ACTIVE2030Plus - Research into urban climate-resilient solutions for cycling and walking

The transport sector is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Limiting the consequences of climate change requires a sustainable mobility transition in which cycling and walking play a central role. At the same time, increasing heatwaves, heavy rainfall events, and storms are already impairing the safety, comfort, and usability of these active mobility forms.

ACTIVE2030Plus investigates how cycling and pedestrian infrastructure can be designed to be climate-adapted and resilient, in order to secure its long-term attractiveness and usability. The project identifies and analyses measures that enable and promote cycling and walking under future changed weather conditions. The research covers both infrastructure adaptations – such as green and blue infrastructure elements – and transport planning approaches, as well as behavioural and informational measures, for example the provision of shelter facilities.

Innovative methods are deployed, including wearables to capture individual thermal load, combined with perception and survey data. On this basis, practice-oriented recommendations are to be developed for the planning and implementation of measures that make cycling and walking safe and attractive while also contributing to the mitigation of climate change impacts.

The project is conducted in cooperation between the University of Kassel – particularly the departments of Cycling and Sustainable Mobility and Environmental Meteorology – and the City of Trier as model municipality. Trier is one of the hottest cities in Germany and has a continuously expanding cycling network, providing favourable conditions for testing and implementing the measures.