Project acronym: TAPESTRY.
Project full title: Travel Awareness Publicity and Education Supporting a Sustainable Transport Strategy in Europe.
Duration: 36 Months.
Project Co-ordinator: Transport & Travel Research Ltd.

TAPESTRY has been submitted under the Key Action 'Sustainable Mobility and Intermodality'. The breadth and comprehensiveness of the Consortium offers the Commission a major European R&D initiative, whose objective is to increase knowledge and understanding of how to develop effective communication programmes to support sustainable transport policies in Europe.
This will be achieved through the application of best practice in the communications field gathered from previous research (both within and outside the transport sector), to three case study clusters, implemented at international, national, urban, suburban or rural levels, which also cover both passenger and freight transport. The three project clusters deal with the promotion of sustainable transport modes, the image of public transport and with linking transport to other sectors in communication programmes. Comprehensive transport policy guidance will be derived from the results of these case study clusters and applied to an awareness best practice programme which will be applied in all EU states and selected states in the EEA, CEEC and CIS areas in addition to a liaison with the USA.
In the European Union between 1975 and 1995 the daily distance travelled per person doubled; today 80% of all personal journeys are by car. A further doubling of traffic is predicted by 2025. Congestion costs 130 billion euro annually and the total external costs of motorised road traffic are estimated at 270 billion euro per year - around 4% of Europe's gross national product. The average traffic speed in European cities is only 15kmh, and 42,000 people are killed in traffic accidents each year on Europe's roads.
By actively encouraging a reduction in road traffic, TAPESTRY contributes directly to many of the objectives of the Common Transport Policy and to this Key Action. It provides tools to assist in implementing the Citizens' Network and the Communications on CO2 and Transport, and on the internalisation of external transport costs. One case study cluster directly addresses air quality, health and social policy objectives. The proposal has high European added value, with support from a wide range of organisations from Pan - European to local level. By pooling knowledge and experience across Europe, it will be possible to short-circuit the R&D process and encourage take up of this novel approach (based on 'soft' policies) in Member States and Accession Countries that otherwise might lack the confidence to adopt such a new approach that requires skills not traditionally held by transport operators, planners and traffic engineers.
The TAPESTRY project builds on the achievements of previous research and campaign programmes (many of which members of the TAPESTRY consortium were involved in), and takes forward the key issues emerging from these. Particular attention will be given to the development of partnerships between different economic and social sectors, public and private bodies and the general public, in promoting sustainable transport, and the integration of communication programmes with wider transport policies and plans.
The case study clusters will develop, monitor and evaluate the use of travel awareness, communication, education and publicity measures in terms of their impacts on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of various target groups and organisations in different settings. TAPESTRY will assess their efficiency in terms of cost effectiveness, socio-economic influence and their contribution to long term sustainable travel patterns, as appropriate. Relationships between national and local programmes and the transferability of the findings to other sites or communities will be given particular attention.

The work programme has seven main components:
1. Project management, including a programme of three case study clusters and 8 follower sites to meet TAPESTRY objectives within resource constraints;
2. Producing and maintaining a European-wide state of the art on the principles and practice of promoting sustainable transport and its evaluation, drawing on the Consortium's past experience in projects such as INPHORMM and CAMPARIE;
3. Developing and implementing clusters of case studies, in which the 'state of the art' principles and best practice can be applied, monitored and evaluated;
4. Developing a common assessment framework for all case studies covering the life cycle of design, implementation and review, allowing for a local evaluation, a European cross-site evaluation and a thematic evaluation;
5. Creating an active network of interested individuals and organisations across the case study and elsewhere, to share good practice in the use of communication tools to deliver transport policies and plans, including links to partners in the USA, Central and Eastern European Countries and Iceland;
6. Producing guidance, best practice and resource materials for organisations and transport professionals in the field of communication, marketing and community development;
7. Actively exploiting the project results in all European countries, through both existing city co-operations networks and the network developed during the project lifetime itself.

