Varberg Municipality has gained some well-deserved attention from the European project Shared Mobility for All. Thanks to the administration's dedicated efforts to provide adapted vehicles through shared mobility, Varberg is successfully including people with reduced mobility in the active travel community. Discover more about Varberg's projects in this interview with Charlotte Ljung, Traffic Planner at Varberg Municipality, and the rest of her team.
When you think about a shared mobility user in a city, who do you picture? Probably not an elderly person, or a wheelchair user. This is what the City of Varberg is trying to change as part of the Shared Mobility for All project.
Varberg is a beautiful medium-sized coastal city of Sweden, located in between Goteborg and Malmö. Famous for its crowded beaches during the summer, Varberg is also getting noticed for its participation in the European project Shared Mobility for All within which they work with elderly people to design new shared mobility services. More specifically, the city is exploring how newly adapted vehicles (cargo bikes, tricycles, etc.) can be made available in the city centre through shared mobility.
We took some time to catch up with Charlotte Ljung, Traffic Planner at Varberg Municipality and her colleagues to learn more about their work.
Charlotte, thank you so much for spending some time with us. First thing first, tell us a bit more the motivations for the City of Varberg to work on inclusive shared mobility?
I think the question is very important for every city! We want to be a city for everyone: we have been working a lot over the past years on making our infrastructure more accessible, such as the city centre. We have been quite efficient in integrating different people with reduced mobility to work on the pavement and the materials. And we also have good regulations for this in Sweden. But what is new for us is to think together with people with reduced mobility about new mobility services and providing access to new vehicles, to ensure everyone can benefit from cycling and other forms of sustainable mobility. This work should also help us to adjust our planning documents, which are becoming outdated. One clear example is the width of our cycling lanes; if we have more and more adapted bikes in the city, how wide should our cycling lanes be?
How did you start your project to think about different vehicles for the elderly? And how did co-creation help you navigate in this work?
I think that first the idea of the tricycles came from our limited experience of the different types of vehicles. It is the vehicle you are automatically thinking about when you think about the elderly.
When we started exploring different vehicles that would help elderly people cycle, we suddenly discovered a world of possibilities; there are so many vehicles that can support so many different needs; it’s like a candy store.
But the main problem is that they are expensive, so it is difficult for people with reduced mobility to acquire them.
The first work we started doing is to engage with elderly people and make them test different vehicles, understand and learn from their experience riding the bike, but also their interest in shared mobility.
We quickly realised one thing that surprised us: elderly people do not want to ride tricycles because it makes them look old. And therefore, they preferred riding a cargo bike than a tricycle. It was eye-opening to us.
I also tried the tricycle myself, and it’s a very different way of using your weight; it’s difficult to turn. Even though you have used a traditional bicycle your whole life, you’ll still need to train to use a tricycle.
Our discussions also showed that the cargo bike was a great option for elderly people to pick up their grandchildren.
For us, it is difficult to understand all the different needs, because there are many different realities of elderly people; some need a walking stick, others use a wheelchair, etc. However, if we do manage to develop and prioritise mobility projects with having these needs identified, we will already have come a long way as a municipality.
Wow, it seems you are really embracing a new approach to your projects, and co-creation has really played an integral part in your work. We were all very impressed with the event you organised during the European Mobility Week, can you tell us more about that?
Credit: VanRaam adapted vehicles
We organised during the European Mobility Week an event on one of the main squares of Varberg about mobility for all. We had many different activities: people could try different adapted vehicles, children could obtain a honorific cycling licence, etc.
It was the first time many different departments from the municipality were collaborating on shared mobility. We had the departments for traffic, public space, urban development, and others involved. So this was good to bring everyone together. This is what the European Mobility Week event created, an opportunity for all the different departments to meet together to prepare the event, and discuss the vision we want for our city.
Then, we had to learn how to communicate and engage with people. We all believe providing more cycling and sustainable mobility opportunities is good thing, but how could we make sure everybody else thinks it’s a good idea. It’s a very different exercise, in which we are not so used to.
Now, what is important is to continue our effort and not go back to our own silos again, we must use the energy we created. We have again had new meetings with our reference group and have already booked the next meeting together to design a new project.
So how do we bring these vehicles to people? It seems that the traditional free-floating or docking system is challenging, so what are the alternatives?
Indeed, operating adapted bicycles in traditional shared mobility schemes is difficult, and it is not something we have seen micromobility operators very enthusiastic about.
Besides, the current shared bike system we have is not particularly well perceived by elderly people. Those who are using it enjoy it, and for those who aren’t, in this case the elderly, they mostly see the negative sides of it (parking issues, aggressive riding, etc.).
So, we are now looking at different ways of providing such vehicles, such as through long-term rental systems.
Ok! Well, we are looking forward to seeing how this project will go. One final question to wrap and look ahead. How do you see the role of the municipality in the future to promote more inclusivity in the mobility system?
I think that's something we must ask ourselves and it's a big question that we have to ask the politicians about our role. Maybe we need to provide the service ourselves, or perhaps we have to show the possibilities to our partners and monitor the progress and results.
What is certain is that we need to have someone who asks questions and is in dialogue with different groups of people to understand their needs, and to educate the whole organisation of the municipality about different needs (e.g. explain to the people cleaning the streets why it is important not to let a pile of sand on sidewalks, because it creates obstacles for certain groups).
Credits for the article go to Sami Angsthelm
Learn more about SMALL
The SMALL project is made up of 12 partners from six different countries in the North Sea Region, piloting new inclusive shared mobility services across Europe. Get in contact with us to learn more.