How Kaohsiung turned Ecomobile
The EcoMobility World Festival 2017 celebrated its closing on October 31. The one-month event attracted more than 300,000 people to visit Hamasen neighborhood to experience the ecomobility lifestyle. Kaohsiung showcased the possibility of cleaner ways of mobility within the city, the EcoMobility World Congress discussed solutions to urban mobility challenges worldwide, and The Kaohsiung Strategies for the Future of Urban Mobility were presented and brought to COP23. Since 2015, when Kaohsiung won the bid to host the EcoMobility World Festival in 2017 the city has held more than 110 conferences and meetings on local communication and municipal work. On the first day of October 2017, Kaohsiung officially launched the festival and officially ended on the 31st of the same month.
The one-month event was jointly organized by the City of Kaohsiung and ICLEI and the EcoMobility World Congress attracted more than 50 cities, 23 mayors and 1,200 attendees delivering on ways to implement “livable, shared and smart mobility” as well as to discuss sustainable transport practices and policies. Kaohsiung also organized an environmental education and low-carbon transportation exhibition. Over 50 manufacturers and companies provided advanced, diversified and low-carbon green transportation vehicles, including unmanned minibuses, electric buses, light railways and electric tricycles and provided the opportunity to experience advanced transportation services with test rides.
The one-month event also arranged more than 150 performances and attracted more than 300,000 visitors to the demonstration neighborhood. During the one-month event, more than 350 community tour groups were invited to visit the community so that visitors could learn about community parking space, plans, green landscaping, creative painting and beautifying, improvement of road landscape and renovation of features alley and other sustainable mobility infrastructures.
Long preparations for the Festival in Kaohsiung brought many challenges to become an ecomobile demonstration community and enable visitors and locals to experience in person walking, cycling and other forms of sustainable mobility. After this festival, the neighborhood became one of the most ecomobile communities around. It includes MRT, LRT, ferry, electric bus, shared electric car, shared electric car and shared bicycle program.
To achieve this, the city mobilized 22 offices who were fully involved in the project to improve the living environment of the community, the introduction of multi-modal transport infrastructure and vehicles to increase green belt space for community refurbishment. More importantly, more than 70 local communication talks were held between the city government and the residents of Hamasen over the past year. From the opposition to support, more than 1,793 residents served as honor ambassadors to assist the festival publicity.