Chieri School District, a SaMBA Pilot

The project aimed to reduce the use of car for home-school-home trips in the city of Chieri, with two distinct measures.


Problem

The City of Chieri identified its target in the students of the high schools – “Augusto Monti” High School for scientific, classical and linguistic studies and “Bernardo Vittone” Institute for technical studies -, with a focus on the home-school-home trips. The headquarters of both the schools are in via Montessori, and the remarkable turnout of private cars in the entry and exit hours creates traffic jams every day.

The main problem consists in the high percentage of the home-school-home daily trips by private car,
as it can be seen by the modal split below:

  • 42,13% by private car
  • 16,30% by bus
  • 14,50% carpooling
  • 13,26% on foot
  • 4,01% by bicycle

Description

There were around 2.500 students involved in the project, with an age from 13 years old to 18 years old, living not only in the territory of the municipality but also and especially in neighbouring territories.

The students participating in the test project download on their device the “MUV application” that, after tracking a baseline to identify the situation related to the mobility habits of students and their daily routes, will register the improvements towards more sustainable mobility choices and assign points for sustainable behaviours.

The activity took place in Winter of 2019/2020, with the involvement of the students of Monti High School, the students of Vittone Institute, the Chieri shops, the City of Chieri, and PUSH. (H2020 MUV Lead Partner). The actual methodology for the attribution of scores to users who adopt virtuous mobility behaviours has been carried out and two different types of rewards, as depicted in the following:

  • general rewards (promoted by MUV App creators)
  • local rewards (promoted by local businesses and their associations).

Results

In February 2020 the Municipality of Chieri completed the planned activities through the implementation of the MUV app tournament, by involving 17+ years students, teachers and staff of Monti and Vittone public high schools, and by taking part to the MUV 3 rd International City Sustainable Cup, with good results (120 users; 63% of classes with active participants; a reduction of 230 kg of Co2 estimated, equivalent to the average emissions of 15 people).

The Municipality is currently organizing a consolidation of outcome by relaunching a further competition in April 2021 , with the extension of target group to local private high schools, as well as adult citizens of Chieri and neighbouring municipalities.

Lessons Learned

The process for defining the awards has put in evidence the motivated participation of the teachers of the schools involved, who collaborated with the Administration to define the modalities and types of awards to be given to the subjects of rewards.

Local businesses, in large part, have also given their willingness to participate in the initiative as sponsors, both thanks to the value of the proposal and because of the real chance for greater exposure.