City characteristics & new mobility services

Leuven is the location of the oldest university of North-West Europe, with more than 60,000 students. The city finds itself both as a suburban area in the influence sphere of Metropolitan Brussels, as well as an urban centre for rural communities in a 30 km radius. The city is struggling with congestion and transport planning from both perspectives: commuter hub and urban attraction. At the same time, there is a spectacular growth in public transport use and there is a high share in cycle use. 

Beyond public transport, Leuven counts with a car-sharing system used by 2% of the population and promoted by the city by providing dedicated parking spaces, and bike rental systems. It is planned that different shared mobility services will start their operations during the first months of the project liftetime.

Policy priorities

Leuven’s policy priorities include the reduction of congestion, energy consumption and emissions, and the improvement of accessibility to and from the city centre, the systematic incorporation of new mobility services and the integration of public transport with surrounding communities.

Objectives of the case study

Leuven will further integrate all different transport systems and mobility providers with the future spatial developments at a regional level. Within this context, it is crucial to have clear insights on future travel behaviour and future evolution in modal shifts and transport trips for the different travel modes. To this end, Leuven will develop a new, state-of-the-art multimodal traffic model which also takes into account the new mobility providers.