The participation of towns and municipalities in the European Mobility Week is coordinated by the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning . In the past ten years, over 60 Slovenian towns have participated in the campaign, with Celje, Gornja Radgona, Koper, Ljubljana, Maribor, Murska Sobota, Nova Gorica and Vrhnika participating every year. At the opening ceremony of this year’s mobility week all participants were presented with awards for introducing measures to encourage the use of alternative forms of transport which improve the quality of urban life and mitigate climate change.

The successful cooperation of the Government Communication Office  of the Republic of Slovenia, the Representation of the European Commission  and the Information Office of the European Parliament in Slovenia  on the programme of events at the information centre Center Evropa  should be highlighted in this regard. The head office of Center Evropa may be in Ljubljana, but all the interesting events are broadcast live on their website.

This working together resulted in a number of events held during the mobility week. The first was a workshop entitled ‘More forms of mobility, more forms of danger – Let’s be careful together’, focusing on how to reach a particular destination as economically and safely as possible, while taking into account the principle of sustainability. The workshop, which refreshed visitors’ knowledge and drew attention to certain mistakes that people make when using transport, received a favourable response from visitors. Many of them got an idea of how to combine different more cost-effective and less time-consuming means of transport on a day-to-day basis (for example bicycle + train or car + bicycle + bus).

One of the events organised was an interesting interactive open-air event entitled ‘Mobility is a skill’. Within this event, a well-visited bicycle service was available to users, with experts checking and repairing visitors’ bicycles free of charge after the rigours of the cycling season. There were also rollerblading lessons organised for visitors with the aim of presenting a different manner of mobility across the city to passers-by. A competition in slow cycling on the popular Bicikelj bike , which is won by the contestant who arrives at the finishing line last without getting off the bike, offered visitors a different experience.

The last workshop, entitled ‘Electric mobility in practice', was conducted by Andrej Pečjak , an ecologist and producer of electric cars. He outlined the existing possibilities of sustainable propulsion systems and their efficiency, explained how useful and technologically viable electric propulsion vehicles are, and gave an indication of trends for the future. The workshop was well supported by the public, who asked many questions afterwards and were also able to examine the electric car in which Mr Pečjak arrived and which he charged using an electric car charger, and received a very positive response.

Unfortunately, we are still some way from the final objective, as too many Europeans still use cars powered by petroleum-based fuels. The objective of the European Mobility Week therefore remains unchanged, and the campaign will continue to encourage towns, cities and people to improve transport at the local level, thus improving the energy balance and environmental performance of the transport system and at the same time making urban life healthier, safer and more enjoyable.

In Europe, about one-third of energy consumption is used on transport; this number is even higher in Slovenia, where transport accounts for 40% of energy consumption. But what is even more disturbing is that the transport sector is the fastest growing consumer of energy, while being almost entirely dependent on imported oil, which is expensive and supply of which is uncertain. At the EU level, Slovenia and other Member States are striving to best meet the mobility needs of everyone with reduced costs, side-effects, risks and use of natural resources.