CIE Expertise recognised in EU Expert Group

The expertise of CIE and our industrial community is increasingly being recognised by the EU Commission and other key EU structures.

When the organisation was founded one of its key objectives was to make sure cycling is represented in EU platforms for policy and new technologies, making sure the sector is seen alongside automotive and public transport interests. That is now possible because we have shown that our industry has access to knowledge and skills that are needed to transform mobility in Europe.

In the last few months CIE has been appointed in three new expert roles that reflect some of our priority areas, and gives recognition to the expertise of our members.

Being appointed to the Multimodal Passenger Transport Forum has reflected our expertise in bike sharing and digital services for cyclists. This has allowed our experts to offer inputs into how to integrate cycling services into trip planners and multimodal trips, especially a forthcoming Digital Transport Services Directive which will regulate a fair market and operating conditions for all suppliers of online transport information and combined trips. New requirements for fairness will allow our companies to operate in a level playing field and transparency about carbon emissions will mean that bikes could be represented as an option in many more trips.

As an Advisory Board Member for the NAPCORE Project, CIE is also going to be influencing the direction of other digital services across Europe. NAPCORE is an EU funded initiative for all the national agencies managing traffic and transport data for EU states, from basic information about physical infrastructure to the data for all real time traffic management. (Known as National Access Points or NAPs). Cycling has historically been almost ignored in this community except for a few countries, but now CIE will be collaborating with NAPCORE to give cycling data a new status in national transport data. Possible standards could emerge, and a much wider number of countries should make critical cycling data available to service providers.

Most recently CIE is one of the organisations selected to get a seat on a new Expert Group on Urban Mobility. Previously this group was for national governments only, but the EU Commission’s Directorate for Transport (DG Move) has recognised that changing the way people move in cities needs a much wider range of knowledge and experts are needed to help deliver the EU’s Urban Mobility Framework. CIE is expecting to join working groups on Data collection and analysis, Public transport and shared mobility, Urban logistics and on Active mobility. In all these groups we will be asking our CIE Expert Groups to provide industry input and expertise so that the Commission, governments and cities can make more cycle friendly policy decisions in the future.

These positions, and more that will come in the future, will make sure that cycling is no longer neglected in the EU's policies and the legal frameworks for rolling out new technologies. It will also enable us to make new partnerships with government bodies across Europe and other transport industries. “Future-proofing” is one phrase we really emphasise in these forums, because cycling is a key mobility for a greener and more sustainable European transport system.

The CIE staff team will act as the link to these positions, but we would particularly like to thank company experts in the CIE Expert Groups Bike Sharing, Cargo Bike and Cyclelogistics, Smart Cycling and Intelligent Transport Systems and our Mobility as a Service Task Group. Your input has been essential, and as CIE develops these influential roles it is your credibility as industry leaders that gives us our status.