A podcast by Cipra. In podcast and the lab Cipra podcast. The Articwa Podcast. Three-prin 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.cipra.org. Hello and welcome to our special podcast series, Guide Visitors, Preserve Nature Experience.
My name is Katron Holstein and I'm working at the Community Network Alliance in the Alps. This is the second of four podcast episodes within the series, produced by Cipra International and the Community Network Alliance in the Alps. All episodes are in English. Additionally, this episode will be available in French.
So, if you speak French, feel free to choose the French episode. Visitor management starts at home with transport playing an important role, taking the car not only leads to traffic chaos, but we also leave a huge carbon footprint. We can reduce both by travelling with public transport. Sometimes, this can be challenging for the passengers.
Especially when it comes to the famous last kilometer of the journey. Using public transport often goes along with a lack of infrastructure, delays, expensive tickets, and last but not least, the obstacle of the last kilometer on our way to Alpendous Nations. I talk with two guys who know more about this. Louis Dider, he's pursuing a community project to redefine access to the mountains.
And on one part, the head manager and protector went as friends. First, I ask Antoine why he prefers going to the mountains by public transport and which challenges he faces when doing so. Do I like to go to the mountains by public transport? I do.
I enjoy that very much. Can I do it often? That's another question. Going back to the very first time I went on a ski winter holidays.
Without my parents when I was like 16, we had no choice but to take the train. Because no permit and I was the first of many trips like that. We thought it would be easy for us because, hey, you can just go to the train and then you're in San Javer, Chamonnier or Los Angeles places and stuff. And it happened that the famous last kilometer was a bit trickier than we had expected.
And the place where we slept was a few kilometers away from the resorts. So we had to walk every morning and we had to get back every night. So that was still fun but a bit less efficient. Antoine is not the only one with this experience.
Using public transport in the Alpand region often fails because of the last kilometer. Many people are deterred by this to use public transport. Getting there by car is often more comfortable and flexible. Nevertheless, Luigi did prefer public transport.
Even if it sometimes might be less comfortable. But why? So it's true that it's a sacrifice of Montfort. But you can see in the other way.
In other adventure, another kind of adventure, you really leave something that you will never leave if you use the car. The adventure really starts from the house in the valley to the mountain and again to the house. It's never going. It's always an adventure.
It can be a nightmare but then two days after you will say, oh, it was funny. The journey to the mountains can be already part of the adventure. That's the message of Luigi. Last year he started a project called L'Eskar Parr.
A community project to redefine access to the mountains and offer a sustainable alternative to the car with a sporty approach. We decided to organize an event with my friends. A sports event but also raising a warness event. The idea is to organize a kind of winter triathlon with three sports, bike, walk and ski.
And to start from the valley, to start from the run up with the bike and with the ski on the bike and to climb to the mountain to go skiing. But only by bike. So the idea is to organize a zero-emission event and to use this sports event to also organize workshop during the three days of the event. To raise awareness about all the different issues regarding the mountain.
We organized the event on April 2023 and we work with the team of volunteers, mostly my friend and family. And we also work with different partners as protocol winters, maintain wilderness, also supermarket, as setteries, like produce some bio food or stuff like that. So with the different partnerships. And now we are more working on a side project as a white paper on mobility.
We use the event to really push for more self-mobilities in the mountain. Zero-emission is about leaving no harmful gases or substances in the air or nature. The overall goal is to become climate neutral in the future. In 2019 the European Union set this as its main goal with the Green Deal to be climate neutral by 2050.
What difference does it make if you go to the mountains by public transport instead of the car? It makes a huge difference. Do you know the platform EcoPestentures.org? It compares energy consumption, CO2 emissions and other environmental impacts for your plant trip.
You can see how much emissions your trip has and what alternatives there are. Feel free to try it out. Climate Neutrality is an ambitious goal with many obstacles, especially when you consider transportation. As mentioned, Louis planned a super mission event with his project.
So I wanted to know from him, did it actually work? Now it's really, really difficult to organize an event to have zero emissions. Our principal objective was to raise participants' awareness of self-mobilities and to show them that access to maintain doesn't have to be a bike only. So we really focus on transport with the alternative of the bike and the train because we also used train.
And the second sector on which we worked was the food. But even if we wanted to really do our best, there is some infrastructure issues because when it comes to train and bike, there is not enough place in the train to put all the 15 bike of the participant. There is only 12 places in the train we took. So we had to rent a truck to transport bicycle from a .8 to a .B.
So it was a bit part of the car and it's not mainly your fault, I would say. So the event is not zero emission because of this issue with the train. So I contact the license if the main company in the train. Ask them, is it possible to add some places for the bike in the train?
And they told me, we are sorry, but if there is more places for the bike, you will not have enough time to go down the train because the stop timing is really short. It's only 2 minutes and when there is 30% that leave the train with the bike, there is not enough time for 30 bike. So they refuse to add another wagon because of this argument. In most of the public transportation services, it's possible to take the bike with you.
