Walking and cycling are the most sustainable forms of travel and therefore the most important to be encouraged.
We are all pedestrians at least at one time or another of the day and the better the space (sidewalk width, adapted garage entrances, safe crossings, etc.) the more naturally we will use it.
The use of bicycles for daily urban and interurban travel has been on the increase in recent years. Nonetheless, it is necessary to ensure that all users have an infrastructure available that offers them guarantees for themselves and so as not to harm other road users either through their own circulation or because of shared space.
An accessibility plan consists of identifying architectural barriers in various municipal areas (public roads, buildings, transports and communication), suggesting solutions to eliminate these, budgeting these measures and drawing up a progressive implementation plan based on previously established priority criteria. The goal is to achieve a fully accessible municipality in a rational and planned manner.
Cinesi uses geographic information system (GIS) tools that help link data with its geographical location to facilitate the management of developing this plan. Queries can therefore be made about accessible itineraries, the data to properly develop the stage plan can easily be updated and plans visually displaying the information can be obtained.
The main aim of school routes is to provide students with safe, comfortable itineraries on their way from home to school. It is a participatory, crosscutting project in which it is vital that the school and parent associations reach an agreement and participate in working together on the plan, as well as families also becoming involved.
The mobility habits of students must be studied in order to implement a school route. Based on this data, a technical action plan is developed to improve the streets around the school to make the access routes more pleasant and secure.
The process involves performing the following tasks:
Traffic calming consists of actions aimed at reducing the effects of traffic on other road users and neighbours, such as improving security, reducing noise, etc.
Traffic calming specifically helps to reduce the speed of motor vehicles, deter traffic on more residential streets, encourage the sharing of the road with various modes of transport, minimise conflicts among users and consequently create a user-friendlier neighbourhood.
The move towards a sustainable mobility model means that there is a more intensive use of public space in our cities, with new mobility players and an exponential growth of non-motorised travel, with more traffic calmed spaces and single platform or reduced speed streets.
Signage aimed at pedestrians is an essential service of towns and cities for both their inhabitants and visitors alike and greatly contributes to their image.
Cinesi uses GIS tools that help link data with its geographical location to facilitate the management of developing a signage plan for pedestrians.
The planning of a bicycling network is a key aspect for the future development of this means of transport and must be consistent at a territorial level.
Bicycle lanes must be functional and safe for users, while at the same time be adapted to the territory and its needs in order to maximise the network effect and provide an uninterrupted connection.
Bicycle master plans are documents that help address all these aspects based analysing cycling mobility, defining criteria and objectives and studying alternative routes. It is very important to include all the stakeholders involved in order to ensure technical, social and political consensus.
Cinesi has been a BYPAD (Bicycle Policy Audit) auditor for more than 10 years and this has allowed it to assess bicycle transport policies and quality management in a systematic manner in territories such as Donostia – San Sebastián, the island of Menorca or the town of Mataró.
The signage of bicycle lanes and paths regulates user circulation and orientation in order to guarantee the safety, comfort and efficiency of journeys.
In an environment where the presence of bicycles is becoming increasingly greater, it is also vitally important to ensure their coexistence with other modes of transport that are present on public roads.
Cinesi provides regulatory and planning advice for bicycle lanes and paths, including traffic lights, vertical and horizontal signage, information panels and road signage.
It is important to improve bicycle paths and also provide comfortable and secure car parks at the origin and destination of journeys and near the main centre of attraction (places of work, education, sport, commerce, culture, etc.) in order to promote bicycle use in cities.
Cinesi offers a proven methodology for creating and/or improving bicycle parking spaces as well as solutions to the difficulty of creating new parking spaces, proposing strategies for the reuse and transformation of spaces currently used for private vehicles.
Public administrations can subsidise the purchase of electric bicycles with the aim of supporting a shift in mobility towards a model in which the bicycle is a habitual mode of transport for daily travel in urban centres.
