It’s time to celebrate and explore Monaco’s environmentally-friendly forms of travel as part of European Mobility Week, on now until 22^nd September.
The aim of European Mobility Week is to encourage the citizens and communities of European countries to opt for more environmentally friendly modes of transport. The theme of the 20th edition is ‘Safe and Healthy with Sustainable Mobility’ and it pays tribute to the hardships felt by Europe – and the world – throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. It also reflects on the opportunities for change resulting from this unprecedented health crisis in Europe.
“The health crisis has accelerated our action,” says Frédéric Genta, Monaco’s Interministerial Delegate in charge of the Digital Transition. “Today, digital technology occupies an essential place in user mobility. We have lifted the brakes, simplified the user journey thanks to easy-to-use applications and reinvented the way they travel to create more sustainable mobility in the Principality.”
More than 2,900 towns and cities have registered to take part this year, testing out new forms of clean mobility, taking stock of current transport challenges, and making progress towards a more sustainable mobility for Europe.
Monaco’s advances in clean mobility are designed to achieve the objective set by the Prince’s Government of reducing vehicle traffic by 20% by the year 2030. It aims to do this by steering the population and commuters towards more environmentally-friendly forms of travel through initiatives like carpooling subsidies, streamlined public transport services, cycling paths, and intelligent urban planning. Most projects are deployed by the team behind the Digital Transition, in connection with the Extended Monaco programme.
“Mobility is a priority issue for the Principality,” said Céline Caron-Dagioni, Minister of Equipment, Environment and Urban Planning. “The Government is pursuing a proactive and ambitious policy in favour of soft modes of transport, public transport and even shared mobility. Faced with the issues raised, digital technology offers the user new possibilities, avenues of action to support more virtuous mobility, but also less expensive and more reliable, of which they become the contributor and the organiser.”
In May 2021, the Principality launched MonaPass, an all-in-one mobility application that encourages users to take public transport, offers better accessibility to shared mobility and develops multimodal transport. It makes available all the tickets of various transports and gives access to real-time information on schedules, delays, etc., via the integrated Citymapper application. By the end of the year, Mobee, the Principality’s 100% electric car-sharing service, will join the offering. Almost 7,000 people have already downloaded MonaPass.
Meanwhile, the carpooling app Klaxit has been a huge success in Monaco, with the State fully covering the cost of passenger journeys within a 30-kilometre limit until the end of 2021.
Another initiative is Monaco ON, the free electric charging service which provides nearly 1,000 free charging points for cars and motorbikes in public car parks in the Principality, as well as 11 fast charging points on the roadside, a figure that will increase to 22 by the end of the year.
As part of European Mobility Week, buses are free throughout the Principality on Sunday 19^th September.
 
 
Photo source: MonaBike