The project enabled the further development of the cooperation between the Transport and Mobility research team at the Faculty of Social and Economic Studies at the Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem (UJEP) in Czechia (www.mobilita-ieep.cz) and the research group on Sustainable Urban Development and Mobility at the Norwegian Centre for Transport Research/ Institute of Transport Economics (TØI, Transportøkonomisk institutt, https://www.toi.no/english/?lang=en_GB). The joint activities of the two teams have mainly focused on the coordination of transport and spatial planning in cities and counties.
Among other things, the project brought inspiration from Norway to Czech cities. In Norway, the concept of zero traffic growth has been developed in the largest urban areas since 2012. This is an innovative concept in transport planning, which represents an integrated approach to spatial and transport policy. This goal is part of national transport strategies and is gradually being integrated into strategic planning in smaller cities as well. It aims to absorb the growth in passenger transport in favour of sustainable modes of transport, i.e. public transport, cycling and walking, which should ensure a long-term decline in the share of car traffic and the associated positive environmental impact.
The representative of the Norwegian partner, Dr. Aud Tennøy, was also a keynote presenter at the conference "The Future of Urban Mobility in the Context of Societal Challenges", which took place in Prague on 19 October 2022, where she presented this very concept of a zero-growth policy for passenger road transport. On 2 - 6 October 2023, representatives of the Transport and Mobility team, with the support and participation of local partners and TØI, carried out an excursion to Norwegian cities (Oslo, Jessheim, Lillehammer and Hamar). The excursion allowed the researchers to gain a comprehensive view of the Norwegian model of transport and public space planning and to gather further inspirational knowledge that can be applied in the Czech environment. The excursion resulted in a report which is available here: https://www.mobilita--eep.cz/media/clpj0uiu/report_from_the_trip_project_empiric_cz.pdf .
As the project's principal investigator Hana Brůhová Foltýnová points out, "The cooperation between the two teams proved to be beneficial, allowing experts from both teams to get to know each other better and exchange experiences from research activities and urban transport planning. We have also identified a number of common research topics that we plan to work on together in the future, and we are actively looking for appropriate financial resources to do so. So, we definitely have good foundations to build on and develop."
Further information on the project is available here: https://www.mobilita-ieep.cz/projekty/empiric/.
The project was funded by the Fund for Bilateral Relations between the EEC and Norway for the support of the project EHP-BFNU-OVNKM-4-088- 2022
