Vehicle banner infographic, copyright: CE4CE project
Vehicle banner infographic, copyright: CE4CE project

Circularity Lifecycle in Public Transport

Online
Location: Austria
Date: 07.03.2024
By: CE4CE
The transnational online workshop entitled “Circularity Lifecycle in Public Transport” was organised by trolley:motion with an aim to take up the innovative and challenging topic of the adoption of a circular economy think and action in the Public Transport sector. The event aimed at highlighting and embedding the idea that circular economy is a crucial and unavoidable approach to increase the efficiency of public transport systems, as well as it empasized the necessity to break from the unsustainable linear patterns of production and consumption (take-make-use-dispose) in order to improve the sustainability and resilience of public transport.

The online was widely attended by over 20 public transport experts from various backgrounds, including representatives of public transport operators, academia, technical engineers, traffic engineering managers, energy specialists from bus/e-bus/trolleybus, tram, railway and energy sectors.

Participants took an active part and shared their valuable insights on how to incorporate cicular economy principles in public transport, as well as tested and validated a self-assessment tool developed within the CE4CE project – A Public Transport Circularity Compass, which helps to estimate where the organization stands on their way to fully circular business model.

During the workshop the organiser advised the participants that CE4CE Public Transport Circularity Compass is a tool that supports public and private actors in public transport:

1. to assess their knowldge and status quo about benefits of circular economy approches in public transport and treat them more like an opportunity than a challenge, e.g. regarding the life cycle of infrastructure and vehicles

2. to link this self-assessment to introducing more circular approaches and best practices based on the circularity principles: avoid, reduce, reuse, use longer, recycle, etc.

The workshop encouraged highly proactive collaboration with stakeholders and was structured in moderated, interactive, round table discussions on the whole public transport life cycle „from cradle to grave“, grouped in three main areas: Vehicles, Energy and Infrastructure.