Swedish city goes digital to help cut car movements around schools

A Swedish city has been formally commended by the European Union for its efforts to cut car use around schools.

Municipal leaders in Helsingborg say they have learnt valuable lessons about how to manage vehicle movements in built-up areas, and the city has worked successfully with Nugd, a digital operation specialising in mobility solutions.

Better use of speed humps and limits has helped create safer routes for children to get to and from school, along with boosting exercise rates and contributing to green policies, and these have been a major part of the city’s efforts, resulting in a Mobility Action Award from the European Union.

Helsingborg, the ninth largest city in Sweden with a population of around 114,000, was one of 12 cities across the continent to successfully apply for the Rapid Applications for Transport (Raptor) programme from the EU. This is a programme which puts together cities that have certain challenges with companies that can specifically help them, and so it was that Helsingborg was paired with Swedish firm Nudgd.

Giving people ‘a nudge’

Quite simply, its message about giving people and organisations a ‘nudge’ in the right direction, and so it encourages, through the use of reasoned arguments, quizzes and interactive maps, the use of other modes of sustainable transport – whether it’s cycling or just walking – over cars.

All of Helsingborg’s schools were invited to get involved, and 25 took up the challenge. Parents, guardians and school staff were all sent links to the website, and some 850 decided to ‘get active’, with some 40 per cent later saying they had changed, or planned to change, their mode of transport around schools.

Ola Rynge, together with Emma Kangas, project manager at the City of Helsingborg’s environmental administration, receive the MOBILITYACTION Award.

Emma Kangas is from the municipality and has worked hard to try and influence users’ choices around modes of transport in the city. She said: “This project shows that using digital tools to change behaviour really works. It is both cost-effective and time-efficient. Here we reached almost all schools and parents in a single project.”

‘Digital tools can really change behaviour’

But Emma is also realistic about the long term successes of such a project, acknowledging that it takes more than a single website to get people onto their bikes, and that parents and school staff alike already have much to think about on a daily basis regarding their own mobility habits.

“This was a small pilot test,” she says. “It’s not the big difference we’re looking for, but we’ve learnt a lot about how to work with schools on these issues, what paths to take and what is difficult for them. How the children get to school and how you get to work is an everyday routine that you don’t want anyone else to come in and comment on.”

Click here to watch a short film about the partnership (in English).