The Urban Transport Community (UTC) organised a conference on "Mobility challenges in Urban and Metropolitan Areas" in Barcelona, on November 12th. The conference encompassed a range of very important and present challenges in the Mediterranean Area. SUMPORT representatives were invited to talk about trends and key issues of transport in the areas covered by the project.
SUMPORT's lead partner (Central European Initiative) and technical leader (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) were among the speakers at the panel discussion of the conference on "Mobility challenges in Urban and Metropolitan Areas" (Barcelona, November 12th). They discussed the most important issues that cities are facing and gave a glimpse of the activities that are being implemented by the project to improve the situation.
The conference hosted the Mid-term event of SUMPORT, see our photo gallery for more details.
A brief summary of the interview to SUMPORT's representatives is reported below.
Moderator: Which challenges was SUMPORT aimed to address?
SUMPORT: Our project idea has been jointly conceived and developed by its Partners to deal with congestion and pollution in MED Port-Cities, i.e. cities that similar characteristics and challenges in relation with geographical limitations, spatial planning and the existence of Ports. How? Having different starting points, in terms of capacities in planning and also in terms of demography and socioeconomic development, through introduction or update/upgrade of SUMPs and implementation of specific pilot actions, according to their needs and with capacity building, training seminars and an e-learning platform, open to other MED Port-Cities as well.
Moderator: OK, but compared to what has been planned, which challenges is proved that SUMPORT is actually facing?
SUMPORT: From idea to implementation, it is common that we come in front of internal and external influencing factors. SUMPORT does not claim to be a paradigm of a set of good practices applied. Different realities, know-how, needs, legal and institutional framework, standards and, overall different processes, shape up a situation that lessons are learnt, experiences are exchanged, problems are discussed and solutions are explored to be found. A problem, a question, a concern of a city partner becomes a problem of the partnership.
Moderayor: Having mentioned these challenges, which would be the project outcomes and which is their practical use?
SUMPORT: Beyond the new planning documents to be adopted, in some cases for the first time, and the capacity building and trainings contributing to the wide-spread of Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning concept, and beyond the new infrastructure and services introduced, SUMPORT organises transferability events b2b to communication events, to promote SUMPs and share the experience gained in cities and regions in the same six countries that are represented in the project. We consider that this is very important, i.e. to transfer the lessons learnt, the solutions given for city- or pilot- specific problems and how to plan, implement and monitor in these different contexts.