But this often requires a reservation or an additional fee. So if you want to use your bike for the last kilometer, you have to inform yourself well before the trip. Of course, not everyone can use a bicycle as part of their journey. Different groups of people have individual needs.
But where can I find the information for a journey that suits me best, on to one from protector winter's friends? It's not that the information doesn't exist. It takes intense time and energy to go and look for it because even for the most remote tiny bus shuttle in the back, there exists somewhere on PDF file, last on the internet that you could find if you took the time. The internet is a powerful tool and there are tools that can help us do that.
So on our own website, we do have a tool called tiktiktrip which is an algorithm that gathers all available information which they can test and tells you if you ask it to go from point A to point B. What are the trains that you can take? What are the buses that you can take? What are the trains and buses you can take one after the other?
The cap-wing that you can take and you can even buy those tickets whenever available. Have you ever heard of tiktiktrip? It is one of many tools on the internet with which you can plan a trip. There is a huge variety of international platforms like the train line or interrail and regional platforms like Goza Bwamom Blom and Friends or Zugel in Austria, Italy and Slovenia.
The information exists. Now it's time to find the connection. Easier said than done. But what if there is no connection to the destination or the transportation doesn't leave at the right time?
For currencies and schedules are a bit of a problem especially if you take into account the seasonality. Or you are meaning like sometimes some weeks you may have the finest schedule that you would want to be able to use activities but outside of holidays maybe the service won't even run anymore. That's a bit of a problem especially when you see that it affects the possibility for locals to use those means of transports when they only finance during holidays and such. At least it happens in most cases in France, maybe not in other urban countries.
Did you know that most intra-European flights are cheaper than travelling the same distance by train? This shows a study which was published by Greenpeace in July 2023. The more train companies are involved when travelling across borders, the more expensive it gets. Prices vary as well among the different train companies.
So the more spontaneous the trip is, the more expensive the public transportation gets. This is where politics comes into play. Louis wants to take a step towards policymakers with the Laskar part project. So we decided to write white paper on mobilities and for that we asked to other NGOs to help us, other NGOs that have the expertise on the subject.
And this is why we propose to protect our winters and contain wilderness to help us on this white paper. And now there is also other NGOs that will help us on this white paper to really be together and to show to politicians that we need change if we really want to push for more soft mobilities. If we are willing to use soft mobilities but there is not enough infrastructure there will be any issues. So yeah, this idea of white paper is to lobby for more soft mobilities.
The goal of the white paper is to have more communication between citizens and policymakers on the topic of sustainable mobility in the Alps. Infrastructure for sustainable mobility does not work without people using it. And it's equally important to get politicians on board for this. Political awareness raising of organization is the one thing.
But what can we do? Is it enough to just take the train instead of the car? Or do we need to set the course to overcome infrastructure and price issues? Not one has an idea.
To get involved on the political side of things, not trying to get elected even if we get elected and want to put more trains and buses, I could help but just to participate in all the occasions that transport services local governments give you to give feedback on such questions to each protected winters, there are quite a lot to just reflect the reality that sometimes the technicians that think do services may have not in mind because they don't do spaces, they don't do sports activities. So yeah, go out there and whenever people ask you, is there enough train out there at the right time? They know every time and you make it what you want. You can gather people around you to support someone who you feel is defending the right ideas at these moments in time and go and vote for them, manifest for them.
You can tell the current people what you think and we give tools to our community for that to contact the elected officials easily and to share with them like positive feedback when it's needed and negative when we feel like it's not going the right direction. So one important step we could do to initiate changes is to give feedback, either directly to transportation companies and politicians or indirectly by voting. Let's talk more about our trips by famines and exchange tips and tricks for our next journey and to be open to see the travel time as part of the adventure. Do you already have ideas for your next trip with public transport in the Alps?
This was the second episode of our Special Apps Podcast series Guide Visitors Preserve Nature Experience. The next podcast we'll focus on the topic, Nudging in Alpenturism, Guiding Visitors on the Right Track. The term nut is used to describe measures that encourage people to act on their own initiative as desired. How is Nudging used to guide visitors and how effective is it for sustainable tourism?
Does visitor management need psychologists and is Nudging ethical? We will address these and more questions in the next podcast episode. You are also welcome to join our webinar on this topic on September 21st at 2pm. The registrations are already open and the event is re-off charge.
More information about this podcast series is available on alpmaliens.org and zebra.org. You can also listen to the previous podcast about visitor management in the Alps. My name is Katon Holstein. Thank you for listening.
This project is supported by Zebra International and the Community Network Alliance in the Alps. It is made possible by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection. A podcast by Zebra. The Articua Podcast.
Three-print 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.zebra.org.
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