The outputs will be underpinned by a high quality scientific assessment of the findings from the case studies, but will focus on materials of practical relevance to policy makers (answering questions such as why and how can soft measures be used?) and provide detailed guidance for those interested in learning how to implement effective communication strategies targeted at particular traveller groups.
The consortium includes partners from most EU Member States and from some Accession Countries, both to ensure that existing knowledge and user needs are fully assessed, and to enable best practice and dissemination to be provided on a broad basis. The partners include transport operators, a major vehicle manufacturer, city and regional governments, several SME consultancies and academic groups specialising in information and awareness research and application. The consortium also includes representation from the environmental and health sectors and a link with related work in the USA.
Project management is the responsibility of a consultancy with a track record in managing large European Commission demonstration projects. They will appoint a full-time co-ordinator to ensure tight project management and quality control. One of the contractors has been assigned responsibility for each of the work packages, and together they will form a project management group to steer the project. Meetings of the full consortium will take place at key stages in the project and audits will be carried out at each demonstration site, to ensure quality control and effective delivery.

SCIENTIFIC/TECHNICAL OBJECTIVES AND INNOVATION
Need for This Research

A preliminary review of previous findings highlights the following key issues that require further exploration, in order to establish how:
· Communication programmes can be co-ordinated with transport policies and other 'hard' measures, as part of an integrated strategy for sustainable transport;
· Local programmes can be most effectively integrated with other campaigns/ programmes, both in other sectors (e.g. health) and at other levels (e.g. national);
· Programmes can identify the most promising target groups and audiences ready to consider making changes in their travel behaviour/transport policies.

Measuring the outputs and impacts of transport communications programmes demands a new approach to evaluation - which includes an understanding of peoples' attitudes, understanding, knowledge and beliefs about transport as well as their actual travel behaviour. It also requires an evaluation of the changes in social and organisational trends in transport policies and practices, to assess the ways in which communication programmes can help to direct these towards sustainable transport choices.
Finally, the preliminary review undertaken for the TAPESTRY proposal has highlighted the enormous need for a shift in thinking among many transport professionals and operators; to recognise the need to underline their role in bringing about wider social, environment and economic change. This is only likely to come about through a change in their education and professional training, and through better exchange of good practice in the field of travel awareness.

Expected Achievements

The results of the review and the case studies clusters will be analysed in order to establish:
· The role of communications programmes to promote sustainable transport at European, national, regional, urban, suburban and rural levels, within a broader transport/environmental policy framework;
· The ways in which programmes at different levels can link to each other to maximise their synergetic impacts;
· The political, social and structural circumstances likely to affect different types of communication programmes;
· The process of developing and implementing communications programmes at the different levels;
· The options for targeting different social groups and the range of potential new target groups for transport communications;
· The views of different groups on the use of sustainable transport and their perceptions of the role of different modes in their lives, linked to communications programmes;
· The likely effectiveness and financial benefits of communications programmes in the short and medium term.

These results will be presented in various forms, and built into practical best practice guidelines.

Risk Assessment

TAPESTRY is a large project, with participants from a majority of Member States and from a wide range of public and private sector organisations. The nature of the case study clusters poses strong management and quality control challenges. These will be addressed in several ways: by making project management the primary responsibility of one of the partners; by assigning clear responsibilities; and by clustering case studies based on broad objectives and content - thereby providing a framework for mutual support and learning.

