Improving mobility in the city through research

Brussels, 29 January 2002

On Thursday 31 January European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin will participate in a conference on urban mobility organised jointly by the Commission and the European Parliament.

The objective of this conference is to show how new intelligent planning tools can help city planners and politicians to foresee the consequences of planning decisions on the urban environment and the quality of life in cities.

This new tool has been developed by a network of ten research projects in the field of land use and transport research, which is funded by the European Union's Research Framework Programme.

Urban mobility and the well-known traffic problems in cities are directly linked to sustainable development since ressources such as land and fuel are limited. The aims of this research project is for instance to avoid the negative impact that the implantation of commercial centres in the periphery of cities had in the 80's such as generating more traffic and making the city centres less attractive.

The conference is associated to an exhibition on the subject, which can be visited after the press conference taking place on Thursday 31 January at 11h00 in the European Parliament in Brussels, Spinelli Building- Entry D- Room 1G2

Midday Express: http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/midday.htm