Friday, October 18, 2013

CIVITAS Forum 2013 had strong representation from the Baltic Sea Region


The biggest annual event for clean and sustainable urban transport, the CIVITAS Forum Conference, took place on 30 September - 2 October in Brest, France. The conference gathered together cities from all over Europe and further, active in transforming their transport systems more sustainable. Besides  hearing best practices from forerunner cities, ranging from new kind of ICT solutions to parking strategies, the next call for CIVITAS 2020 was announced to open with significant funds in September 2014.
The CIVITAS DYN@MO stand at the CIVITAS Forum

Our region was well represented in the conference, at least by Polish, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Estonian and Lithuanian cities, as well as UBC. This shows that there is strong and growing interest towards sustainable urban mobility issues. But why so few cities from our region have benefited from the CIVITAS funding? Participating in such a big project proposal takes some resources but being part of a CIVITAS demonstration project can truly take a city's urban mobility to the next level, so why not give it a go next time there is a chance?

Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) are one of the key topics in the CIVITAS Programme, and several presentations in the CIVITAS forum showed that they are here to stay. SUMPs have not necessarily gained ground in the Baltic Sea Region in the same way as in many other European countries. UBC EnvCom is supporting its member cities by being involved in many projects that encourage cities to take up sustainable urban mobility planning and develop SUMPs.

One of these projects is CIVITAS DYN@MO in which a Baltic Sea Region Competence centre for SUMPs has been established. An online platform for the centre will be published by the end of the year. The competence centre  will support cities to develop their SUMPs by providing information, support, exchange of experience and training. We hope to collect good practices from our member cities across the region and have you actively participate in our events. Stay tuned for more information!

The material from the CIVITAS Forum Conference is available on the CIVITAS website.

Text: Kirsi-Marja Lonkila

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