Lead Partner:
Provincie Noord-Holland
P.O. Box 123, Dreef 3, 2000 MD, Haarlem
NL
Tel +31 23 514 5247
Fax +31 23 514 4850

Contact:
Mr. H.C. (Hans) Voerknecht
Project Manager
Voerknechth@noord-holland.nl

Measure: 2.1

Start date: 2003/01/01
End date: 2008/06/30

ERDF Grant: € 4 898 009
Total eligible cost: € 10,5 M€

NL - Provincie Noord-Holland

UK - Essex County Council

UK - Lancashire County Council

UK - London Borough Council of Southwark

UK - City of Edinburgh Council

UK - Royal Devon & Exeter Healthcare NHS Trust

NL - Provincie Gelderland

NL - Provincie Zuid-Holland

NL - Novem (The Netherlands Agency for Energy and the Environment)

Project type: Action

Summary
Road congestion in the NWE area affects accessibility, mobility, environmental quality and economic development. Building new roads is no longer an option. Optimum2 seeks to better integrate mobility management into spatial planning and promote sustainable mobility alternatives. Nine partners from the Netherlands and the UK have set their objectives around five key factors that they consider are insufficiently adressed today’s policies. Firstly they want to generate solutions that are more user-oriented approach through closer analysis of user needs and travel patterns. Secondly the partners want to make sure that mobility management is taken into account at early stages of the planning process. Thirdly they want to provide better information on sustainable mobility alternatives through Real-Time passenger information systems. Fourthly they want to develop new marketing approaches to promote sustainable mobility to the consumer. The partners’ fifth and last objective is to stimulate sustainable mobility in future development schemes through a system of rewards and penalties that local authorities could resort to. Ten pilot projects in metropolitan areas across the UK and the Netherlands, will implement and test different sustainable mobility schemes around major public facilities such as hospitals or business parks. A team of ‘flying’experts on Mobility management will provide their input and enhance the transfer of experience at transnational level. To ensure a wide dissemination of results to all interested parties in the NWE region, the partners will put together a manual of guidelines or ‘cookbook’ which will be regularly updated to keep the approach alive. These various actions represent a total investment of € 10.5 Mio of which 50 % is co-funded by the ERDF.

Objectives OPTIMUM² aims to substantially increase the effects of Mobility Management by focusing upon the five key factors (the OPTIMUM² pillars) that until now have been insufficiently addressed in Mobility Management programmes. The five key factors or pillars are: User-oriented approach; Taking on Mobility Management from the start Communication and information Marketing and promotion; Enforcing Mobility Management measures. Activities Expected Outcomes The production and use of the five-pillar approach as a model for effective Mobility Management approach. This approach can be applied to handle (or at least alleviate) accessibility and mobility problems in urban areas caused by congestion. The pilots as ‘live’ examples for the OPTIMUM2-approach A ‘Cookbook’, both in printed as in software version, which will detail all methods, tools and results of OPTIMUM2. Its user-friendly structure will guide future users as they compose their own “menu” to suit the needs of their individual, national or regional situation. The OPTIMUM2-network organisation, which will continue to keep the OPTIMUM2-approach alive, updated and user-friendly and will also keep transferring the approach to urban areas to attain better mobility and accessibility through Mobility Management. (see Key Action 7). Methods and tools for addressing the five-pillar approach that will be transferable and transferred to other NWE-urban areas.