Third Political Meeting & Roadshow
The city of Coimbra, Portuguese star of the MODERN Project, hosted the 3rd Political Meeting and a Technical Roadshow, on the 7 June, 2011. The event was organised back to back with the CIVINET Forum Portugal-Spain, which took place on 8 June.
Following other successful Political Meetings in Brescia and Vitoria-Gasteiz, the third MODERN Political Meeting was held in the Central Portugal Pavilion, a conference centre located by the river Mondego and surrounded by a Green space, Mondego’s Green Park. The conference was organised in two main sessions - a political meeting on mobility innovation, current practices and further challenges followed by technical workshop on car-sharing. The sessions were aimed to review, present and discuss the recent innovations in Smart cities, to address Electric mobility and Car Sharing issues, as well as to provide a forum for exchange of experiences and discussion of results. The main objective was to promote a fruitful platform of joint national and international cooperation between stakeholders, experts and decision makers. Mr. João Paulo Barbosa de Melo (Mayor of Coimbra), Mr. Fabio Rolfi (Deputy Mayor of the city of Brescia) and Teodor Sas (Deputy Mayor of the city of Craiova) spoke in the morning discussion with a political roundtable on the importance of focusing on sustainable mobility at municipality level (“TODAY-TOMORROW: SMART CITIES AND THE ROLE OF MOBILITY”) moderated by Mr. Robert Stussi (Mobility Consultant). Two key speeches were also presented during the morning political debate. Mr. Bastian Fischer (Oracle, Vice-President Utilities Global Business Unit) presented the challenges and opportunities of e-mobility and Isabel Seabra (Director for Planning, Innovation, and Evaluation of the Portuguese Institute for Mobility and Inland Transportation) focused on the importance of a national mobility package dedicated to the city network. Mr. Marco Mastretta (Director of ICS - Iniziativa Car Sharing, supported by the Environmental Ministry of Italy) moderated the afternoon technical session presenting the achievements of various car-sharing schemes at European level. During the technical workshop Jorge Miranda Dias (Professor of Robotics and Information Systems at the University of Coimbra and Scientific Representative for CIVITAS Coimbra), Inês Matos (Director of Carristur and responsible for Carris car sharing service in Lisbon), and Giandomenico Gangi (Brescia CS Measure Leader) discussed the main challenges and opportunities of a car-sharing system. The Civinet Forum Portugal and Spain was a golden opportunity to exchange experiences and projects on sustainable mobility developed by Portuguese and Spanish cities. Eleven cities have been represented to the Forum, as well as the Vice President of Civitas Political Advisor Committee, Bruno Pereira, and National Authorities, representatives of IMTT of Portugal (Institute of Mobility and Inland Transportation), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CDTI) and the Spanish Ministry of the Environment. The two events finished with a cultural visit to the beautiful city of Coimbra and its monastery and an amazing boat trip dinner along Mondego river. Fado (typical song of Coimbra) was part of the night entertainment on the river.
Author: Dall´Oglio Filippo
