Hands-on activities on sustainable mobility, with a special focus on road safety and cycling experience. This is how Sapienza Università di Roma celebrated European Mobility Week 2024. Improving mobility in cities and making it more sustainable was the aim. Learning about the main causes of road accidents and spreading safety culture, to prevent accidents and injuries were also a very hot topics.

 
The “Biocarrozza". Photo © SUR

During the event, information and support to live the best cycling experience in the city was provided, along with the set-up of a bike-point to teach small repairs and maintenance of bicycles.

Two simulators - one of rollover and one of frontal impact, installed on a truck of 12 metres adapted to a large stage and equipped with a maxi screen, were made available for the general public, as an innovative road education system.  The participants could get into a real city car controlled by a technician who simulated the vehicle overturning and explained how to safely exit the passenger compartment.

Photo © SUR

Participant got to deepen their knowlege of the Highway Code and to test self-awareness tools for the risk of night apnea, special glasses capable of simulating the visual distortion of alcohol and drugs, video games on sleep hygiene and road safety.

Furthermore, Sapienza Corse Team and Sapienza Sustainable Mobility Pole offered the opportunity to admire from close up  Gajarda - the revolutionary single-seater of Formula Sae, and the “Biocarrozza”, a prototype of an electric coach to promote sustainable tourism.

Shared public space 

The European Mobility Week is the European Commission’s flagship awareness-raising campaign on sustainable urban mobility. It promotes behavioural change in favour of active mobility, public transport, and other clean, intelligent transport solutions. The 2024 theme - “Shared public space”- invited us to collectively decide how to share our public space, and make sure everyone can move around safely and comfortably in a pleasant environment - especially pedestrians and cyclists.

Photo © SUR

Shared public space brings many benefits to society, creating a place where people, transport means and activities have their own space. It is a place with more social equity, more road safety, less noise and air pollution, and a better quality of life. On this topic, Universities can play an important role in communicating the advantages of public transport and the solutions for its effective and increasingly intermodal use.

Sapienza Mobility Portal (PdM) represents a project built around the concept of participation, designed to encourage the involvement of the community in the strategic decisions and provide useful services to choose and manage alternative and more sustainable methods of commuting from home to work to the car.

Find out more from the original story, in Italian.