Looking back at Urban Future 2016

Over the course of two days, international experts as well as specialists from cities of all sizes exchanged views on best practices and projects that make cities more sustainable. Polis and its members contributed to the mobility stream of the conference, which also addressed other themes, i.e. living and city planning, communication, and resources.

On the first day of the conference, within the official opening session of the mobility stream, London presented its ambitious air quality strategy. The afternoon session focusing on urban logistics concepts gave the floor to Fernando Gonzalez Vara from the city of Bilbao to present their urban freight strategies and measures, while the concluding session of the day, which looked into ways to solve the urban mobility crisis, featured Polis president Rotterdam with Richard van der Wulp talking about the city's Green Deal initiative, and the city of Helmond with Gert Blom illustrating how a smaller city can also implement very innovative ITS strategies.

The second conference day also showed Polis' leading position in the European urban mobility arena. The days started with a session focussing on multimodality, where Polis Secretary General Karen Vancluysen presented the network's views on the topic, illustrated with successful and innovative examples from European cities. Nicola Schelling showed how the region of Stuttgart makes multimodality work through its comprehensive urban mobility system, while Toby Rackliff did the same for the West Midlands. In the afternoon, Karen Vancluysen moderated a very lively session on the role that electric car fleets can play in cities, while the concluding moblity session of the day featured Transport for London's electromobility strategy for public transport.

More information about the conference is available at www.urbanfuture.at.