Policy

The Bologna Model: Lessons from the Italian City's Successful Speed Reduction

In January 2024, Bologna’s Città 30 initiative implemented a 30 km/h speed limit on 70% of the city's municipal roads. The goal? To make streets “calmer, safer, and more livable” for everyone. How did they do it, and how did it go?

Key Takeaways

• Road collisions dropped by over 13%, injuries by more than 11%, and serious crashes plummeted by 30%. Fatalities have fallen by 50%, hitting their lowest level in over a decade, and for the first time, zero pedestrian deaths were recorded.
• Car traffic has slightly decreased, while bike-sharing use increased by 69%, car-sharing rose by 44%, and cycling trips are up 10%.
• Bologna is also redesigning its streets through physical interventions such as traffic calming, pedestrian zones, and “school streets”.
• A key pillar of Bologna’s mobility strategy is its commitment to accessibility for all with the goal of enhancing autonomy, comfort and safety for all users, especially those with disabilities, older people, children and other vulnerable groups.
• Bologna installed over 800 new signs and road markings to remind drivers of the change constantly. There was a six-month grace period with extensive public awareness campaigns instead of immediate fines.
• The city’s District Labs provide local facilitated workshops that enable residents and municipal staff to co-design improvements to public space, including pedestrianisation projects around schools.
• On the infrastructure side, the city is investing in new tram lines, pedestrian zones and traffic calming measures.
• Soft interventions include awareness-raising campaigns, behavioural nudges and inclusive services.
• Taxi drivers and delivery workers have voiced concerns about longer travel times and higher costs.
• To strengthen public understanding and trust, the city introduced a network of Città 30 Ambassadors who share information about the policy and answer questions.
• Bologna’s reporting of accident reductions, traffic flow, and pollution levels has helped validate the policy, maintain momentum and political backing.

Comment

Bologna demonstrates what is possible, and its comprehensive approach to community engagement, along with a joined-up strategy, provides valuable lessons for any jurisdiction. A widespread approach like that in Bologna may not be feasible in all jurisdicitions and it may be neccessary to take a more salami slicing approach, reducing speeds where there is strong local support, rolling out school streets where parents and schools are supportive as a first step and building momentum and the foundations for a more widespread adoption.

What next?

Would your region benefit from speed reductions?

Affordability

A Holistic Approach to Transport Affordability

Transport affordability is a widely discussed topic, with various policies being proposed, often involving cheap or free fares. However, transport affordability is rarely considered holistically. Therefore, it was great to see this paper from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in Canada.

Key Takeaways

• Few transportation agencies have clearly defined affordability goals, performance indicators or tools for evaluating how specific planning decisions affect these goals.
• If considered at all, affordability is evaluated based on individual expenses such as fuel costs, tolls, parking fees, or transit fares. Planning analysis often overlooks the impact of individual decisions on total household transport expenses and how to enhance overall affordability.
• Experts recommend that households spend no more than 45% of their budgets on housing and transportation combined, in recognition that families often face trade-offs between housing and travel costs.
• Cost burdens are particularly high for low-income vehicle-owning households, which typically spend more than 20% of their budgets on transport and more than 60% on housing and transport combined.
• Walking, bicycling, e-bikes, public transit, and teleworking have much lower costs than cars. As a result, transport cost burdens increase with motor vehicle ownership and use.
• Households located in multimodal areas tend to spend much less on transport than in car-dependent regions. More compact development tends to increase transport affordability.
• Guidelines for affordability analysis:
  • Use comprehensive analysis that considers all costs, including indirect costs such as residential parking.
  • Consider both housing and transportation costs together.
  • Consider vehicle ownership as well as operating costs.
  • Give special consideration to affordability for people with disabilities, low incomes and other unique needs.
  • Identify latent demand for affordable transport options.
• Policies for improving transport affordability include:
  • Improve and encourage affordable modes, including walking, bicycling, e-bikes, public transit, Mobility as a Service (MaaS), and telework.
  • Spend at least the portion of transport budgets on affordable modes as their potential mode shares. For example, transportation agencies should spend up to 20% of their budgets on walking and bicycling improvements if that would give them a 20% mode share, or more if justified to achieve strategic goals and make up for past underinvestments.
  • Support the sharing vehicle economy so households can reduce their vehicle ownership.
  • Implement Smart Growth policies that create compact, multimodal neighbourhoods.
  • Increase affordable housing in multimodal neighbourhoods.
  • Apply complete streets policies to ensure that all streets accommodate affordable modes.
  • Reform parking policies. Unbundle and cash out free parking so non-drivers are no longer forced to subsidise parking facilities they do not need.
  • Implement Travel Demand Management (TDM) incentives, such as parking cash out, parking unbundling and commuter transit benefits, that reward travellers who use non-car modes.

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Comment

Transport affordability is an area where many policies with good intentions often lead to negative unintended consequences. This is partly because we have neglected to properly study affordability. In particular, we overlook the costs of car dependency on low-income households. Providing these households with options to reduce their car dependency should be a key focus for transport affordability.

What next?

Do you have a good analysis of transport affordability in your area?

Leadership

How to Win Hearts and Minds for Transport Change: A Guide

Communications are a key element of making transformative change in transport. Baden-Württemberg in Germany has produced this handy guide focused on Climate Communication in Transport. (Note: the guide is in German).

Thanks to the Polis think tank for putting me on to this one.

Key Takeaways:

The guide has 16 steps:

1. Appeal to the heart. Adapt the message to the target audience and link it to their values.
2. Get your facts straight. These facts must be linked to the issues of the target groups.
3. Generate interest. Use special days or events as an opportunity to create interest. Try out new formats.
4. Raise awareness of the impacts of today's traffic. Show how our mobility behaviour affects our everyday lives. Put people first.
5. Communicate urgency, but not hopelessness. Explain the serious consequences of climate change but offer opportunities for action.
6. Explain the key causes. Make it clear where the key levers for change are.
7. Bring solutions to the front. Explain the solutions.
8. Explain the benefits of change. Health, community, safety, cost, equity, etc.
9. Show successes. There are many successes from around the world you can point to.
10. Choose the right words. Use simple, active language and positive terms. Avoid negative and inaccurate framing.
11. Tell stories. Stories are very powerful for communication.
12. Use the right images. Use authentic and realistic pictures, not distant climate impacts.
13. Find a suitable ambassador. Use well-known and trusted individuals who can reach ordinary people in their everyday lives.
14. Be confident. The majority of people are either supportive and can be persuaded to change. Don't let loud naysayers beat you down.
15. Put the "we" at the centre. Prevent polarisation so you can reach more people.
16. Refute misinformation. Have the facts ready to challenge misinformation.

What Next?

I wrote a blog on what we are getting wrong in transport communications that you may also find helpful.

Quick Adventures in Transport Wonderland

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As this newsletter grows, one of the great things is that more and more people are sending me interesting articles, podcasts, and papers. Here is what I got sent and came across this week:

• The UK Government has just published its review of major transport projects governance.
• Can e-biking be accepted and embraced by people and communities where it is currently not happening? See here.
• ​Here is a guide on setting rules for shared micromobility.
• ​Here is some research into the power of the road lobby in New Zealand and its implications.
• Smart Growth America has just published its latest best complete streets policies.

Blog

Why Our Transport Systems Keep Breaking Down (And How to Fix Them)

This week, my blog provided a basic guide to properly maintaining transport assets, known as Strategic Asset Management.

Innovation

More issues with robotaxis

​Here is a story about how some residents are being annoyed by robotaxis. I suspect we will see many of these types of stories as robotaxis become increasingly prevalent on our streets.