45^th International Cities Forum 2022

Whose city is this and how do we want to be mobile in future? The concept of a car-friendly city which was created and propagated in the 1970s has long since turned out to be a mista-ke. What was at the time the progressive idea of separating life according to functionalities of accommodation, work and leisure and then, only as a secondary stage, planning to connect these areas via mobility proved to be a pipe dream. In just a few decades, a century-old prin-ciple, that of building settlements along existing transport routes, was thrown to the wind. The car was seen as the miracle cure and opened up a new sense of freedom and flexibility, at least for a small section of the population.

For many, however, it also meant a new form of dependency and the negative aspects of automobilisation have since become impossible to ignore: congested streets, noise and heavy air pollution are just some of the negative consequences that the whole of society has to bear. Alongside the damage caused to the environment and people’ s health, the social conse-quences cannot be ignored either, including the lack of space for exercise and changes to the urban climate. For a long time, the principle of the car-friendly city has sidelined the needs of many people regarding alternative ways of using public space in the sense of an attractive, sustainable and social city. This increasingly leads to conflicts, and demands for a redistributi-on of public space and alternative mobility concepts become louder.

The International City Forum 2022 is dedicated to viable and sustainable mobility. Discus-sions among participants at last year’ s International City Forum demonstrated that this sub-ject is of great international significance. Logically, therefore, this ties in with the International City Forum 2021 on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The essential goals of Agenda 2030 cannot be achieved without a transformation of transportation. SDG 11 explicit-ly refers to the aim of providing all people with access to safe, affordable and sustainable transport systems. A lot needs to happen in the area of mobility in cities, therefore, to make living in cities more climate-friendly, more sustainable and healthier.

There are only very few subjects that impact so many areas of life and affect so many groups of people like mobility. We all use transport, we all want to get to different places and, therefore, we are all mobile in different ways. The development of viable, sustainable mobility strategies is of equal concern to local authorities and their citizens, city planners and transport planners as well as interest groups from industry and civil society. In this respect, the mobility transition can only succeed if all these groups are involved. Decisions for the future can only be made or not made by weighing up the various interests.

Within the framework of the International City Forum, therefore, as many aspects of the sub-ject as possible are to be highlighted and different groups of people are to have their say. A-longside representatives from science, politics and administration, representatives of civil society will also be involved in the International City Forum for the first time this year. The core of the event comprises four subject-related workshops in which participating cities use a practical example to discuss advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and challenges, as well as lessons learnt from tried and tested approaches to sustainable mobility. Individually, the workshops tackle four aspects of mobility.

From 9 a.m.
Arrival of Participants

9.30 a.m. – 9.45 a.m.
Welcoming and Opening remarks
Peter Moll, Deputy CEO Förde Sparkasse
Hans-Werner Tovar, President of the City Council Kiel
Miriam Gyamfi, Introduction to the Conference

9.45 a.m. – 10.05 a.m.
Introduction to the topic on Mobility transition
Key note speach on the challenges and opportunities for a sustainable, future-oriented mobility
Katja Diehl (She drives Mobility)

10.05 a.m. – 10.30 a.m.
Talk on Mobility
Dr. Ulf Kämpfer, Mayor of Kiel and
Prof. Dr. Jana Kühl, Germany's first professor for cycling management

10.30 a.m. – 11 a.m. Short Break

11 a.m. – 12.15 p.m.
Workshop session I (Presentation of best practice, exchange & discussion in workshop plenum)
Workshop 1 „Strengthening low-emission public transport“
Workshop 2 „Expansion of walking and cycling“

12.15 p.m. – 1.15 p.m. Lunch

1.15 p.m. – 2.30 p.m.
Workshop session II (Presentation of best practice, exchange & discussion in workshop plenum)
Workshop 3 „Digitalization and Mobility Transition“
Workshop 4 „Mobility on the Water“

2.30 p.m. – 2.45 p.m. Short Break

2.45 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Final Presentation & Panel Discussion

4 p.m. – 4.10 p.m.
Closing remarks
Hans-Werner Tovar, President of the City Council Kiel

There is hardly a city that does not complain about how little its local public transport services are used. At the same time, more and more citizens are demanding improvements in precise-ly these services. In fact, boosting the number of local public transport users is regarded as a key factor in achieving the goal of climate neutrality. In Germany, the transport sector is still the third biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. It is against this backdrop that the Federal Government established its current initiative of introducing a €9 ticket for local public transport, initially for a period of three months. Triggered by rising inflation and the associated financial strain on the population, this ticket can be seen as an attempt to encourage more people to use local public transport.

The practical example used in this workshop comes from the host city. This year, a far-reaching decision is to be made on the expansion and upgrading of the local public transport network in Kiel. In the future, should Kiel have a busway on its own lane (BRT) or reinstate its tram network? Kiel’s transport planners are currently working on a route study that compares the advantages and disadvantages of the two options. It is a major city project that many of Kiel’s residents feel strongly about and so it has been widely discussed. The final decision in favour of one of the two systems is to be made by the end of 2022.

