ECF attended and spoke at a conference with a difference last week. The first ever Digital Worldbike conference was held entirely online on the 31^st March, becoming the first 0 emissions conference.

All in all there were around 30 speakers in three ‘conference halls’, Sport, Tech, and Mobility with many interesting presentations and panel discussions were held and included many ECF related personnel.

• Klaus Bondam, CEO at Cyklistforbundet the Danish Cyclists’ Federation (ECF member) talked about how cycling came to be such a force in Denmark;
• Raluca Fiser, ECF Vice president and President of the World Cycling Alliance, looked at trends in cycling and urban mobility, particularly from the global perspective;
• Saskia Kluit, Director of ECF Member Fietsersbond in the Netherlands was on two panel discussions, talking about current issues and futures of cycling.

Also participating were ECF staff Ceri Woolsgrove and Aleksander Buczynski, presenting the work that ECF has been doing with regards to road safety policy and advocacy in the EU; road infrastructure safety and vehicle safety in particular.

Other noteworthy presentations were from Marco te Brömmelstroet, who spoke about the use of language when we talk about mobility and transport and how we come to assume the dominance and permanence of motorised vehicle has become the major paradigm around which we think of mobility solutions. He calls for a re-imagining of how we deal with and talk about sustainable transport planning.

Kevin Mayne, CEO at Cycling Industries Europe, led the panel discussion on the impact of technology on cycling and how this affects the ‘human factor’ with Prof Meike Jipp from the Institute of Transportation Systems, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Sven Kindervater from CMO Citkar.

The event was a very welcome diversion from the lack of meetings/events in this current state of lockdown. Indeed one of the recurring themes of the conference was how the current COVID19 crisis could effect future mobility trends. All seemed to suggest that there will be major changes to how we organise our world, not just our mobility. There will be a whole raft of changes that we will have to make ourselves ready for, the world may move to a more sustainable future or could be shifted away from the current environmental momentum that has been building. It is up to all of us to pick the pieces from this crisis and try to find the interesting and useful gems and treasures from the wreckage and run with them!

All in all a good conference with an interesting format that may well continue in popularity given current events.