SUITS members took part on December 21st, 2017 in the conference “Sustainable Urban Mobility in the Functional Urban Area (FUA) of Alba Iulia Municipality (AIM)”.

Organised in Alba Iulia Municipality premises, the conference assembled in the same conference hall Romanian central and local governments, Public Transport Operators, energy efficiency agencies and others.

Thirty participants, representing Alba Iulia Municipality (the team led by Mr Nicolae Moldovan – City Manager), the Agency of Regional Development (ADR Centre), Alba County, Alba Iulia Metropolitan Public Transport Agency (AIDA-TL), four municipalities of Alba Iulia Functional Urban Area, the Alba Iulia Public Transport Company and Integral Consulting R&D Bucharest (InteCo),  by their presentations referred to the current situation and to solutions of upgrading the mobility plans according to studies conducted under CHESTNUT project – CompreHensive Elaboration of STrategic plaNs for sustainable Urban Transport, financed by Interreg Danube Transnational Programme.

Integral Consulting R&D and Alba Iulia Municipality (both members of SUITS – Supporting Urban Integrated Transport Systems: Transferable tools for authorities – project consortium) delivered to the audience a lecture on the first outcomes of the research on innovative financing systems, innovative procurement procedures and innovative business models – all of these dedicated to Small and Medium Sized urban centres.

The main goal of the three guides is to provide an enhanced administrative capacity of local authorities to develop the sustainable mobility through innovative mechanisms in the three areas: preparing the business models, project financing and public procurement.

The objectives of the research works under SUITS Project presented during the lecture in the Alba Iulia conference were:

  • A general description of SUITS project, objectives, course, members, collaboration between the work packages and collaboration with other projects (SUMPs-Up, Prosperity, CIVITAS)
  • A general description of work package WP 4 – development of three guidelines, AIM pilot application for guidelines utilisation, Integrated decision support tools
  • Description of the three Guidelines identifying and presenting mechanisms and strategies for innovative, scalable and transferable business models, project financing and public procurement necessary for the projects in small and medium sized cities sustainable mobility
  • Identifying and presenting international best practice through relevant case studies. Integral Consulting R&D and Alba Iulia Municipality have based their presentation on the draft versions of the three Guides. The academic research is about to be tested in a pilot project run under the coordination of Alba Iulia Municipality in the second part of 2018 and in 2019. The final versions of the Guides will be delivered after integrating the results of the Pilot Application.

Both SUITS and CHESTNUT projects address urban challenges related to transportation to be tackled based on the Sustainable mobility plans of the cities and innovative instruments within the Functional Urban Area of Alba Iulia.

The participants in the Conference were interested in the opportunities provided by the two projects – CESTNUT and SUITS) to enhance the capacity and efficiency of the Local Authorities and of the Public Transport Companies in applying and optimising the measures intended to develop sustainable urban mobility, not only in Alba Iulia, but also in the area referred to as Functional Urban Area of Alba Iulia.

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