Over 200 Hungarian localities join EU Mobility Week

Hungary’s more than 200 localities have joined this year the European Mobility Week, the European Commission’s green initiative, held between September 16 and 22, national development ministry state secretary Róbert Homolya said on Tuesday.

Running under the slogan “Sharing gets you further,” this year’s campaign aims to encourage people to use shared forms of transportation such as bicycle and car sharing with the aim to reduce air pollution.

Speaking at a press conference, Homolya

highlighted the spread of electronic vehicles and biking to work or school, and the continuously developing public transport system in Hungary.

Violeta Bulc, the EU’s Transport Commissioner, told the same event that traffic is responsible for 24 percent of Europe’s carbon emission which calls for action aimed at reducing air pollution across the bloc.

Air pollution leads to an early death of around 400,000 people in Europe each year, the commissioner noted, adding that measures to reduce pollution cost 120 billion euros annually in extra spending for the continent.

The Mobility Week is important in calling attention to transport-related problems, for instance traffic jams that cost each workday around 1 billion euros in the continent, she said.

Bulc highlighted innovative transport development projects and the recent spread of electric cars and recharging spots in Hungary.

As we wrote before, automatization is becoming more and more important in vehicle development. Google and Tesla have been paying much effort into this branch, but Vovlo is also working on an automatic following mechanism. As it is a new and rapidly changing field, Hungary intends to be in the forefront of the competition. That is why a test track for self-driving cars is being constructed in Zalaegerszeg.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI