Sustainable Travel Planning (STPs):
The STPs project is being carried out in collaboration with Burroughs Consulting Engineers. The aim is to promote more sustainable modes of transport and reducing unnecessary car trips when travelling to/from the workplace. A package of initiatives, tailored specifically for an organisation, is developed, implemented and monitored with the principal aim of improving the efficiency of the organisation's travel patterns and habits.
The STPs concept and initiative involves:
1) The particular organisation’s/business park existing employee travel profile (incl. travel behaviour) being determined.
2) The development of a specific transportation plan and initiatives tailored for the organisation/business park;
3) The STP being implemented and monitored by Burroughs Environmental Engineers.
The initiative is timely in light of the launch of the governments “Smarter Travel – A Sustainable Transport Future” policy and pending introduction of the government parking levy (€200 per annum) in urban areas.
Partner: Burroughs Consulting Engineers.
Green Schools Travel Programme (Survey):
Travel is the fourth theme in the An Taisce Green-Schools initiative. The travel theme aims to promote sustainable transport modes as well as improved students’ safety, health and fitness levels. The aim of the survey carried out by DIT NITL was to investigate the modes of transport that students use when travelling to and from school and to uncover their perceptions relating to transport, safety on the school journey and fitness. This survey may be proceeded by a follow-up survey to determine changes in trends and behaviour due to the influence of the Green-Schools travel initiative.
Partner: An Taisce.
BAPTS (Boosting Advanced Public Transport Systems):
The aim of this INTERREG IV-B project is to improve the sustainable urban mobility in the metropolitan areas and cities of NWE, with a view to improving traffic fluidity by the use of traffic management systems, and by strengthening the efficiency and complementarity of different types of public transport systems. BAPTS aims to create a so called Advanced Public Transport system in dense populated areas in the NWE in order to generate a maximum supply of travellers (users). The main activities in the project are focussed on defining and carrying out actions aimed at developing and implementing joint pilot actions to identify solutions that will help to reduce the negative trans-national impacts of commuting between cities, towns and rural areas.
DIT is acting as a sub-partner with the Dublin Transportation Office as the Partner for Dublin and An Taisce and Dublin City Council being the sub-partners.
Partners: City of Bielefeld (Lead City), Dublin Transportation Office, City of Eindhoven, Lille Metropole, Nantes Metropole, City of Liege, VDU Luxembourg, Darlington Borough Council, Southend Borough Council, Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund.
Low Noise Solutions for Night Deliveries:
The social and economic costs of traffic noise have been found to account for 0.2% to 2.0% of European GDP, ranging from €12 billion to €120 billion per annum. Following the EC proposal for a Directive relating to the assessment and management of Environmental noise (COM(2000) 468), Directive 2002/49/EC was adopted to provide a common basis for tackling noise across the EU.
The Department of Transport Engineering at DIT led a major Innovation Partnership project to tackle one cause of unwanted sound – that of the noise generated by night deliveries. Funded by Enterprise Ireland and a Consortium of companies, this two-year programme, focused on applied research into developing ‘Low Noise Solutions for Night Deliveries’. Consisting of 11 Irish based suppliers of automotive products and of acoustic materials (including plastics and surface coatings), major logistics companies and Dublin City Council, the Consortium provided a forum for interaction and for exploring innovative solutions. It strived to bring to market new low noise, low cost, products and materials for heavy goods vehicles and ancillaries and for the architectural fit-outs of delivery sites.
Partners: Enterprise Ireland, Musgrave Supervalu Centra, DAF Distributors Ltd., Ventac Group, General Paints, Moffett Engineering, Sturdy Products Ltd., TDG Ireland, ThermoKing Ireland, Arnotts, Dublin City Business Association, Murphy Bodybuilders, Dublin City Council.
Silent Nights:
The aim of this project was to design and construct a demonstration concept acoustic docking bay that would be used as a test rig for optimising the acoustic performance of delivery sites and for measuring selected acoustic materials in the field. This demonstration (and teaching) tool was to encourage the replication of best practice guidelines as well as influencing modifications to existing logistics sites at major retail stores, the logistics sites now in planning for the city centre and for the rapidly expanding suburbs which could also be affected.
Partners: Dublin Transportation Office
BESTUFS (BEST Urban Freight Solutions):
The aim of BESTUFS was to maintain and expand an open European network between urban freight transport experts, user groups/associations, ongoing projects, the relevant European Commission Directorates and representatives of national, regional and local transport administrations and transport operators in order to identify, describe and disseminate best practices, success criteria and bottlenecks with respect to City Logistics Solutions (CLS).
Assignments completed by the Applied Research Team included: Sustainable Night Deliveries, Waster Collection in Dublin, Inputs to BESTUFS Good Practice Guides on Urban Freight Transport, sustainable city logistics and traffic management systems to ease congestion.
Partners: PTV (Coordinator) (Germany), New Rail (UK), NEA (Netherlands), Rapp Trans AG (Switzerland), Transman (Hungary), University of Westminster (UK), Laboratoire d’Economie des Transport (France), Centrum Dopravniho Vyzkumi (Czech Republic)
SILENCE:
SILENCE developed an integrated methodology and technology for improved control of surface transport noise in urban areas. Issues covered included noise control at the source, noise propagation, noise emission, and the human perception of noise.
Assignments completed by the Applied Research Team included: Exisiting Approaches and Tools for Decision Making, Dublin Noise Policy, Inner City Night Deliveries and inputting of urban traffic data,
NICHES:
The mission of NICHES was to stimulate a wide debate on innovative urban transport and mobility between relevant stakeholders from different sectors and disciplines across Europe. This project promoted the most promising new concepts, initiatives and projects, moving them from their current ‘niche’ position to a ‘mainstream’ urban transport policy application.
For further information please contact:
Dr. Eoin Plant
T: +353 (0)1 402 2962
E: Eoin.Plant@dit.ie