Cinesi provides support in administratively managing these subsidies by carrying out the following tasks:
GIS is a system that can store, analyse and display geographical information. It therefore has the peculiarity of integrating the variable of space, which makes it a very powerful tool to support any type of study or project to help in the decision-making process.
In the above charts you can see some of its applications in Cinesi’s projects.
Automatic. Automatic traffic counting devices to record traffic volume and vehicle speeds. These provide insights into hourly and daily trends by vehicle type and direction of travel.
Directional. Designed to track the routes taken by pedestrians, cyclists, private vehicles, heavy vehicles, etc.
Plate reading system. To track the routes of motor vehicles by monitoring access points and intermediate checkpoints.
Parking. Analysis of occupancy (the length of time each space remains occupied) and turnover (the number of vehicles parking), identification of the place of residence of parked vehicles, and detection of illegal parking.
Analysis of the physical aspects of networks and photographic and/or video gathering that helps to define the condition of each section in a highly visual manner. Cinesi has the following specific material resources for conducting inventories:
4×4 vehicle. This vehicle incorporates an odometer and inclinometer to measure the length and tilt of the route, as well as a GPS receiver.
ArcGIS Field Maps. A mobile application that streamlines the process of accurate data gathering to be processed in the office during fieldwork.
The “Mystery shopper” is an essential tool for measuring, analysing and improving aspects relating to customer service.
Acting anonymously as regular customers, specialised evaluators assess key aspects related to the perception of service users, such as information on board and at stops, quality of driving, stare of cleanliness and maintenance inside and outside the vehicles and at stops, etc.
The resulting report presented by Cinesi includes all the information gathered, including quantitative and qualitative assessments and corresponding recommendations for improvement.
ADVANCE Audit is a certification tool for improving sustainable urban mobility plans, analysing the strengths and weaknesses of a city’s current mobility planning and providing directions on how to improve this in terms of sustainability.
There are a great many benefits for cities participating in the process of ADVANCE certification:
BYPAD, an acronym for Bicycle Policy Audit, is a tool developed by an international consortium of bicycle experts as part of an EU-funded project. BYPAD provides an overview of the measures and structures applied in local cycling policy.
Cinesi uses it to be able to assess the quality of cycling policies of cities by analysing their strengths and weaknesses and making specific recommendations on how to improve their cycling policy in the future.
Key applications of simulation models include network analysis, passenger transport analysis, the creation of demand models and transport planning, the design of vehicle routes and logistics, as well as land-use planning, amongst others.
At Cinesi, we use two simulation models depending on the scope of the study: TransCAD, for macroscopic, and AIMSUN, for smaller-scale studies.
TransCAD. This is a macroscopic simulation model used primarily to study mobility on supra-municipal roads. Using a geographic information system (GIS), this programme enables data for any mode of transport to be stored and analysed.
AIMSUN. This is a microscopic simulation model used to study mobility withing urban networks. It allows for vehicle-by-vehicle tracking and real-time visualisation. By simulating the various modes of transport and visualising the movement of different road users, the impact of future developments on the road network can be assessed. This makes it possible to identify potential problem areas.
AUTOTURN. A simulation model for manoeuvres and analysis of turning radii based on the current or future road network for light vehicles, heavy vehicles and buses.
Surveys are a vital source for supporting the diagnoses and action plans we propose. They can be outsourced to market research companies, with Cinesi overseeing these, or directly undertaken by Cinesi with contracted staff for the occasion.
We handle the following tasks:
Cinesi calculates emissions and environmental indicators based on (urban and interurban) transport networks and the environmental targets in question, thereby helping to compare modal quotas and existing emissions with those forecast in future scenarios.
One of the tools we use is AMBIMOB 2.0, from the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainability, which helps to environmentally assess the measures of sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMPs). In addition to showing the variation in emissions for each pollutant, it allows us to assess the contribution of these measures towards the reductions set out in the Mobility Master Plans (MMPs).
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