Fifty shades of the Mobility Manager
The mobility manager is a key figure for both present and future sustainable mobility; their role is to redesign and rationalize our journeys. This profession represents an attempt to introduce change, actively contributing to the improvement of quality of life.
There are, however, fifty shades of mobility manager, and to try to grasp them properly we must retrace some milestones.
In 1998 the area mobility manager was introduced for the first time, whose task was to develop a Home-Work Commuting Plan for public bodies located in cities with a high risk of air pollution.
Starting from the early 2000s, the characteristics and responsibilities were defined in detail. This figure is placed within the municipal Department dedicated to the management of city traffic and has the task of coordinating the relevant offices in the territory. The support function for the territorially competent municipality concerns the definition and implementation of sustainable mobility policies and also carries out liaison activities among company mobility managers.
The main objective is to optimize the local public transport system, reducing emissions. The activities and aims that the area mobility manager must pursue are many, including: promoting outreach actions with the companies and bodies involved; fostering the integration between the Home-Work Commuting Plans and the policies of the municipal administration; integrating into the transport system solutions that follow an intermodal logic with greener systems such as bicycles, scooters and electric vehicles; promoting the spread of collective taxi, car-pooling and car-sharing services.
In 2015 the relevant legislation introduced the mobility manager in all schools of every order and grade. The main analysis is, of course, centered on home-school journeys, so the interlocutors change, both external - other schools and municipalities - and internal - administrative staff, teachers and students. But there are other responsibilities that involve the school mobility manager, including: the control of journeys during school trips, the management of relations with other schools in the area, with the municipal administration and transport companies and, finally, encouraging the use of the bicycle or other low-environmental-impact vehicles.
The Relaunch Decree establishes that the company mobility manager is a figure specialized in controlling mobility demand and in promoting sustainable mobility, in the context of the home-work journeys of employees.
The person responsible for mobility within the company is called upon to carry out specific analysis, design and monitoring activities, on the basis of various assessments that include: the reduction of employees' commuting costs and related costs; the costs linked to the use of the company fleet; the quality of the air and the surrounding environment, by reducing emissions; the company's reputation in the context of its eco-sustainable commitment.
The ultimate objective is to draw up the Home-Work Commuting Plan using various means at their disposal such as statistical tools, questionnaires and geocoding tools. This must be followed by the implementation of a monitoring system with the definition of a methodology and the identification of indicators that can provide shared social, cultural and economic objectives, with a reduced impact on the community.
TMR wants to contribute to change, which is why it conceived youMove as a platform to support mobility management both in the construction phase of the Home-Work Commuting Plan and in the subsequent monitoring phase. We do not need to travel through time; we want to work today to change the mobility of tomorrow.