A podcast by Cypriot A podcast by the L'Aceipra Interviews, background talks and voices from all Alpine countries Listen to this and more in the podcast of the International Commission for the Protection of the Arms www.cypriot.org.au How do you get to work? I get to work only by bike I was taking the bus and the train, so I have to travel distance of 20 kilometers, it's a little bit far for me Since 10 million years by train and bus By foot, I actually moved to be closer to my work I bike, yes, by e-bike every day, almost every day Normally with my bicycle, but sometimes by car or sometimes also by motorcycle I'm coming to work with my bike, I travel per-accent kilometers in one way In the winter time, I work 12 kilometers from my home I usually go by car and in the other times when I don't have these extra trips in the afternoon for the kids and the family I travel by electric bike I cycle and yes, I do it in every weather because when it rains I really don't dare to use a car because there's a horrible traffic jam I'm so much faster on the bike By car, and I'm the driver, I'm the only person in the car, so solo with car I'm willing to change that at least, I don't know, maybe twice a week, let's say I bike, even in 8 months of pregnancy Commuting made easy The mobility of commuters in the Slovenian industrial area of Trata is to become more environmentally friendly With the help of experiences from similar projects in the border, triangle of Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein More than 5,000 people work in the industrial area of Trata near Ljubljana, Slovenia 94% commute to work by car This leads to traffic jams, soil ceiling, through huge car parking lots, as well as noise and CO2 emissions How can we combat these problems and encourage commuters to adapt more sustainable mobility behavior? This is what the Trata 2.1 project by T-Proslovina and C-Pray International is addressing Building on the experience of past mobility projects such as Pimo and Amigo, Company and municipal representatives travel to the border trying the Switzerland Austrian Liechtenstein in March 23 During this study trip, they learned about best practice examples of sustainable and healthy commuter mobility Companies with thousands of employees such as Bloom, Habakon or Iverke, Fauqueville, Musi-Pelites and even an entire country The principality of Liechtenstein rely on professional mobility management This includes mobility managers, incentive systems such as eco-points or company bicycles And favorable conditions for the purchase of an e-bike One of these good examples is the company Habakon in Walford in the Austrian province of Fejaldeg Habakon is a technical distributor for the industry, civil engineering, timber construction and carpentry sectors with over 2,000 employees After a short train ride and a few minutes of walking, we meet sustainability officer Andrea Sootoliti and mobility manager Gerhard Berlinger there and talk to them As Andrea explains, already 2008 the introduction of mobility management began, largely driven by one of today's CEOs of this company Today he is the CEO of our company but in 2008 he was working as a manager in controlling And really convinced about sustainability and wanted to develop, as to drive change in our company How important is it to have CO or people in the higher management that are pushing this topic? It's very important for us for our team's sustainability And it really makes things easier And the Habakon sustainability has been a topic for a long time And there was always drive behind it And I think this is the difference to other companies that only started it in the last couple of years Because of public interest in the topic For him for the CEO, Karl Fitt is not just Wert, he's recently everyday He comes here by council, so he's for the employees, he's not just Wert, he's lazy, he's a little bit And which measures actually is Habakon taking now very concretely in the area of sustainability What are the main measures that you take?
We really have a broad program of activities and offers for employees But one of the most important is the eco point system, it's an incentive system for employees Where employees get a reward for every single climate friendly journey to work every day And we really see that it motivates people to get something And also if it's only a small thing, but they know that the company really likes it if they travel sustainably Do you have some rough numbers? How many employees come by car and how many buy-kabas or walk? And how has this changed over the last years? When we started in 2008, we had about 65% of individual mobility And now it's quite 55, which comes with a gentle mobility As Gerhard and Andrea mention, nowadays at Habakon, more than every second employee comes to work by bike, train, bus or on foot Many of them shifted away from the car, but why?
