The BTC Company signed a cooperation agreement with the Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region (RRA LUR) together with other project partners within the framework of one of the largest European mobility projects in Slovenia, SmartMOVE: Smart Solutions for Sustainable Mobility. The project is set to run until April 2024.
BTC City Ljubljana records more than 21 million visits per year, which amounts to 12 million vehicles in the area annually. At the BTC company, we are aware of the negative environmental impact of traffic, which is why we promote sustainable mobility in the scope of various projects. The desire to help develop measures to support the use of sustainable forms of mobility among employees who frequent our centre every day has also led us to join the SmartMOVE project.
Upon signing the agreement, Miha Mermal, Chief Marketing and Sustainability Officer at the BTC Company, pointed out: “The area of BTC City Ljubljana employs over 3,000 people, who commute to work from various parts of Slovenia. With this project, we want to offer them additional, new transport options. We reckon that the project will successfully complement other sustainable transport modalities promoted by the BTC Company, further reducing the burden of road traffic in this area and the capital as a whole.”
The main purpose of the SmartMOVE project is the promotion and introduction of sustainable mobility in companies and organizations that employ a large number of people and consequently generate a lot of traffic. The project aims to provide concrete measures and incentives, while also empowering and motivating both employees and employers to turn to sustainable mobility.
In addition to introducing a sustainable mobility certificate, the project focuses on the creation of so-called mobility plans. The Institute for Spatial Policies (IPoP) is already conducting a thorough analysis of the travel behaviour of employees in the area of BTC City Ljubljana, which will form the basis for a mobility plan prepared by LUZ, a Ljubljana urban planning company. The mobility plan is a document that allows for an active regulation of accessibility and the decrease in the use of passenger cars by introducing measures that promote sustainable mobility and raise awareness about it. These measures also include new ride-sharing options.
The project will pilot test a completely new transport modality for commuting to work, dynamic collective passenger transport using a van. This service, which will run from the beginning of February to the end of April 2023, will be completely free of charge for those registered. This form of transport can be used by anyone who commutes to work in the areas of BTC City Ljubljana and the University Medical Centre Ljubljana from Kranj, Kamnik, Radomlje, Mengeš, Domžale, Komenda and Trzin.
The BTC company is already implementing a number of projects aimed at fostering sustainable mobility to create an environment with a modern transport infrastructure and regime that will provide all visitors with better mobility to and within BTC City Ljubljana, while also being environmentally friendly. In BTC City, we already have a total of 25 charging ports for electric vehicles (EVs), four EV ride-sharing stations with a total of 22 charging ports, a car sharing system for business users, three automated bike rental stations and six automated e-bike rental stations. In addition, as many as five public transport bus lines stop at BTC City Ljubljana.
