October 29, 2021

The Transportation Management program at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences (HKA) hosted an online student workshop on "Hands-on Sustainable Mobility – Active Mobility around the World" from October 25 to 29, 2021. A total of 75 students from eleven universities in nine countries were involved. The focus of this year's workshop was on sharing experiences and developing concepts for sustainable and active mobility.

The "Hands-on Sustainable Mobility" exchange, which has been held at least annually since 2011, was held online this year due to the Corona pandemic. The aim of the exchange is to sensitize students, young scientists and lecturers to the topic of sustainable mobility and to promote international dialogue. The treatment of transportation topics is not only technical, but also focuses on cultural understanding and social norms.

During the week-long workshop, 75 students from HKA, the University of Kassel, the University of Waterloo (Canada), Mc Gill University (Canada), the University Centre of Brusque – UNIFEBE (Brazil), the School of Urban and Regional Planning of the University of the Philippines (Philippines), Mekelle University (Ethiopia), the University of Nairobi (Kenya), Makerere University (Uganda), the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas (Colombia) and Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University (Bangladesh) worked together on solutions in the field of sustainable and active mobility. In particular, cyclists and pedestrians were the focus of the presentations, technical discussions and concept developments. Due to the international composition of the working groups and the resulting different views and cultural understanding in dealing with active mobility, lively discussions developed around the topics of potential for improvement and obstacles to implementation. In order to promote the exchange in the best possible way and to give the students an even better insight into the different countries and their local situations, an input event with presentations from all eleven universities on the topic of active mobility was held daily. For those interested, the input events were also live-streamed.

One challenge in designing and organizing the workshop was the different time zones and setting up group work in internationally mixed teams. Despite the various challenges posed by this online workshop, the organizing team did an outstanding job of putting on an event that was valuable for all involved.

In their working groups, students shared experiences, compared different approaches, learned from each other, and developed sustainable solutions to real-world problems from a wide range of countries. The group work was based on street sections of commercial streets from different partner countries, which were documented for the students both on plans and in videos and photos. The students presented the results of their group work at a symposium on Friday and subsequently discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the concepts presented with participants from other groups. The successful conclusion of the "Hands on Sustainable Mobility" workshop showed once again how successful and profitable the concept is for the students from different countries.

Workshops have already been held at regular intervals since 2011 as part of the international exchange programs. Since last year, through the Collaboration for Active Mobility in Africa (CAMA) project, the African universities Mekelle University (Ethiopia), the University of Nairobi (Kenya) and Makerere University (Uganda) have also been part of the exchange program. "The original plan was to hold this workshop in person in Karlsruhe, but that was not possible due to the Covid 19 pandemic," said Prof. Dr. Jochen Eckart, Professor of Transport Ecology at HKA, at the beginning of the online workshop. "Despite the circumstances, I am grateful that the opportunity existed to hold this workshop online to maintain the international exchange. In the future, we plan to continue this exchange and, if health conditions and travel restrictions allow, to hold face-to-face meetings again," he added.

The workshop and conference are partly funded by "Sustainable Urban Mobility in Manila", a project in the scope of the Baden-Württemberg-STIPENDIUM for Students – BWS plus, a program of the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung, and the project "Collaboration for Active Mobility in Africa" (CAMA), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).