SnowHowYear-round active mobility – resources and network

Resources

64 resources

  • ReportCore resource

    BATS Impact Report: Results and Lessons from Year-Round Active Mobility Pilots

    Jacek Oskarbski, Konrad Biszko, Daniel Kaszubowski · 2026 · Baltic Sea Region

    The BATS Impact Report (Deliverable D2.2), prepared by Gdańsk University of Technology, examines the observed outcomes, implementation experiences and operational lessons from Year-Round Active Mobility (YRAM) experiments in seven Baltic Sea Region pilot areas: Hamburg-Altona (Germany), Gdynia (Poland), Umeå (Sweden), Porvoo (Finland), Kalundborg (Denmark), Klaipėda (Lithuania) and Kiili/Harju County (Estonia). The report evaluates interventions across four thematic areas: infrastructure, traffic management, winter maintenance and citizen activation. Practical examples include physically protected cycling infrastructure and illuminated underpasses in Hamburg-Altona; weather-adaptive traffic signal control and school travel campaigns in Gdynia; citizen-based winter maintenance monitoring, projected markings and winter e-bike initiatives in Umeå; coordinated winter maintenance and user feedback systems in Porvoo; cycling route visibility improvements and commuter engagement in Kalundborg; projected guidance for shared bus-cycle environments in Klaipėda; and school-based winter cycling promotion and winter maintenance bottleneck mapping in Kiili and Harju County. For each pilot area, the report describes intervention objectives, monitoring methods, observed results, implementation barriers, enabling factors and recommendations for replication. The cross-city synthesis highlights the importance of reliable winter maintenance, route visibility, understandable information about travel conditions and citizen activation measures linked to practical support. A central finding is that year-round active mobility depends on the combined performance of infrastructure, maintenance, traffic management and user-oriented services. Communication campaigns alone cannot compensate for unusable or unsafe routes, while technical solutions require appropriate maintenance arrangements, institutional coordination and monitoring. Because the experiments differed substantially in scale, baseline conditions, monitoring methods and data availability, the report does not provide a statistically comparable ranking of intervention effectiveness. Instead, it offers operational evidence and transferable implementation lessons to help municipalities select, adapt and evaluate interventions suited to their local conditions.

    • Maintenance & Operations
    • Data & Monitoring
    • Behaviour & Mobility Management
    • Policy, Strategy & Governance
  • GuidelineCore resource

    Fix the maintenance - Promoting the safety of year-round bicycle and pedestrian route usage in Finnish cities

    Timo Perälä, Matti Hirvonen, Martti Tulenheimo, Pekka Tahkola · 2024 · Finland

    A practical guide for Finnish municipalities on improving year-round maintenance of walking and cycling infrastructure. It highlights the safety, health and economic benefits of high-quality winter maintenance and provides recommendations for winter-resilient infrastructure design, maintenance prioritisation, service procurement, quality management and winter maintenance methods.

    • Maintenance & Operations
    • Health, Safety & Wellbeing
  • GuidelineCore resource

    Snow Space Guide – guidelines for a better winter

    Eeva Huuhtanen, Timo Perälä · 2024 · Finland

    A comprehensive guide to handling snow and dimensioning snow storage space in the urban environment. It explains why year-round planning matters and how it supports municipalities' strategic goals, and walks through every stage of the built-environment process, from legislation and strategic planning to street-space supervision. Intended for commissioners, planners, builders and maintenance operators in both the public and private sectors.

    • Planning & Design
    • Maintenance & Operations
    • Policy, Strategy & Governance
  • ResearchReportCore resource

    Sustainable Promotion of Cycling in Winter through Optimised Winter Road Maintenance (WinRad)

    Christian Holldorb, Jan Riel, Tim Wiesler, Thorsten Cypra, Niklas März · 2024 · Germany

    A comprehensive German research report examining how optimised winter maintenance can support year-round cycling. Based on field studies in Karlsruhe, Cologne and Munich, cyclist surveys, de-icing material experiments and cost-benefit assessments, it provides evidence-based recommendations for winter maintenance operations, cycling infrastructure design and service prioritisation. Short version to be dowloaded: https://fops.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/BASt-FK-04-2024-WinRad.pdf

    • Planning & Design
    • Maintenance & Operations
    • Data & Monitoring
    • Policy, Strategy & Governance
  • ReportStrategyMethodCore resource

