Transport roundtable meeting in Prague

On the 18th May 2012, Centrum pro Dopravu a Energetiku (Cz) organized a roundtable meeting for transport stakeholders of the Czech Republic. The focus of the discussion was placed on energy efficient urban transport. Participants arrived from various backgrounds, including governmental and municipality experts, public transport operators and other stakeholders from the transport sector.

The roundtable was divided into three main parts. The introductory part defined the topic, gave an overview of relevant strategies at the European and national levels and provided a view of future funding possibilities (via the Czech Republic's Operational Programme for Transport). The second part consisted of five best practice examples from four different cities and one region from all across the Czech Republic. In the last section all participants discussed the priorities for achieving energy efficient urban transport.

At the end participants agreed on several key problems and measures to increase the energy efficiency in transport. One of the problems is the political situation which changes every four years and therefore the continuity of the public transport system is not secured. Transport policies and strategies when once approved do not always match with the reality and are not fulfilled. Moreover none of the current land use plans limits individual car transport whereas the need to reduce the overall number of private car transport was endorsed by all participants. P + R parking places for cars and bicycles at key places, where there aRoundtable report in Czech - českýre transfer points for urban public transport were identified as the crucial steps among others. Of course for all measures and projects there is a funding source needed, therefore participants pay attention to future EU Funds period.

From their own experience participants know that communication with the public is crucial when implementing new measures and the attractiveness of hubs is of key importance when aiming at higher number of passengers using public transport.

This report is also available in Czech. It can be downloaded in pdf format from the left side bar.