/ Town Hall
Wednesday 3rd October 2018
CALVIÀ WILL PROMOTE LIGHT ELECTRIC VEHICLES FOR THE MOBILITY OF TOURISTS WITHIN THE MUNICIPALITY
The Calvià Town Hall is one of the four municipalities that is part of the European Steve programme for the promotion of sustainable transport
The mayor of Calvià, Alfonso Rodríguez Badal, presented this morning the Steve project (Smart-Taylored L-category Electric vehicle demonstration in hEtherogeneous urbanusecases) in which the Town Hall participates as a partner and whose basic objective is to promote light, efficient and respectful mobility to improve life quality and the environment. According to the mayor, "the smart thing is to advance to the coming reality and adapt it to our territory." In addition, Rodríguez Badal stressed that Calvià must face the new challenges of light mobility and the need to be energetically efficient.
The Calvià Town Hall will develop a pilot plan on the subject of electric mobility of light vehicles together with three other European cities: Turin and Venearia in Italy, and Villach in Austria. Calvià will focus the plan towards the tourism sector in order to promote sustainable transport related to quality and eco-friendly tourism. This initiative is framed within the field of transport and electric mobility, with initial evaluation initiatives and market analysis to discover the acceptance of light electric vehicles (LEVS), their viability, while generating greater social awareness. It should be borne in mind that the Calvià Town Hall already has some incentives in place for users of electric vehicles, such as public charging points or a 75% discount on the circulation tax and the exemption to pay in limited parking areas.
The European project has 21 partners and was launched on 1st November 2017 and will end in October 2020. The project's total budget is 9.5 million euros, of which the Calvià Town Hall will receive 278,000€ . During this period, the infrastructures of electric charging points will be improved, and the number of light electric vehicles will be increased with the support of electric mobility business plans. Another initiative in the same line will be to provide the municipality with tourist routes for this type of vehicles. One of the key aspects will be the promotion of the electric bicycle, which will give more visibility to this transport system and contribute to the modernisation of public services and that the municipality of Calvià becomes a benchmark for tourist and environmental quality. For this, several electric vehicles have been purchased for the service company Calvià 2000 and segways for the Local Police.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES OF THE STEVE PROJECT
1- Promote sustainable mobility and raise awareness on the need to be more respectful with the environment and, therefore, go for electric mobility.
2- Demonstrate the potential of light vehicles (LEVS) and also market possibilities.
3- Determine the requirements of users both private and public and professional. For this, a pilot plan will be launched to discover all the characteristics and mobility needs of the municipality of Calvià.
4- Integrate electric light vehicles (LEVS) combined with other public and private transport.
5- Development of the TICs to support drivers and improve transportation.
Also, the technical director of the Balearic company Any Solution, María Dolores Ordoñez, who has stated that "light electric vehicles are very useful in small movements." participated in this morning's act. In addition, Ordoñez has highlighted that 600 surveys on the mobility needs of our visitors have been carried out in the Municipal Tourist Information Offices (http://survey.steve-project.eu/Spanish.php). Electric bike routes for tourists, two on mountain (Galatzó and Santa Ponça stream) and one on road, which goes from Peguera to Calvià, passing through Es Capdellà have also been raised at the event. This new form of mobility can be a less polluting tourist reference, both acoustically and in pollution.
In the same line, the director of the Geographic Information and Remote Sensing Service of the UIB, Maurici Ruíz, has stated that "tourist destinations have to improve the management of their mobility and make it more efficient and healthy". Ruíz highlighted the numerous traffic jams and a slow bus service due, in part, to the saturation of rental cars, the number of inhabitants, the proximity to Palma and the variety of population centres. In this context, improving the mobility of Calvià residents from their place of residence to work is a viable and necessary option.
Regarding the mobile phone application for efficient driving, the representative of the Department of Mobility of the Basque company Tecnalia, Myriam Vaca, has stated that "its a help to the electric vehicles driving. We must change the mentality and inform that it is an efficient and comfortable system ". The application SAMAY, that is being tested, allows the optimisation of consumption, taking into account the age of the driver, the type of vehicle and battery level, and the route that is to be made.
More information on:
http://www.calvia.com/responsive/general.plt?KPAGINA=3539&KIDIOMA=2&KNODE=919
http://www.steve-project.eu/index.php/en/
