The Urban Transport Community held its first steering committee and officially launched the second phase of the horizontal project, one of the communities in the EU Interreg MED Programme. For the next 3 years, Urban Transport Community will focus on capitalization and transferring of the sustainable mobility solutions.

The final conference has been the occasion to celebrate the past three years of successful cooperation and positive impact. The event started on 17 September with technical visits.

The first visit took place in the Integrated Traffic Control Centre to see how it works to improve the traffic flow, by means of implementing advanced traffic control tools focused on reducing stop-and-go traffic, reducing and/or adapting average speed, and maximizing the reduction of emissions through traffic control (NOx, PM10).

The second visit brought partners to the ZEM2ALL Show Room, a ground-breaking initiative in Malaga aimed at offering individuals and businesses access to e-mobility. The 198 e-vehicles included in the project now operating in Malaga have reduced the emission in over 200 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere compared to using conventional combustion-engine vehicles.

After the technical visits, the Community has been accompanied by Mr. Francisco de la Torre, Mayor of Malaga, for an official visit in which he welcomed the MED Urban Transports Community and presented the city of Malaga, its Mediterranean identity and the importance of cooperation with the rest of the Mediterranean basin.

The presentations of the second day provided an overview of the past and future of the community. An intense session was dedicated to Policy recommendations at European, National, Regional and Local levels, in which the participants, divided in 4 groups, discussed about these key outputs of the MED Urban Transport community. In fact, these recommendations support the transition towards sustainable urban mobility in the MED area.

The final session of the conference has been an Experts Round Table, moderated by Josep Canals Molina, General Secretary of MedCities association, focusing on how to increase the impact of the Med Urban Transports Community results in the future of SUMPs. The participants of this round table came from different administrative levels.

The second phase of Urban Transport Community just launched in Marseille

This last December in Marseille the Urban Transport Community held its first steering committee and officially launched the second phase of the horizontal project, one of the communities in the EU Interreg MED Programme. For the next 3 years, Urban Transport Community will focus on capitalization and transferring of the sustainable mobility solutions tested under go sump. This horizontal project aims to support the Community to show how the earlier projects have impact outside their specific territory. It contributes to a unique identity on SUMPs in the Med cities, enhancing their peculiarities as a key to implement low carbon transport & mobility measures.

The partnership has been partially renovated: AREA Science Park, CODATU, CIVINET CY-EL Secretariat Civil Non-Profit Company, UNIMED Mediterranean Universities Union, POLIS Promotion of Operational Links with Integrated Services and DÜrres Municipality.

Enernet Mob is the only modular project that will be implemented during this second phase. This project EnerNETMob aims to draft, test and improve parallel «Sustainable Electromobility Plans» according to common standards and low carbon policies, in order to set an «Interregional Electromobility Network» crossing cities of all transnational MED area. Project promotes sharing mobility and land-sea intermodality using electric transport systems, by implementing interurban and interregional pilot networks of Electric Vehicles Supply Equipment (EVSE) also co-powered by Renewable Energy Sources. By integrating the SUMP and SEAPs models, the «Sustainable Electromobility Plans» will be developed to reach two main challenges:

• to implement and extend «Interregional Electromobility Networks» inside and beyond MED area, following common approaches and design guidelines for electric transport infrastructures/services;
• to implement pilot small-scale investments on electromobility for interurban and intermodal connections in order to allow longer trips and test network at transnational level.

From 2019 to 2022 MedCities will be leading the partnership of the continuation project that will work towards sustainable mobility solutions that are tailor made to meet challenges in the respective areas and are based on sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMPs).

You can read more about the kick off of the second phase (until 2022) here.