European Mobility Week

“In town without my car” was the motto of the campaign within which the European Mobility Week was launched in 2002. Since then, it has been marked every year in the period from 16th to 22nd September. The aim of the Week, which ends with the Car Free Day, is the promotion of alternative ways of mobility in urban areas.

The first Car Free Day took place in 1998 in France, when for one day a wider downtown Paris was closed for cars. In the past ten years, numerous European towns joined the marking that Day, while last year a record number of towns, or 2 102 to be precise, took part in the event, among which there were ten Croatian towns as well.

According to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics data, the total of 2 021 936 road motor cars were registered during 2008, which is about six times more than, for example, in 1970, when only 319 221 cars had been registered. Out of the total number of 2 021 936, as much as 75.93% were passenger cars. According to the county police administration data, the largest number of them, 446 259, was registered in the County of Zagreb including the data on the City of Zagreb, followed by 165 244 registered passengers cars in the County of Split-Dalmatia. The lowest number, 14 772, was registered in the Police Administration of the County of Lika-Senj. Until 30th June 2009, the number of passenger cars that were registered in Croatia for the first time amounted to 30 256.

For comparison purposes, there were about 14 million new passenger cars registered in the EU countries in 2008, most of them, about 3 million, in Germany. Still, as compared to the previous year, the number of cars registered for the first time dropped to 8.1%.

One of the aims of the European Mobility Week is the promotion of alternative ways of mobility, such as walking, bicycling or boosted public transportation use. The share of transported passengers in the road urban and suburban transport in Croatia is decreasing. Specifically, ten years ago, or in 1989 to be precise, the total of 609 032 passengers were transported, while in 2008 this number dropped to 408 865. Out of that number, 207 868 passengers were transported by trams, which represents a decrease of 5.66% as compared to the previous year, and 200 997 by buses, that is, 2.26% less than in 2007.

The share of passengers transported in the urban railway transport is getting higher every year. Thus, in 2004 there were 20 144 passengers transported, while in 2008 this number reached 52 450.

Regarding the EU countries, the number of passenger kilometers in the road transport is increasing. The figures for 2007 show that about 539 000 million passenger kilometers were traveled by buses in urban and suburban transport, which was by 2.4% more than in the previous year, and about 85 000 million passenger kilometers were traveled by trams and underground, which was by 1.8% more than in 2006.

According to the most recent Household Consumption Survey data, that is, those for 2008, the average annual consumption expenditures per household in Croatia amounted to 74 524 Kuna, within which the transport, with the share of 12.0%, holds the third place, after food and beverages as well as expenditures for housing and energy consumption. According to the same Survey, 58.1% of households have a car. The transport expenditures share in the total household expenditures in the European Union in 2007 was 13.7%

Did you know?
- The City of Koprivnica won in Bruxelles, on 13th February 2008,
the European Mobility Week prize award for 2007

*Source:
- The Ministry of Environmental Protection, Physical Planning and Construction
- EU Commission; EU Energy and transport in figures