The City of Szeged – a CIVITAS Award-recognised champion of sustainable mobility in Hungary – initiated an alliance on workplace mobility with major employers under the SASMOB project. Through this pledge, businesses receive tools to co-design and tailor innovative solutions to facilitate sustainable and healthy commuting for their employees.
The alliance initially covers 7 employers – public and private, covering different sectors (industry, IT, education, health, public service) and different locations – with a total of over 5000 employees. This wide coverage allows to look at the mobility surveys, conducted at each employer based on a standard questionnaire, in a comparative way.
Analysis of the survey results by Zsuzsanna Kravalik, UIA expert and Mobilissimus revealed the following key findings:
- Workplaces with unlimited, free parking available generally show 57-63% modal share for car use, while this rate is between 21 and 41% where parking is limited and/or priced.
- City centre locations boost 14-22% modal share of walking, in contrast with 3-7% at other locations. Cycling is also more popular here (25-39%) than in most other areas (17-23%).
- Industrial companies with locations at outer industrial areas generally show a low share of walking (2-3%) and moderate share of cycling (17-18%). However, whether public transport (24-48%) or car use (31-57%) is dominant at a specific workplace, largely depends on the accessibility and supply level of PT services.
- This is also because commuting distances and times are much higher here (20-32% of employees commuting more than 30 minutes/direction) than at other employers (3-8%), also suggesting the wider catchment area for blue-collar workforce.
- An IT company with record cycling (47%) and quite low car use (27%) shows that the consequent promotion of cycling and its integration into the company culture can indeed make a difference compared to other companies with similar conditions.
photos: András Ekés (Mobilissimus), figures: Mobilissimus, based on company surveys
The results are not only useful for the companies drafting their mobility plans or for the city of Szeged. While the exact numbers will vary from city to city, the tendencies supported by data show the importance of different factors in workplace mobility.
For more information, visit the project website and look for SASMOB Zoom-in 1:
https://www.uia-initiative.eu/en/uia-cities/szeged
https://www.uia-initiative.eu/sites/default/files/2019-03/Szeged_SASMob-ZOOM-in.pdf
