CIVITAS Forum 2017 in Torres Vedras

The SUCCESS project team draws a very positive conclusion of the CIVITAS Forum 2017 which gave the opportunity to showcase the SUCCESS results and tools, to discuss with other European projects, cross-fertilise findings and learn from each other’s experiences. Thanks to the project presentation in one of the conference sessions and the exposition of a multi-tactile table, a huge number of stakeholders could be reached during these three days.

CIVITAS Forum 2017: Putting forth initiatives from small communities

The SUCCESS team participated for the third time in a CIVITAS Forum. Under the banner of “Small Communities, Big Ideas”, this year’s edition took place in Torres Vedras, Portugal from 27 to 29 September and was especially highlighting pioneering initiatives of sustainable transport and mobility that emerge from small communities and towns. The event attracted over 450 stakeholders of the urban mobility sector, mainly policy makers from cities and municipalities but also researchers, urban planners, transport and logistics professionals and other interested persons.

The annual conference is the CIVITAS flagship event and builds the opportunity to discover new concepts and tools, learn from each other and discuss urgent issues concerning the improvement of urban mobility. The SUCCESS project is part of the CIVITAS network since 2015.

SUCCESS presentation in the session “Innovative approaches for engaging and supporting industry and city authorities in urban freight strategy development”

The most recent advancements of the SUCCESS project were presented during the session “Innovative approaches for engaging and supporting industry and local authorities in urban freight strategy development” which was jointly organised by the four CIVITAS Urban Freight Cluster projects (CityLab, Novelog, SUCCESS and U-Turn).

The focus of the SUCCESS presentation was put on the project’s contribution to the development of a favourable background for the facilitation of stakeholder engagement and cooperation in the Urban Freight Transport sector. Francesco FERRERO, SUCCESS project coordinator and Lead Partnership Officer for Mobility, Logistics and Smart Cities at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST, especially highlighted the tools that the project is developing to:

measure, understand and better communicate the information on the impacts of urban freight transport of construction projects,
estimate the impact of some policy measures (e.g. consolidation centres, size of the vehicles, euro class of the vehicles) on the sustainability of projects
discuss these measures with a cooperative approach involving different stakeholders (local administrations, contractors, t&l companies)
identify which measures can work best in each specific case
estimate the costs and benefits associated to each measure, and especially to Construction Consolidation Centres.

This session was moderated by European Commission’s Henriette VAN EIJL and featured a discussion with Tamiko BURNELL of the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on the possible exchanges between European and US actors in the field of sustainable urban freight transport.

Multi-tactile table to simulate the impact of different policy measures on the sustainability of one or more construction projects

Besides the presentation, the SUCCESS project was also present in the exhibition tent next to the conference centre during the three days of the forum. This part of the event aimed to connect developers of new tools and methods with potential users. The SUCCESS project partners used this opportunity to present a multi-tactile table which allows explaining complex contexts and correlations in a simple and visual way. This tool concretely shows the impacts of construction logistics and how different policy measures may influence these impacts. In this way it helps demonstrating useful and sustainable solutions to improve the current situation and thus facilitates evidence-based decision taking.

SUCCESS team

Besides the Luxembourg-based project coordinator LIST, partners from France, Italy and Spain (AFT, Vinci Construction France, Institute for Transport and Logistics, Valencia Port Foundation and Las Naves) were present during the CIVITAS forum.