Engaging Residents of Thessaloniki on Sustainable Mobility Through a Citizens’ Panel: Considerations and Implications from a Methodological and Practical Perspective

The original core concept of sustainable mobility is based on shifting travelers from private and motorized vehicles to other soft and more eco-friendly modes of mobility. The fulfillment of this aim indicates the importance of the human factor in terms of knowledge, awareness, perceptions, attitudes, intentions, and behavior. Citizens’ Panels, comprised by a small group of people representative of different socio-demographic backgrounds, can be used as a managerial and planning “tool” by public authorities and planners on a medium or long term period and for a variety of reasons, such as: to challenge and test their infrastructure and services proposals and plans, collect people’s values, ideas, and opinions, co-shape future mobility visions, increase public’s engagement, form and train volunteering “ambassadors” of policies, etc. Since 2018, a local Citizens’ Panel on Sustainable Mobility, the case study of this paper, was formed in Thessaloniki in the frame of the PE4Trans/Interreg Europe project, accounting for three physical meetings and some social media actions so far. Following a brief review of the literature on the participatory planning processes, the general scope, and the process steps (recruitment, group characteristics, etc.) adopted for the establishment of this Panel are analyzed. Next, the special aim of each Citizens’ Panel meeting and the overall rationale of them are explained, accompanied by a description of the techniques and methods applied during the conversation and debating activities. Finally, the outcomes of each Citizens’ Panel are presented being critically discussed in relation to the initial targets set and the methodology adopted.