Various key questions will be discussed at the workshop, including:

• How can a balance be achieved between local authority investments, state funding and costs to be incurred by citizens?
• How can the use of the local public transport network be guaranteed for the whole population?
• How can the local public transport network be made as accessible as possible?
• How can the various local public transport services in a city be linked together, includ-ing transitions to private transport (creation of transitions, synchronisation, etc.)?
• What solutions are there to ward off the risk of skilled staff shortages in the local public transport network?
• What drive systems are sustainable and viable?

Failures in transport policy to date are probably most apparent when it comes to pedestrians and cyclists. By prioritising private motorised transport, the space required for this alone was enough to severely restrict pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Even the remaining spaces desig-nated for other road users are accessible to cars: footpaths and bike lanes are parked on, market places and undeveloped sites in city centres are used as parking spaces for so-called “stationary traffic”.

Many local authorities are now pursuing the strategy of more heavily regulating and reducing car traffic and thereby making other forms of mobility more attractive. The costs involved in using a private car are to be cranked up through instruments like the city toll, the rededication of car parks and consistent parking management. At the same time, cities and communities are promoting the expansion of footpaths and bike lanes and encouraging their citizens to use these low-emission forms of mobility. Nevertheless, there are still many challenges involved in the expansion of pedestrian and bicycle traffic in cities. 

These are discussed in the work-shop using a practical example from Vaasa (Finland) and with reference to the following questions:

• How can accessibility to these forms of transport be guaranteed for as many people as possible?
• With regard to accident statistics: how can road safety be guaranteed for pedestrians and cyclists?
• Promoting pedestrian and bicycle traffic changes traffic management and traffic flows in cities. How can cars, pedestrians and cyclists exist alongside one another on an equal footing?
• How can conflicts over the distribution of public space that are triggered by the expan-sion of pedestrian and bicycle traffic be solved?
• How can people be encouraged to walk or cycle more? How should we educate our children about transport?

Along with the energy transition and transformation of transportation, digitalisation is probably one of the biggest transformation processes of our time affecting the whole of society. While the first two transitions can be clearly defined, digitalisation covers so many areas of life and has countless different facets, often with as yet unknown consequences. Digitalisation is the great testing ground of our time: innovations come and go, as users we are involved in decid-ing which new products and services make it through and which ones disappear from the market. “Black box digitalisation” has enormous potential in this regard. It can act as a catalyst for the transformation of transportation and open up vast economic potential.

In this regard, too, many cities and local authorities around the world face a series of chal-lenges. Many new forms of transport, types of vehicles and forms of use have developed with the creation of new technologies. Sharing models, new electric vehicles (e-scooters, e-mopeds) and even autonomous vehicles – they all need space, a new (charging) infrastruc-ture needs to be created, without yet knowing with absolute certainty what will be used and how it will be used in the future. Digitalisation is also associated with increasing availability of – sometimes sensitive – data. The use of this data provides opportunities, for example, for im-proving traffic flows, but there are many as yet unanswered questions in this area too.

On the basis of a practical example from Vilnius (Latvia), the following key questions are dis-cussed in this workshop:

• How do the public sector and private industry work together in designing new forms of digital transport?
• How can the new services be organised (and regulated) and what opportunities and challenges result from this?
• How can the best possible access to new forms of transport and strategies for their use be guaranteed for the broadest sections of the population through the use of digital applications?
• In view of the wide range of new developments: what forms of state regulation may be useful and are necessary? Where and how are incentives to be offered?

Kiel and many of its partner cities are in waterside locations. Many of these cities are port cities and face the challenge of (better) integrating their areas of water into urban transport planning. Aspects of sustainability and climate neutrality play an ever greater role in the de-sign of future mobility on the water. Many ports that are stop-off points for cargo and cruise ships are working towards a sustainable transformation and stronger integration of green technologies. 

Whether it is in the use of shore-side power supply plants, the conversion of the ports’ forklift trucks to electric or hybrid drives or switching to a wind or solar power-generated energy supply: sustainability and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions are guiding prin-ciples for the mobility strategies of modern ports. Just like roads, the water will become a test-ing ground for new forms of mobility: autonomous water vehicles, vessels powered by an alternative energy supply, but also new types of water vehicles. Several cities are also work-ing on new concepts and forms of locomotion.

The practical example used in this workshop comes from the French port city of Brest. Dur-ing the workshop, the following key questions will be discussed, among others:

• How can mobility on the water be integrated into the city’s transport plan? How can transitions to other forms of transport be designed? How can these services be made more attractive as a whole?
• There is often a clash of different official responsibilities on the water. How can con-flicts of responsibility and use be solved or overcome?
• Ports are reloading sites for goods and, at the same time, a gathering point for people arriving and departing. How should the various demands placed on ports be taken into account in the city’s transport planning? What challenges result from this?