2011-2015
2015 - XXII International conference Living and Walking in Cities - Town and country. New paradigms.
TOPICS
PROGRAM
Download here the program of the XXII edition of the conference (Italian version)
INTRODUCTION
Download here the introduction of Roberto Busi (Italian version)
2014 - XXI International conference Living and Walking in Cities - Support modes for pedestrian mobility
TOPICS
The recent policies coming from various institutional levels (European, national, regional and local) highlight the necessity of reducing the use of individual transport modes through the promotion of more sustainable forms of mobility. At the same time, those policies are translated into the attempt of making mobility objectives and strategies more rational, obtaining results which are often difficult to be measured or, in some case, of scarce effectiveness.
The XXI edition of the International Conference “Living and walking in cities” is entitled “Support modes for pedestrian mobility”: the goal is to stimulate the debate on which are the ways to support the pedestrian mobility in metropolitan areas, in particular addressing the following topics:
“Hectometric issue: how to plan the non-motorized mobility system in presence of urban height differences”
This session aims at investigating the most relevant issues concerning the non-motorized mobility system planning, in relation to the different morphological features of our cities, considering urban height differences as occasion to propose new innovative mobility alternatives;
“The pedestrian mobility in the local public transport intermodality (LPT)”
This session aims at presenting researches and experiences concerning the contribution brought to the modal chain by pedestrian mobility, focusing on the role played by the accessibility to LPT;
“Shared uses between synchronic systems (pooling) and diachronic systems (sharing): vehicles availability and actual potentialities”
This session focuses on the potentialities offered by the shared use of vehicles in the contemporary city, paying particular attention to the time management.
PROGRAM
Download here the program of the XXI edition of the conference (Italian version)
2013 - XX International conference Living and Walking in Cities - Vulnerable users’ road safety
TOPICS
Twenty years after the first ROAD SAFETY FORUM, held in Brescia in June 1993, the Conference comes back to the issues relating to the vulnerable users’ road safety.
The goal of the Forum is to assemble users, administrators, technicians and experts, aiming at discussing about the problems which affect people moving in the urban traffic without proper levels of protection, namely children, elderly and disabled people.
The number of killed or seriously injured people among the vulnerable road users (such as motorcyclists, moped drivers, cyclists and pedestrians) is still very high and in some Countries is even increasing. In 2008, vulnerable road users represented about the 45% out of the people who died in road accidents and the statistics shows that this particular kind of users didn’t receive so far the adequate level of attention. In Italy, about 2 pedestrians die every day.
The European Commission Communication titled “Towards a European road safety area: policy orientations on road safety 2011-2020” highlights how road safety represents a fundamental aspect for the society. In 2009 more than 35.000 people died on the European roads (corresponding to a middle sized city!) and the injured people were more than 1.500.000. The cost for society is also high: in 2009 the total road accidents social cost was about 130 billions Euros.
The European policy orientations on road safety up to 2020 aim at defining a general governance framework and ambitious targets in order to guide the local and national strategies.
In Europe, in 2008, the 27 % out of the dead people on roads was composed by cyclists and pedestrians (47% in urban areas) For many potential cyclists, the risks relating to road safety (either real or perceived) represent still a crucial obstacle. As local and national governments are more and more actively promoting cycling and walking, it’s fundamental to face with more intensity the issues relating to road safety. Some users, notwithstanding the role in traffic (pedestrian, drivers or passengers), are, by their nature, “weak”, such as for example elderly people, children or disabled people and their vulnerability is particularly critical in urban areas.
The XX International Conference “Living and Walking in Cities – Vulnerable users’ road safety” aims at deeply investigating the following topics:
“Road safety as goal of the scientific research”.
This session focuses on the results obtained by the scientific world through the participation to national or international work groups (research projects, programs or communitarian actions);
“Methods, tools and state of the art concerning road safety today”.
This session is dedicated to the tools available at the moment to improve the road safety conditions in urban areas and to the innovative methods for the analysis and the monitoring of the road safety focusing on the vulnerable users;
“Road safety and urban areas: experiences”.