We asked three of them I'm Ben Adbier, I'm product manager for personal protective equipment, PPE Here since 18 years now located at the headquarter in Wollford, Valberg My name is Michael Kettner, I'm working here since 89 And my job is I'm a lead buyer for bearings and linear technology My name is Salador Eciciano, I work in Habakon since March 2008, I'm 52 years old and I'm product manager of the hydraulic system and companies Me personally, I get to work only by bike, a few years ago we had two cars at home and we decided to sell one It made no sense, the way to work is only a few kilometers, so it takes me around 5 to 10 minutes via bike And this is the weapon of choice for me When I was young, I always came by car or by motorcycle, but they changed a few years ago And so I tried to drive every day with my bike, with my bicycle At first we had an e-bike promotion here on the company, many years ago, I think about eight or nine years ago And that pushed me, so I bought an e-bike and that pushed me to drive with a bike And also we had a reward by eco points, that was also a thing that I like From my home to the office, it's only 3.5 kilometers And to work in the beginning with my car, for about 4 years, and then in 2012, I changed to the public transportation It's easier, it don't cost a lot of money because I've found a few euros And for me, no stress on the street, I go to work relaxed without traffic, jam and so on Well in the beginning, it was okay because the street was not so full like today, 12 years ago, or 15 years ago Now it's crazy, here on the outer band, A14, it's crazy It's 14 kilometers from Hoennings to Walford, since 8 years, I have an e-bike and I use the e-bike In the summer days, when it's warm, and sometimes I use also the West bike With my second car, I had good arguments to take the car because it was cold, it was rainy, or I had another issue Nowadays, I can only use the bike or the bus, but the bus is not as fast as the bike for me I have to wear the right clothes, the rainwear, protect myself from cold and rain And then it is no problem, and what I've learned is that it's just a thing of being used to it We get points, every day we come via a bike or via bus, and with these points that we collect, we can get Wushays for the buy sports equipment or what else to go shopping So company Hapakon Rewards, if you come by bike, for example Another thing is that we are able to buy bicycles or cheaper prices in a program that helps us save money So we get as an employee of Hapakon, you can buy a bike for around half the price and pay it monthly We had also a workshop with Amigo where the awareness of the topic of soft mobility was created That was also a key experience for me, and also the traffic is horrible for me I don't like to drive this car because there are too many cars on the road I hate it to drive by car, so I prefer to drive by the bicycle It's a traffic time, it's longer with a car than with a bicycle It's healthier and we in for all that we have every half an hour, there is a bus or a train The connections are very good, and also the bus station is here in front of the office I think it's enough because we have the maximum car that I use, it's fully paid from Hapakon, refund Then we have the V-bike that in the beginning, Hapakon pays, and we go to pay it back in four years More incentive, I don't need, I think it's not necessary I'm not sure if Hapakon can do more, the rest is things like the village that we live in World for this doing quite a lot, so the bicycle ways are built new or more So the surrounding makes it more attractive Improised feel that sustainability is not just a program that someone does, and it affects you personally That means it affects us the way we travel, we travel more by train, less by plane If possible, and of course the effects, the time that you are away, because riding a train to Vienna from Or to Bixit in Germany or somewhere else, it takes you more time But Hapakon tries to support it quite good, that means we can ride the train in first class Going by plane means you're not online, you can't work that good, same as if you drive a car Of course, you have to drive, you can't work on your laptop And if you have a seat in first class and train on a business trip, you are able to work to eat It's more relaxing, you've got a toilet room, so you have to learn and experience that it has about advantages as well But maybe you won't be at home at the same time as with a plane But if you have the right mindset, then you will receive a good feeling Since sustainability is part of our management strategy, we get more employees, so more people want to work for Hapakon Because they feel that it makes sense what we are doing and they want to be part of it So absolutely the right strategy, doing sustainability from the heart So you heard three of the employees of the company Hapakon This company is part of the network, Vichaf Mubil in Fahlberg Within this network, currently four team companies exchange their measures and experiences concerning mobility management on a regular basis But now we have to catch the bus and move on to Duan Bien On the bus, we talked to Katarina Sladolio from the Slovenian Development Agency, Sora, about her impressions We are the communications partner for the project, and my role is trying to figure out how to bring the theme of sustainable mobility closer to the target group How do you personally get to work every day? By foot, I actually moved to be closer to my work because I come from a different part of Slovenia, which is a good hour driving away And since I don't have a good public transportation option, I moved to Schofia Loca to be closer to work What is the main problem in the region of Schofia Loca or Trata for people when getting to work? From talking to employees and from the initial survey that we've done, the data shows that people that are further away from work don't have really good options for public transportation When there is public transportation, the timings are not necessarily aligned So it's hard for them to choose that option because they would be late to work, especially because they have to be exactly on time at work And then the cycling infrastructure is getting better, there's a lot of construction happening and this public administration is very open to sustainable mobility But still, there's a lot to be done on safe cycling infrastructure Right now we are driving on a bus from the company Harbacorn to downtown Dorn, Finland to the Energy Institute What do you hope to learn from what companies and communities here in Faualberg, Austria and Liechtenstein? What do you hope to learn from that concerning sustainability and mobility management?
