In Europe approximately 80% of the population live in urban areas and 75% of the kilometres travelled in EU conurbations are by private car, making road transport in urban areas responsible for 40% of all European CO2 emissions from road transport.
What is CATCH about?
CATCH (Carbon Aware Travel CHoice) is a project with the ultimate aim to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of the urban transport sector by encouraging carbon-friendly travel choices.
Why is carbon-friendly travel important?
The overwhelming scientific consensus is that GHG emissions, and specifically CO2, from human activities will lead to long-term climate change that is likely to exceed the capacity of people and the natural environment to adapt. The transport sector, as a major contributor to CO2 emissions, has the potential to play a significant role in reversing the present trajectory towards permanent changes in climate. Managing emissions from cities is a common challenge faced by major cities across the world, and a challenge that is arguably best responded to at the local level in the context of local circumstances.
The Problem
Climate change is a serious problem, and the urban transport sector contributes significantly to CO2 emissions: this is clear. What is not clear is how to curb this trend. Although many tools do exist, and the issue to curb CO2 emissions is very often on cities' agendas, there are a number of problems that make the policies difficult to put into practice:
These include:
- A lack of trusted and easily-accessible resources to tell cities about best practise, methods, and how to present information to their citizens.
- An inability to trust existing resources such as carbon calculators: many users of such tools become disillusioned as the calculation is not transparent, based on accurate or reliable information, and indeed is often not consistent across calculators.
- Individuals lack of trust in authorities - especially given the lack of clear and informed resources regarding transport choices and GHG emissions.
- Even if there is acceptance of the problem of climate change, there will not necessarily be action, since city decision-makers may feel that they and their citizens - cannot begin to make a difference to such a large global problem such as climate change.
- A lack of a coherent database to show how to measure current GHG emissions in cities.
The Project
In order for cities to encourage climate-friendly decision-making among their citizens, they must understand how to present information and knowledge to their citizens, and learn from good and bad examples. These factors provide the backdrop to the CATCH project: climate change, a lack of online mobility-related greenhouse gas reduction advice, travellers’ uncertainty in existing advice and confusion surrounding where they fit in to the global picture of climate change. In this context the vision of the CATCH Project is to become the natural place to look for mobility related GHG reduction advice and information.
CATCH will develop and disseminate a knowledge platform to increase awareness of the environmental impacts of mobility and potential solutions to their management and to enable travellers to make informed climate-friendly travel choices.
The Knowledge Platform
The CATCH project will develop an online knowledge platform primarily aimed at decision-makers, but also for citizens, businesses, planners, and other mobility stakeholders in cities.
The CATCH project started with a thorough grounding process lead by researchers at the Centre for Transport and Society at the University of West of England, to address the impacts of climate change on transport related behaviour, and how this will affect information-provision.
What will the knowledge platform contain?
The platform will provide examples of good practice, information and tools to promote awareness, and a tool to personalise the possible travel-related CO2 reduction for the visitor to the site.
Who contributes to CATCH?
The CATCH team will consult with stakeholders about the needs for the CATCH knowledge platform- primarily through the CATCH Interest Group.
Heather Allen | Sustainable Development Manager
International Association of Public Transport (UITP)
Rue Sainte-Marie 6
1080 Brussels
Direct phone: +32 2 661 31 90
Fax: +32 2 660 10 72
heather.allen(at)uitp.org
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