    Winter maintenance strategy and implementation study and tracking, Minneapolis

    City of Minneapolis, Department of Public Works · 2024 · United States

    The City of Minneapolis' 2024 Winter Walking and Biking Study evaluates winter maintenance policies, operational responsibilities, costs and opportunities to improve pedestrian accessibility and year-round cycling through 2030. It presents eight recommended actions for winter walking and five for winter cycling, including four sidewalk assistance pilots supported by a $595,000 budget allocation. The proposals address snow clearance, support for older residents and people with limited mobility, targeted maintenance services, improved cycling route maintenance and public information on snow-clearing operations. A particularly valuable feature is the city's publicly accessible Transportation Action Plan progress tracking system, which connects strategic objectives to individual actions, implementation schedules, status updates and documented milestones. This allows residents, practitioners and decision-makers to follow how winter mobility policies are translated into operational improvements. The online monitoring system documents continued implementation beyond the original study. For winter 2025–2026, Minneapolis funded four sidewalk snow and ice removal pilots, building on the previous season's experiments. Participation in the neighborhood snow patrol pilot increased from four neighborhoods in 2024–2025 to eight in 2025–2026. Other publicly reported measures include revised sidewalk enforcement fees, improved complaint-handling procedures and ongoing accessibility improvements. Link: https://go.minneapolismn.gov/final-plan/walking/strategy-4 Together, the study and its public implementation tracking offer a practical example of evidence-informed winter mobility governance, combining costed interventions, pilot programmes, measurable milestones and transparent reporting. The tracking system documents implementation progress, although it does not by itself establish the effects of these measures on walking and cycling activity or safety.

    • Planning & Design
    • Maintenance & Operations
    • Policy, Strategy & Governance
  • ToolkitCore resource

    YRAM - Diagnostics and intervention toolkit

    Milos Mladenovic · 2024 · Baltic Sea Region

    This toolkit is a collaborative workspace for developing innovative solutions for Year-Round Active Mobility in darkness and all-weather conditions. It offers a systematic method for mobility planners and managers to go from a wish to improve active mobility to develop a systematic plan for implementation. The toolkit consists of 8 modules, each presented on a canvas that helps stakeholders explore challenges, structure ideas and co-create solutions together. There are three flexible ways to use the canvases tailored to different levels of time, ambition, team-size and data: 1) Solo sprint, 2) Starter workshop and 3) Deep dive. The canvases can viewed on Miro and used as digital PDFs or printed to paper (A1or A2 format suggested). You find detailed instructions on how to use the materials from the Toolkit pdf-file. This toolkit is part of Output 2.3 of the BATS project.

    • Behaviour & Mobility Management
    • Communication & Engagement
    • Policy, Strategy & Governance
  • ToolkitCore resource

    Winter Cities Toolkit

    8 80 Cities · 2021 · Canada, United States

    An online toolkit developed through the Wintermission programme, providing practical resources for creating inclusive, active and welcoming public spaces during winter. It includes community engagement methods, winter life surveys, action planning worksheets, snow management policy examples and winter city strategies, drawing on experiences from three US cities.

    • Planning & Design
    • Behaviour & Mobility Management
    • Communication & Engagement
    • Policy, Strategy & Governance
  • ResearchCase studyCore resource

    Best Practices for Cycle Path Winter Maintenance Processes

    Kaisa Karhula · 2014 · Finland, Sweden, Denmark

    A comparative study of European best practices in winter maintenance of cycling infrastructure, focusing on maintenance processes, service standards, operational methods and organisational arrangements. The report highlights how systematic planning, route prioritisation and clearly defined maintenance requirements can support reliable year-round cycling.

    • Planning & Design
    • Maintenance & Operations
    • Policy, Strategy & Governance
  • ResearchMethod

    A Seasonal Study of the Spatial Quality of Cold Streets Based on Activity Portrait Indexes (APIs)

    Yang Ye, Yi Huang, Sitong Yang, Wenshu Lou, Tong Li, Xin Tang, Hangjian Yu · 2026 · China

    This study develops an Activity Portrait Index (API) framework to assess the seasonal quality of urban streets in Harbin, China, a city with extremely cold winters. Based on observations of 37 street segments, the method evaluates pedestrian activity levels, diversity of activities and the demographic diversity of street users across different seasons. The findings highlight how the qualities that support street activity change throughout the year: wind protection, thermal comfort and connections between indoor and outdoor spaces become particularly important in winter, while greenery, ventilation and opportunities for outdoor staying gain importance during warmer periods. The study provides an evidence-based approach for evaluating and designing streets that remain attractive, accessible and socially active throughout the year.

    • Planning & Design
    • Data & Monitoring
    • Health, Safety & Wellbeing
  • Method

    Advancing Commuter Cycling in Espoo: Results from a Co-Creation Workshop Series

    City of Espoo, Cycling4Climate · 2026 · Finland

    This booklet documents the More (than) Biking Lab, a co-creation process organised in Espoo, Finland, to promote commuter cycling through collaboration with employers. The process involved seven employer organisations, three thematic workshops and three pilot clinics, including a workshop dedicated to winter commuting by bicycle. The publication presents practical ideas for workplace-based interventions, employee engagement and small-scale experiments to overcome barriers to cycling. It offers a transferable model for municipalities and employers seeking to encourage year-round active commuting, while documenting intervention development rather than proven long-term changes in travel behaviour.

    • Behaviour & Mobility Management

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