The FIA Foundation has held its annual Policy Forum in Como, Italy, with representatives of affiliate automobile clubs from across the world meeting to discuss road safety and sustainable mobility.
FIA Foundation Chairman Carlos Macaya opened the meeting by reviewing progress in the global road safety agenda.
“Our Make Roads Safe campaign has succeeded. We now have a UN Decade of Action for Road Safety. We can truly say that we have led and shaped a global agenda. I am very proud of the role the FIA Foundation and so many of your automobile clubs have played in making this happen. Now there is a continuing role for all of us in making the Decade of Action a reality, and doing our best to ensure that it delivers change. Every country and every government can embrace the Decade. Every club can align with the Decade to add momentum to your own efforts, and to make your club road safety programmes part of a global movement”, Mr Macaya told the Forum.
David Ward, Director General of the FIA Foundation, then described how the Decade of Action would be launched and implemented, with a focus on the safe systems approach based around five pillars: building road safety capacity, improving road user behaviour, building safer roads and vehicles, and doing more to improve post crash care. He also emphasised that the Decade would only succeed in its objective to ‘stabilise and then reduce’ road deaths if collaborative action was taken.
Some of the FIA Foundation’s own priority programmes were discussed, including presentations on safe road assessment by IRAP CEO Rob McInerney; Foundation Campaigns Director Rita Cuypers on promoting seat belt and helmet use through global ‘vaccine initiatives’, and Technical Director Frank van West discussing a new programme introducing independent consumer car crash tests to Latin America.
In the second half of the Forum the focus was on environmental sustainability. After an introduction to the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI) and its 50by50 fuel economy campaign by Sheila Watson, Director of Environment, attendees heard a range of presentations from clubs which are working in partnership with the FIA Foundation and others to promote sustainable mobility in their countries. The theme of the session was ‘learning from each other’, with the emphasis on the practical ways in which Clubs can promote fuel economy and sustainability to their members and more widely.
Jeff Walker from the Canadian Automobile Association described a range of initiatives from a fuel economy Primer and ‘mythbuster’, to a path-breaking new ‘Fuel Economy App’ for smartphones, which the CAA has been developing and piloting with the Canadian Government. The Foundation will be working with Jeff over the coming weeks to ensure that these great ideas can be made available to other clubs and their members.
As the meeting heard, an important element of the Global Fuel Economy Initiative has been the outreach work it has undertaken with clubs across the world. The event which GFEI hosted in India in November 2009 and the ways in which it has stimulated further work on fuel economy buy his club, was the subject of the presentation by TK Malhotra from AAUI in India. He was clear that even though there have been many attempts to address the issue in India to date, that the ‘50by50 symposium’ was a ‘wake-up call’ to promote this issue more fully, and to build on the role which his club already has in testing and certifying vehicles, by, for example, offering membership discounts to those with fuel efficient vehicles.
Fleets are a crucial element in improving fuel economy. Clubs often own large fleets of their own, and can save huge sums in fuel costs just by introducing basic clean fuel and fuel efficiency measures. The Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles of which the FIA Foundation is a lead member, offers support and training to fleet managers on these very issues, and Duane Ellis, Operations Manager at the Jamaican Club (JAA), described how attending a PCFV training session earlier this year had helped him to secure real improvements for his club.
The meeting also heard how saving fuel can be fun, when Susanna Suokonautio-Hynninen, from Autolitto in Finland described the ’50by50’ eco-rally which they hosted last month in Helsinki. With a small investment from the club, sponsorship agreements with others such as FIA Foundation, and some clever marketing, the rally attracted huge media attention, bringing the issue of eco-driving and saving fuel to prominance in a very effective way.
Finally, the meeting heard from Bernhard Labudek, of the ADAC in Germany, as he described how his club is seeking to influence Government policy in a technology-neutral way, whilst also supporting better consumer information on fuel economy. The Ecotest, which has long been supported by the Foundation, is an important mechanism to allow consumers to judge the environmental impact of a new car alongside other features such as its size and price.
Sheila Watson, FIA Foundation Director of Environment, said:
“With the world facing a tripling in the global fleet by 2050, ninety per cent of which will be in the developing world, the meeting showed just how much motoring clubs of any size and shape can do to ensure that this growing mobility is as sustainable as possible. The Foundation will continue to ensure that the good practice of one automobile club is shared widely with others, and that the expertise of these important consumer groups is built into the work of the GFEI”.