At Autonomy Mobility World Expo in Paris, PHOEBE participated in the session Safe Street Spaces: Ramping up Reallocation. The session addressed the challenge of increasing road safety in urban environments with changing mobility needs, which include changing requirements for urban and public spaces. Discussions highlighted the demand for more safe and welcoming public spaces. The panellists discussed the innovative ways we are looking at road safety and how it is intrinsically linked with reallocating street space, accessibility and inclusivity.
After the living lab cities from the EU-funded project ELABORATOR, Helsinki and Trikala talked about their ambitions within the project to improve road safety and reshape their urban spaces for more active modes and new mobilities in future scenarios, Monica Olyslagers from iRAP brought PHOEBE’s perspective into the discussion.
Olyslagers presented PHOEBE’s ambition to develop a framework that can support cities such as Helsinki and Trikala in their goals of increasing road safety. She also talked about how the PHOEBE pilots, with their different approaches, are essential to the project in understanding real challenges and future urban scenarios better.
The relevance of the PHOEBE holistic approach was mentioned as a critical element when thinking about the future of our streets, where vehicle flow and speed are not the only determinants. However, considerations on aspects such as user behaviours and prioritisation of active modes are central in responding to the needs of cities and their future scenarios, where mobility and urban space are people-centred and not car-centred.
The panel was a great opportunity to explore how collaborations with other projects are beneficial in pushing forward the needed developments in the fields of road safety and reallocation of urban space. PHOEBE is happy to seize these opportunities and continue sharing its challenges and expertise.