Porto City Hall wins the "Cidade" prize by the Global Mobi Awards PRIO

Porto City Hall won the “Cidade” prize, granted by the Global Mobi Awards PRIO. This award was given in recognition of the project IDEA – Shared and Efficient Use of the Public Highway, which considers the innovative management of parking spaces nearby school areas.

The innovative and original concept of IDEA pleased the jury of the competition, consisting of architects, engineers, journalists and experts with a broad curricula in the urbanism, mobility and transport areas, who awarded the prize “Cidade” to Porto City Hall.

This project was included in the application submitted to the competition by Porto City Hall, jointly with CEiiA and IST-ID, and relates to the shared and efficient use of public road within school areas. This concept first started with the establishment of shared use of the loading and unloading of goods in specific areas.

At present, the “kiss & ride” system, which is dully marked in blue on the floor, replaces the premise that there are reserved parking spaces nearby school areas with the concept of shared parking spaces. These spaces are well marked on the street floor with blue dots and circles and a special vertical signposting in the pavement. Inside these areas, car traffic is limited to 20km/hour and the maximum permanence stay is 10 minutes.

The establishment of these perimeters also seek to prevent double-parking in rush school hours, which relates to school entry and exit, thus enabling drop offs and pick-ups in total safety, both for students and drivers, with the advantage of being done in the shortest time possible.

One of the strongest IDEA features, which was a plus regarding the award winning, is the fact that it is easily repeatable in other locations at lower costs: vertical and horizontal signposting and respective dissemination.

This concept was scientifically validated and published in 2019, in the Transport Policy international magazine, featuring all the advantages of the idea. Currently, it is implemented in 18 areas in the city of Porto.

According to the monitoring carried out, there is evidence that using such a system reduces travel times, on average 11% within the road network, with the commercial vehicles benefitting from higher reductions (-13%). Private vehicles also demonstrate reduced downtime - circa 31%- and commercial vehicles less 27%.

Moreover, the sharing of parking spaces promotes efficiency regarding urban space use, with benefits for all users, not only regarding car traffic but and also environment and energy wise.

The Global Mobi Awards PRIO Award Ceremony took place yesterday, 12 May, in Alcântara, Lisbon, and it was streamed digitally via the Global Media channels.

Porto City Hall received the “Cidade” prize, which aims at spotlighting the municipalities that implement decarbonising transport projects, accessibility and smart mobility, with a greater impact and innovation regarding the population, ex aequo with the City Hall of Coimbra.

Cristina Pimentel, councillor for Transports of Porto City Hall received the award delivered by the Chairman of the Board of Administration of the Global Media Group, Marco Galinha, on behalf of the Municipality of Porto.

For the past six months, the jury assessed the 53 applications submitted to the category under the competition and chose those who stood out for innovation, public benefit and the quality of the projects.

The Global Mobi Awards PRIO are an initiative by the Global Media Group promoted by Dinheiro Vivo and by Motor24, in partnership with PRIO.