Share North
Let’s Get Serious: First Mobipunt Planning Academy held in Bergen, Norway
The main purpose of the event was to provide hands-on guidance for the more than 30 participants, many of whom were from communities in Flanders and Wallonia and are currently considering the implementation of mobipunten in their region. The event was by organised by Autodelen.net, Taxistop and Infopunt Publieke Ruimte in true transnational fashion, bringing together five partners of the SHARE-North project consortium (the City of Bergen, the City of Bremen, Advier, Autodelen.net and Taxistop) to provide expert advice and inspiration for the participants.
The delegates were first welcomed by the City of Bergen’s Deputy Mayor Marita Moltu and Bram Seeuws from Autodelen.net before receiving an introduction to the context and the transport strategies of the two cities who inspired the mobipunt concept with their mobil.punkt strategies and implementation: The City of Bremen (since 2003) and the City of Bergen (since 2018). Following these introductions, presentations by Rebecca Karbaumer (Bremen) and Lars Ove Kvalbein (Bremen) helped to outline the intricacies of the mobipunt planning process – from idea to implementation, stakeholder involvement, market analysis, physical planning expertise and guidance for tendering for shared mobility services. Minze Walvius (Advier) provided valuable insights on the possibilities and benefits of integrating mobipunten into new housing and business developments from the perspective of an investor.
Following this predominantly theoretical session, all 31 academy participants embarked on a cycling excursion of the city of Bergen, braving the typical Bergen October weather, to visit a number of sites where mobilpunkte in Bergen are currently being constructed or have recently gone into operation. This was important for providing a more tangible experience about the role in the urban environment. During the excursion, participants also had the chance to converse with citizens using the car-sharing and other services located at the mobilpunkte which provided valuable insights from a user perspective.
Day two of the event focussed on the concrete planning cases of the participating delegates. In small groups, the participants had the task of defining strategies for possible mobipunten in their area and beginning to develop more concrete concepts – taking what they had learned from Bremen and Bergen the previous day and attempting to apply those lessons and insights to their local context (e.g. small town or business park settings). The final session of the day focussed on communication strategies for mobipunten, emphasising the need for target-group specific communication activities in order to achieve the greatest impact.
The SHARE-North project intends that this event should be the first of many such academies for regional and local authorities who are interested in and seeking guidance for implementing mobilpunkte/mobipunten in their regions.
The presentations held during the Mobipunt Academy in Bergen here can be provided upon request. Just send a short email to share-north@umwelt.bremen.de.
For questions, further information or guidance regarding mobipunten in Flanders, visit www.mobipunt.be or send an email to hallo@mobipunt.be.
For information regarding the mobipunt movement in the Netherlands, visit www.mobipunt.net.
Or to visit the website of the city where it all started, visit www.mobilpunkt-bremen.de.