This session aims at investigating experiences or good practices concerning vulnerable users’ road safety in urban areas, showing the obtained results at quantitative level.
PROGRAM
Download here the program of the XX edition of the conference
2012 - XIX International conference Living and Walking in Cities - Cultures and techniques for accessibility
TOPICS
Focusing on “urban accessibility”, the conference aims to be a further contribution towards a problem solving approach to urban form and mobility in contemporary towns.
The European Commission from the “Treaty of Lisbon” to the “Europe 2020 strategy” (the last one has been presented in March 2010) proposed actions for a “sustainable” growth.
Facing “societal challenges” as European citizens is one of the priorities in Horizon 2020 – the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation which focus is to bring together resources and knowledge across different fields, technologies and disciplines, including human and social sciences, with a challenge-based approach.
“Culture and techniques for accessibility” is strictly linked to EU policy priorities that develop a great attention in the field of “smart, green and integrated transports” and are considered fundamental to reach quality of life through the promotion of “inclusive, innovative and secure societies”.
The main goal of the 2012 International Conference “Living and Walking in cities” is to foster a discussion on urban accessibility trough the presentation of researches, projects, experiences and good practices, independently of the scale (regional, local).
The Conference will provide a stimulating opportunity for researchers, planners and technicians to explore key issues and future prospects for integrated planning actions. Towns are “educational” places. Human rights should be recognizable in the design of every space of the town. Such kind of values must not be used only by several categories of the society but they should be readable everywhere in the town as common and fundamental values for civil contemporary societies.
The conference will focus on the following themes:
“Large transport infrastructures and regional accessibility”;
“Culture and design of accessibility as an instrument for social inclusion”;
“Urban accessibility and smart transport systems”;
“Space-time accessibility to public services and retail centres”.
PROGRAM
Download here the program of the XIX edition of the conference
2011 - XVIII International conference Living and Walking in Cities - Sustainable mobility and road safety
TOPICS
Focusing on “sustainable mobility and road safety”, the XVIII International Conference aims to be a further contribution towards a problem solving approach to urban form and mobility in our towns.
The European Commission from the “Treaty of Lisbon” to the “Europe 2020 strategy” (presented by the Commission in March 2010) proposes actions for a “sustainable” growth.
On the one hand European countries should adequate their National legislation to the Community one, such as for the 2008/96/EC on road safety; on the other, EU is funding sustainable mobility projects, especially due to the Action Plan on Urban Mobility adopted by the EC in September 2009. Actually several Italian cities are involved in CIVITAS I, II, Plus programmes.
Success in mobility policies seems to be linked to actors involvement (from the community level to the local one) and the spread out of best practices.
The Conference will provide a stimulating opportunity for researchers, planners and technicians to explore key issues and future prospects for urban areas due to the current urban practices and policies promoted at the different levels.In Italy there is a significant number of road victims among pedestrians, cyclists, two-wheelers, with a 28% increasing of social costs due to road casualties form Seventies up to now. In Italy generally PM10 is over OMS values.
To modify this condition is important a modal shifting to a more sustainable mobility such as non-motorised mobility reducing private cars trips that in Italy are over 60%.
Actually the increasing of pedestrians and cyclists number could favour the growing of road victims in urban area. It is absolutely need to remove specific risk factors for VRU’s and to promote competitive public transport in urban settlements.
The XVIII International conference “Living and walking in cities – sustainable mobility and road safety ” will focus on the following themes:
“Town and traffic: comparison among sustainable mobility experiences”
This session will discuss sustainable mobility experiences in contemporary cities.
“Public transport and its user’s safety”
This session will deep researches and experiences on public transport contribution to road safety in urban area.
“Times for the city and times for mobility”
The session will deep planning opportunities and problems in implementing an urban system as a multi-scalar relation system defined from the daily land usage.
“Road safety of Vulnerable Road Users”
The session will deep researches and experiences specifically implemented to improve VRU’s road safety, with a particular care to public transport access.
PROGRAM
Download here the program of the XVIII edition of the conference