider it a social one. From that perspective, we have, for example, services specifically designed for people with disabilities, older residents, or individuals with low incomes: we offer an on‑demand transport service that these target groups can truly rely on. It is important that we continue to focus on many target groups who genuinely need this kind of mobility. I just mentioned the on‑demand service, but we also have a very clear deployment of shared mobility services. People who are in low‑income situations or otherwise vulnerable are often unaware that these options could help them as well. It is crucial that we provide personal assistance to teach them how to use these types of mobility services. This is the approach in Leuven: in addition to the existing mobility offer, there is, for many target groups, a strong emphasis on personalised assistance — how to use the services and how to access discounts on transport options. People should have a right to mobility, and we provide this right to these specific target groups as well.”