Intelligent Health was in Cologne last week for one of the final EU SWITCH consortium meetings where preliminary results of Beat the Street projects in Gdansk and Hounslow were shared, the Toolkit reviewed and finalised and preparations will be made for the final SWITCH conference in Bremen, Germany on 14th April 21016. Twenty-three ‘Follower Cities’ will be invited and the conference will be of interest to anyone seeking new ways to address ways of reducing carbon emissions, enhancing health and innovating in this field.
Intelligent Health is delighted to be a Technical Support Partner to the European Commission-funded SWITCH project: ‘Enhancing active travel through health and the use of ICT tools’. (switchtravel.eu). The SWITCH consortium, led by BOKU (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Institute for Transport Studies) and Rupprecht Consult, consists of five implementation cities: London Borough of Hounslow, Gdansk, Donastia San Sebastián, Antwerp, Vienna and other technical and support partners including EIP (European Integrated Partnerships) who are evaluating the project. The main objective is to test different approaches and methods for encouraging more use of active travel, including Beat the Street and to share the learning in a toolkit for other Follower Cities to use to deliver their own programmes. Beat the Street has been trialled in Gdansk and Hounslow.
Veronica Reynolds, Client Services Director said: “Our projects have the capacity to not just improve health through increasing physical activity, but also to make a large contribution to reducing greenhouse gases: a key priority across all EU member states. The early results from SWITCH demonstrate Beat the Street’s effectiveness in achieving modal shift across a large proportion of the population where it is run.”
The various SWITCH consortium members, including Intelligent Health, have been hard at work over the past 18 months, implementing and testing and sharing knowledge. The Toolkit will soon be ready for dissemination and contains a wealth of that knowledge and experience from all the partners which will prevent other cities having to ‘reinvent the wheel’.
Monika Evini from Gdansk Municipality says: ” Being part of SWITCH has given us an opportunity to trial Beat the Street in Gdansk. Beat the Street has been the most successful walking and cycling campaign we have run in here and was very popular with children and also with their parents and grand-parents.” Monika Evini, Gdansk Municipality.