PROJECT WORKPLAN

The TAPESTRY proposal is an ambitious one, which requires careful structuring with well chosen and prescribed milestones, in order to ensure effective delivery and outputs, and value for money.
The management of the project has been divided into two components. One relating to traditional project management tasks (ensuring delivery of agreed outputs on time, to budget and to an appropriate quality; preparation of management reports, cost statements, etc.), and the other dealing with co-ordination of the research effort, ensuring agreement on concepts, monitoring and evaluation criteria, and the adoption of a comparable assessment framework. The first of these tasks will be carried out by a consultancy with a good track record in managing major European demonstration projects; and the second by a university group which has demonstrated appropriate technical and dissemination skills in previous related research for the Commission.
The execution of the project has been grouped into five main work areas (one of which has been sub-divided into three further work packages). Two work packages run throughout the project. The first (WP2) deals with concertation and state-of-the-art, which will be updated on a regular basis as the project proceeds. The second work package (WP3) covers project outreach, dissemination and best practice; while these are often not started until quite late in a project lifecycle, the TAPESTRY consortium believes that it is important to start developing dissemination and exploitation networks, assessing user needs and preparing for best practice at an early stage in the work. The 'follower' sites will also play an important part in this work package.
Work package 4 provides the scientific foundation for the study, by setting out a common assessment and evaluation framework, to be adopted in all case studies clusters. The work associated with the case studies has been divided into three more specific work packages, dealing with planning and detailed design (WP5a), implementation and monitoring (WP5b) and local evaluation and recommendations (WP5c). The final main area of work is covered in work package 6, deals with assessment and policy recommendations, at the project level.

TAPESTRY - Three Case Study Clusters

Work packages 4, 5, and 6 include the work on case studies from countries across the European Union and Central and Eastern Europe.
The project aims to promote sustainable transport to different sectors of the population, using different techniques and approaches. The criteria for the choice of clusters and case studies are as follows:
· Each project has clear links with local, regional, national or European policies on sustainable transport (i.e. 'soft' measures are linked to 'hard' measures);
· A range of different organisations are taking the lead on the projects or are working in multi-sectoral partnerships. These include transport consultants experienced in the use of communication strategies, regional government and city authorities, public transport authorities and operators;
· The mix of projects include programmes targeted at the European, national, regional, urban, suburban and rural level and from across the European Community, the Accession Countries and links to the USA;
· The organisations included demonstrate a variety of objectives in promoting sustainable transport; including different transport policy issues and transport-related areas, such as environment, health and employment;
· Across the countries and organisations, programmes are targeting a wide range of populations and groups, including schools, the general public, individual households and families, national or regional populations, local authority and public transport company staff;
· There will be case studies and a programme for best practice for use with 'follower' cities in all EU member states and some accession States;
· Each project is committed to developing a monitoring and evaluation framework that can be used in the project and compared with other case studies and clusters.

The geographical range of demonstration projects

The case studies are located in the following countries:
Austria (city-level), Belgium (city-level and regional), United Kingdom (rural area, regional, county-wide, national), France (city-level; national), Germany (city-level), Northern Ireland (city-level; regional), Italy (city-level), Romania (regional-level), Spain (city-level) and Sweden (city-level).

Case Study Topic Clusters

Case studies are grouped into three topic clusters; all of which link to themes in European and national policies for sustainable transport:
· Inter-modal promotions: these demonstrate the development of programmes to promote all sustainable modes (public transport, cycling and walking) in various locations: schools, citywide and in urban households it includes passenger and freight cases.
· Public transport repositioning: these cases will demonstrate the ways in which authorities and operators are moving beyond the basic promotion of services and tickets and using communication strategies to create a new image for public transport; as the sustainable and accessible mode of transport for the future. These include marketing campaigns linked to national car-free days, the marketing of new rural bus services, marketing measures to secure employment and promoting new tourist and business services.
· Communications programmes linking transport and other sectors: these cases are promoting sustainable transport within the wider context of environmental and health programmes, linked to European and national policies and campaigns.

Cases in each topic cluster will exchange ideas on the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of their projects. The outputs and impacts of cases in the same cluster will be compared wherever possible. Lessons learnt from running campaigns in each group will be explored and analysed. The clusters groups are not mutually exclusive; an organisation may use communication programmes in all of these areas of transport policy, either in series or in parallel. Good practice across all the demonstrations will be identified for use in the development of the TAPESTRY best practice module and recommendations.

Anticipated Followers, Reviewers, Experts

All EU Member States
· Moldova
· Romania
· Iceland
· USA Liaison