Most public space in towns must be shared among the different means of mobility. Only at main streets we can think of providing separate infrastructure for each mode: sidewalks, bike lanes, bus lanes… But around 80% of our streets do not have enough space to create separate lanes, so the diverse modes must share the space. To create a safe area, controlling speeds is crucial: speed must be adjusted to the slower modes. When we think of pedestrian areas, the speed should be near to 10 km/h; when we think of shared streets with sidewalks, the speed should be around 30 km/h. In many streets of just one lane, maximum speed is legally 30 km/h, but there is a huge lack of control. This lack of respect for 30 km/h provokes bike and e-scooter users do not feel safe when sharing streets with motorized traffic, so they use pedestrian space, creating uncomfortable situations with pedestrians. Sharing e-scooters providers showed that geofencing and intelligent speed assistance (ISA) are great tools to adjust speeds automatically to different areas. ISA technology in Europe is mandatory on new models of car sold from July 2022 and on all new cars sold from July 2024, and there have been different pilots in European cities (Cologne in Germany, Helmond in the Netherlands, Gothenburg in Sweden). With this session we would like to explore what are the technological, administrative and social barriers for implementing ISA and other ITS to reach safer public spaces.

Organiser:

• Sílvia Casorrán, RedBici

Moderator:

• Sílvia Casorrán, RedBici

Speakers:  

• Laura Babío Somoza, POLIS    
• Martin Haerst, City of Cologne    
• Sergi Milan, EIT Urban Mobility    
• Gorka Pradas, FEVEMP