The European Commission has announced the finalists of the awards for the European Mobility Week 2021 (which took place from 16 to 22 September). In the list, the only Italian city is Florence, competing for the EU prize for urban road safety, awarded for extraordinary road safety measures. The Tuscan city will deal with Rethymno (Greece) and Warsaw (Poland). The winners of the sustainable mobility awards will be announced at a ceremony scheduled for 28 March.
The characteristics of Florence
The reason why Brussels chose Florence is “for the importance of real-time traffic data. The city’s accident monitoring and analysis system includes georeferencing and road characteristics and has led to a significant reduction in road fatalities ”.
In 2021 there were seven fatal road accidents in the city and the figure is significantly lower than in previous years: in 2010, there were as many as 25 fatal accidents. The Municipality then extended the cycle network. The initiatives also include the use of centralized control of traffic lights to moderate travel speed.
“There is great satisfaction for this candidacy from Florence because it is the testimony of the administration’s commitment to road safety – said the councilor for mobility of Palazzo Vecchio Stefano Giorgetti -. A commitment that translates into numerous lines of action and that can count on the important collaboration of the associations involved in road safety. In recent years, also thanks to the analysis of the characteristics of the roads and the geo-referencing of accidents, we have carried out many interventions to make the roads safe with measures aimed at reducing the behavior often at the basis of the most serious accidents such as roadway crossing maneuvers. and excessive speed ».
The other finalists
As for the other finalists, the Cretan city of Rethymno has designed mobility options that can improve accessibility and reduce road accidents while Warsaw has put pedestrians in the foreground with a study to identify strategies and recommendations for their road safety. .