Car-free trips to the mountains

Travelling to and from the mountains by car is usually the most harmful part of a mountain tour in terms of climate impact. This makes services that facilitate the switch to public transport all the more important. Member organisations of CIPRA France (FFCAM, Mountain Wilderness France and Protect Our Winters France) have now developed the Itinévert platform in collaboration with the Petzl Foundation. The service is integrated into the Camptocamp hiking platform, linking suggested routes with up-to-date information on train and bus connections. Thousands of routes have already been made accessible via public transport in this way.

Another new development is Transalpi, a platform from the cross-border Alcotraité 2 Trasporti project. It brings together information on public transport services between France and Italy, thereby facilitating sustainable mobility in the western Alps.

In addition, there are already established services such as the Zuugle platform run by the Bahn zum Berg association, which helps mountaineers in all Alpine languages and countries to plan car-free tours. In Switzerland, Bus Alpin improves access to remote mountain regions with supplementary bus services. The YOALIN project, co-sponsored by CIPRA International, also focuses on climate-friendly mobility and enables young people to travel through the Alps by train and bus. Anyone wishing to explore the Alps without a car therefore has more options than ever before.

Sources and further information:
www.camptocamp.org/itinevert (fr), https://transalpi.eu (fr, it), www.zuugle.de (de, fr, it, sl, en), https://busalpin.ch (de, fr)