2012 Polis Conference presentations available online
Representatives from more than 40 cities and regions from across Europe attended the conference to share experiences and to meet with researchers and a range of other stakeholders. “I noticed that solutions to the problems we are facing in our cities are not necessarily to be found ‘at home’”, commented Jan Bloemheuvel from the city of Utrecht after the session on ITS and social media. “We need to look at what other cities are doing: So often the solutions are already there, or others are working on them, too.”
On day one of the conference, current urgent transport challenges such as travel monitoring and the use of social media for better transport demand management were discussed as well as how to make mobility safer for vulnerable road users, reducing the impact on air quality, and financing infrastructure and public transport.
Always learn something new
The application of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) to better organise transport in cities played an important role at the conference. The current POSSE project for example reflects the need to strongly involve cities in the process: POSSE was born out of a Polis working group meeting with Polis members, UTMC & OCA representatives to extend the benefit of open systems beyond the UK and Germany.
“For us, this is THE European expert conference on sustainable innovative mobility solutions”, confirmed Kerstin Burggraf from the city of Dresden who hold the Polis presidency in 2010 and 2011. “We can only recommend using the platform to engage at a European level and to benefit from knowledge transfer to finally master the challenges of the future.”
“I always learn something new at the Annual Polis Conference, this is why I come”, explained Paul Curtis from the London European Partnership for Transport (LEPT), newly reappointed member of the Polis Management Committee.
Many thanks to Perugia for hosting the conference and to everyone following the debates in Perugia or on twitter using #polis12!
Download the presentations: https://www.polisnetwork.eu/presentations2012
Video material following the livestreaming will also be made available soon.
