World Car Free Day is a global event celebrated on September 22^nd. During this Day motorists are invited to give up their cars at least for one day and instead use public transportation, or ride a bicycle, or simply walk.

This event give motorists, and car addicts, an idea of their locality with fewer cars. The idea of this Day started in 1973 with the oil crisis but it was only in October 1994, after the international conference “Accessible Cities” held in Toledo (Spain), that a structured call for such projects was possible. The outcomes of this international conference triggered the organization of this Day internationally.

Initially this Day was organized respectively in Reykjavík (Iceland), Bath (United Kingdom) and La Rochelle (France), then the informal World Car Free Days Consortium was initiated in 1995 to support Car-Free Days worldwide. Noteworthy the first national campaign was inaugurated in Britain by the Environmental Transport Association in 1997. France followed in 1998 with its initiative titled “In town, without my car!” It was only in the year 2000 that this initiative was established by the EU Commission as a Europe-wide practice.