This region has a longer tradition in promoting sustainable mobility in companies than we do in Slovenia So primarily I would love to learn how they communicate it with the employees the need to change towards sustainable mobility options and how to do it as user-friendly as possible because we are all creatures of habit and it's really hard for us to change the habits So when we want to introduce something that is so significant in our life, our way, how we move we need to do it with at least the amount of effort needed from the participants and I just want to learn how they have tackled it here and how they made such significant changes So we are not at the end of the trip now but still you already saw some good examples for example at Harbacorn and Bloom what impressed you most, which measures that motivate employees to switch mobility It was really interesting to see how they tackle the whole parking issue so I love that both companies use eco points collection for the employees that come to work sustainably I think that's a really good motivator and both companies work more on the, as we say, sticks and carrots, they work more on the carrots side of changing the habits So they work more on motivating people towards positive change than giving penalties for the bad habits So I think that would be a good lesson for us to bring home and we were already talking with companies that are participating in the project that were going to do the bike month, so promoting biking to work and also the good examples from both companies here show us that that's a very successful way of motivating people to come to work with the bike So communication is, for example, with eco points or introducing eco points systems, rewards This is what would you say how big should this part be compared to infrastructure measures? What's more important? It's hard to say what's more important because both things contribute I do think that the current infrastructure that we have in Schoife and Loca, especially for cycling, for closer relations so let's say up to 5 km is good enough, which also shows the examples of, for instance, Amika who is with us, he's the mobility manager for Sibogrupp and he comes from Kran every day with a bike for 20 km So there is infrastructure which is okay to use, so I would say if we communicate and people start changing their habits then also the municipality will see the bigger push towards sustainable mobility which will motivate them to build more infrastructure So if I would have to choose, let's start with communication with changing our habits and showing that there's a lot of us who want to come towards sustainability and then the infrastructure will follow But how to implement mobility management within a company? At the Energy Institute in Duan Bien, we meet David Madlina He and his colleagues consult municipalities and companies who want to implement mobility management Within the Zebra project called Amigo Active Commutator Mobility, the Energy Institute developed a toolbox for corporate mobility management with more than 30 different measures One of them is to analyze the status quo of mobility in the company through employee surveys or also through counting vehicles Another one is the definition of responsibilities as David explains If you are following a team, just see that you have persons from different parts of the company so it could be finance but also like the human resource management, the facility management so all those aspects come together in mobility management because all of them, if you are implementing measures all of those parts are important in making them successful It's always good to give your employees a picture like why you are doing that and which strategy is you are following in implementing measures in mobility management so I really think about that Another measure is to create a mobility starter package for new employees We developed the Mobility Starter Package that's actually a small folder with all the mobility measures that are taken in the company maybe with a little bit of text like what's the sense of the measure Here in addition, for example the Energy Institute we used a drinking bottle to give them and just tell them to try a different mode of transport and not coming back out that we have many possibilities It's also a very important aspect because when you change your life habits for example new workplaces, new habits in your life and that's a very good point to get people changing their behavior I think that's very useful and also a simple measure that can be implemented quite fast It could also be, I guess at Harvacone we also have the test ticket for three weeks for example for public transportation which counts directly within this package Incentives and rewards can be also an effective measure to change mobility behavior says David Molina from the Energy Institute Like a bonus system, some kind of bonus system is really effective in behavior change It's really effective because even if you implement a loss like for example if you need to pay for the parking system still you can make many small wins because every day if you use another transport like if you come by bike or by public transportation you get points, you collect points so every day you get a small win out of the bonus system and it's a very good thing because you get employees think about their mobility choice every day As soon as you have to type in which the modal transport you took very useful because everyone thinks, ah yeah, okay, the car and maybe next time it's a good weather I could use the bike just to collect some points or because it's also to connect some points of course because it's convenient as well So we have our timestamp outside and we just put the badge on it when we arrive and we can just click on the modal transport we're using From Don Bien we take a short trip to the principality of Lichnstein Thousands of commuters come to Lichnstein every day from Austria and Switzerland Many of them work in banking or in industry and most of them come by car People like Georg Sile wanted to change this Nowadays Georg Sile is president of the Lichnstein Mobility Club But for many years Sile was a member of the executive board at the company in Vikon in Lichnstein which develops and produces high precision vacuum measurement devices for the industry He introduced mobility management within his company already decades ago Everything began with the new company building In the planning phase of this building there was a question, do we need two garages underground?
Two levels or do we need one level? And I convinced, I was also in the management of the Inficombalcers and I convinced my colleagues that we only build one level underground crash but introduce mobility management and I could show to them that we save about then we consider all costs about 150,000 Swiss francs a year The biggest hurdle was actually the responsible person for human resources She said, George, if we do that, I will not find any people for this company anymore Nobody wants to work with Inficombal and it was the opposite Of course we made it and we had from the beginning on the one hand side a benefit, whoever did not regularly need a parking space got money at the end of the year and whoever needed a parking space wanted one had to pay for it and I also could work with a Swiss research project and one found out in Switzerland if the difference between what people did and what they would have to pay is about 1,500 Swiss francs it modifies the behavior Gjogzile explains why external costs for car traffic are much higher than for other means of traffic In Switzerland, each car produces external costs of about 1,000 Swiss francs per year external costs are typically following costs of accidents If there is an accident, of course the insurance will pay to get it, of course but nobody pays the employer that he is missing an employee and the external costs for car traffic are so high and in Switzerland, the external costs for walking and cycling together are no costs but win so actually politicians should know it Cycling to work instead of driving by car also means less sick days which is another positive effect on the cost for the company We experienced that the people who ride the bicycles in winter had not a single-day inventor and car driver's typically have once a winter they are out of work with the flu when you look at the productivity gain for an employer and it was important for me these facts I could sell to my colleagues in management I explained them, listen, when we buy a new means of production we always calculate the return on investment but we have a much higher return on investment with our employees when they come active with the company so healthier employers cost less since they are still from the Liechtenstein mobility class In the next episode of the Tipper podcast we will hear more about the mobility situation in Liechtenstein and about which conclusions the Slovenian participants of the study trip draw for the industrial zone, Kata thank you for listening, my name is Michel Goss A podcast by Cipro A podcast by Lachiep and Le Petchas de Lachiep They are Tipper podcast interviews, background talks and voices from all Alpine countries listen to this and more in the podcast of the International Commission for the Protection of the Alps www.cipro.org.org.