Ghent

Ghent is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in size only by Brussels and Antwerp.

In June 2024, Ghent will proudly host the esteemed international cycling conference, Velo-city, selected for its notable dedication to cycling. With over 1,400 delegates from 60 countries anticipated to attend, Velo-city serves as a pivotal platform for global collaboration among cities, decision-makers, academics, and industry leaders, shaping the future of cycling. This significant event, themed "Connecting Through Cycling," underscores Ghent's remarkable strides in bicycle mobility, as evidenced by its selection as the first Belgian city to host the conference since Brussels in 2009.

Image credit: Azamat Esmurziyev/ unsplash

Ghent is an experienced city regarding sustainable urban mobility planning. The first bicycle and mobility plans date back from the Nineties. Nowadays, the municipality faces a rise in its population and an increase in the number of cars and of trips made in the city. To address these changes, Ghent wants its new SUMP to improve the accessibility, safety, sustainability and child-friendliness of the transport system and to contribute to make Ghent climate neutral by 2050.

In 2015 the city of Ghent introduced its new Mobility Plan. It is designed to tackle the challenges of urban growth while prioritizing livability and accessibility. Divided into two main components, the Circulation Plan aims to reduce unnecessary traffic in the city center by dividing it into sections and directing non-essential traffic to outer routes, thus creating safer streets for pedestrians and cyclists. Meanwhile, the Parking Plan focuses on efficient management of parking spaces, with an emphasis on resident parking and zoning tariffs to ensure fair access, supplemented by park-and-ride facilities on the outskirts of the city. By implementing these measures, Ghent seeks to maintain its vibrancy while enhancing the quality of life for its residents and visitors.

The co-operation with stakeholders is also at the very core of the revised version of Ghent SUMP. Among the expected results, the municipality wants to reach an ambitious modal split by 2030. Ghent intends to increase walking from 14 to 18 per cent, cycling from 22 to 35 per cent, the public transport modal share from 9 to 20 per cent and to decrease car use from 55 to 27 per cent.

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The city has also introduced an ambitious new circulation plan in 2017. The ultimate goal of the Circulation Plan: to unburden the city center of ongoing traffic. Whoever needs to be in the city, will get there easier. The Circulation Plan aims to:

• improve the livability for citizens and visitors of the city
• guarantee accessibility for cyclists, busses and trams, and cars with a destination in the city center

Ghent is also updating their train station, remodeling it into a modern multimodal hub where travellers can comfortably and efficiently transfer to train, bus, tram or bicycle.

• Narrow tunnels leading to train tracks on the first floor are being replaced by a 36 000m2 hall;
• The ground level of this hall will have four tram tracks to be used by two trams. The tracks are also adapted so that new Flexity 2 trams, which will be introduced in the coming months, can use them;
•  A new bus station next to the hall with 12 platforms each designed to station two buses is being created. The hall will be equipped with ticket machines, shops and information desks;
• Comfortable slopes, elevators and stairs will take passengers to the underground Park & Ride, bicycle parking and train platforms

The city is also very active in the field of traffic management. The city has been working on:

• TMaaS (Traffic Management as a service): research and development of mobility dashboards for traffic managers and citizens
• Big Data Platform: development of a robust data lake, to enable internal data analyses and dashboards
• Research & Development of applications for citizens (based on real-time data)

Ghent is involved in EU project CHALLENGE.

You can find out more on their website, or follow them on Twitter and LinkedIn.