Mexico: Sustainable and safe mobility for all in 2030

Arturo Cervantes, Chairman of the Board of ANASEVI, the National Alliance for Road Safety in Mexico, gives the Intertraffic community an unparalleled insight into how the country is prioritising safety above everything else ahead of November’s Intertraffic Mexico show.

In the last decade or so, we've been organising and pushing towards major commitments on this topic in this country. Mexico has just passed a new general law on road safety and mobility as part of the concept of using Agenda 2030 as a vision for longer term plans. ‘Sustainable and safe mobility for all in 2030’ is our model and we are planning to develop a space for knowledge and for networking among key stakeholders from the private sector that are working on improving mobility and creating a roadway to safety. This is being achieved as a result of working together with the government at different levels, Federal, State and Municipal, to see what are the best practices and what kind of infrastructure projects are currently going on in the country.

Mexico consists of 32 states and over 2500 municipalities - it's a huge country where mobility is progressing at different rates in different areas, and the needs are totally diverse

THE LAY OF THE LAND – MEXICO IN A NUTSHELL

As for Mexico’s constitution we have 32 states and over 2500 municipalities - it's a huge country. Mobility is progressing at different rates in different areas, and the needs are totally diverse. We are promoting a multi-sectoral approach using the aforementioned SDGs as 11 of them are related, directly or otherwise, to road safety.

We have a mid-term vision towards 2030 where we could get the private sector, the public sector and the academic world to discuss and to work towards sustainable mobility for all.

Many Mexican companies in the mobility sector are already aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (specifically SDGs 2, 3, 6-9 and 11). There are different viewpoints of how sustainable mobility, intelligent mobility, the future of mobility has the human person at its centre. The costs of not doing anything keeps increasing and it is estimated by organisations such as the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) that the social and economic cost of having unsustainable and unsafe mobility systems in our countries and in our cities is around 3% of GDP.

It’s not about the huge amounts of money lost or even the lives lost - it's about the people who become extremely poor or who pay catastrophic damages

It’s not about the huge amounts of money lost or even the lives lost - it's about the people who become extremely poor or who pay catastrophic damages. It is estimated that for every death, there's over 30 seriously injured people that end up in hospital. For every death, there's a couple of disabilities, people that end up in wheelchairs or with limitations to their mobility. But the good news is that in November in Mexico City we will be discussing the solutions, the vaccines against this epidemic. We will have an amazing Congress and Expo and we’ll also be visiting some major sites in the infrastructure development in the country.

One huge transport construction project that is very exciting is the new 68km intercity train that will link Mexico City and Toluca. It's been delayed but now it's slowly moving forward. This is an amazing project and, as you can imagine, it's very complicated as it features some incredible overpasses that rise more than 10m above the ground. Visitors to Intertraffic Mexico will get to learn about this amazing infrastructure project and, most importantly, we will bring in the authorities of the Municipalities and the States that are involved.

This Mexico City to Toluca intercity train is an amazing project and is very complicated as it features some incredible overpasses that rise more than 10m above the ground

As I wrote previously, many of the 17 SDGs are related to transport and sustainable mobility, so since mobility can become sustainability, the first rule is that it has to be safe for all. And in the value system, the most important value is human life, we have to take care of humans. And humans make mistakes and drivers make mistakes - that's a whole philosophy. Looking at the different SDGs they cover hunger, good health and wellbeing, clean water and sanitation, all these different goals have to do with sustainable mobility, and transport as a whole: for example, the trains, the buses, the metro systems, the gondolas, they're all electric. And it's very, very important for climate action and for efficient use of energy sources.

A QUESTION OF RESPECT

What is crucial to the successful implementation of sustainable mobility projects and programs is peace and justice and access to lawful institutions, people respecting the law, respecting pedestrians and cyclists, and getting their licences and paying for their infractions to mobility like parking tickets.

So I could share with you a whole bunch of examples of how Intertraffic is going to be at the forefront for the next 10 years in mobility in the discussion about sustainable and safe mobility for all in 2030 and that we're going to bring the best of Intertraffic Amsterdam to the Mexican communities involved in this in these different industries – but instead I implore you to come to Mexico City in November and find out for yourself!

Sustainable and safe mobility is too important to leave it in the hands of politicians

HUMANS IN FOCUS

I will finish with an important quote: “sustainable and safe mobility is too important to leave it in the hands of politicians”. Yes, we need to become involved, we need to avoid their in-and-out cycles and we need to make this a global, national and local priority. This vision that I'm writing about is human-centric and keeps the global issues at the top of the agenda and maximises social value. So let's connect, let's engage! We're going to have opinion polls, breakout rooms, content sessions and solution spotlights. And it's going to be incredible. I look forward to meeting you in Mexico City in a few weeks’ time.

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