EfficenCE at the “Ready2Scale” event of EIT-Urban Mobility as part of the Innovation Week Czech Republic 2020
29.09.2020
The “Ready2Scale” event was organized within the frame of The Innovation Week Czech Republic 2020 – a major technology event organised by the European Leadership & Academic Institute (ELAI).
The city of Leipzig was invited by EIT-Urban Mobility to participate at the panel discussion at the 29.09.2020 in Prague. The EIT Urban Mobility Accelerator is a EU-funded programme in five European regional hubs implemented through partners to take early-stage mobility start-ups to the next level. Most promising early-stage start-up teams with business ideas that reduce congestion and increase efficiency in the transport system were selected in June 2020.
During the event there was a pitch event of best European Urban Mobility start-ups and a panel debate about “Challenges of urban mobility in the post-covid period”.
The city of Leipzig represented the EfficenCE consortia and talked about the experiences and challenges of urban mobility and especially of the public transport sector caused by the corona pandemic.
Similar experiences with rapidly decreasing number of passengers in the public transport sector while increasing number of individual mobility (cars and esp. bikes) have been recognised all over Europe.
The passenger demand in Leipzig fell to a quarter of the usual level at the beginning of the corona pandemic and a slow rise was recognized since the end of April 2020 to 60% of the normal level. The current forecast sees a further increase up to 70 or 80% by the end of the year 2020.
Other topics of the panel discussion were global urban mobility trends. Conclusion is that the changed behavior and new practices like home office, flexible working hours or virtual meetings lead to reduced commuting mobility and mobility in peak times in general.
Furthermore, it would be necessary that flexible mobility concepts are implemented by city administrations e.g. the reclassification of streets for pedestrians and cyclists or the test of pop-up car free areas.
