Project Activities > Final Conference

{Final Conference}

On October 23-25, 2017 St. Petersburg hosted the Green Mobility Project final conference within the XVI All-Russia Strategic Planning Leaders Forum

The conference was held in two parts:

• Part 1.Strategies of Developing Sustainable Multimodal Transportation Systems and Eco-Friendly Modes of Transport

• Part 2.Global Trends in Urban Mobility and Transport Accessibility

The conference brought together over 200 leading Russian and foreign experts, actively developing the urban environment and transport infrastructure, city managers, and representatives of federal, regional and municipal authorities and public organizations.

The final conference was opened by Nikolai Asaul, Deputy Minister of Transport of Russia, who presented the Priority Project implemented by the Ministry of Transport of Russia jointly with 37 federal subjectsentitled "Safe and Qualitative Roads".

According to Nikolay Asaul, joint efforts of legislative and executive authorities at the federal, regional and municipal levels are the only key to implement the effective transport policy aimed at sustainable development of transportation systems in Russian cities. We should deal with sustainable development challenges of urban transportation systems in a complex way: on one hand – to meet the transport demand, on the other hand – to improve energy efficiency, environmental safety, quality of life and public health.The Deputy Minister of Transport has highlighted the active work on developing ecological modes of transport that have been done in recent years. Developing a cycling movement in cities – is one of the priority lines to improveenergy efficiency. Thus, during the 2014 and 2015, Traffic Rules have undergone through several changes aimed to standardize the cycling regulations under regulations and create a comfortable cycling infrastructure.

In conclusion, Nikolai Asaul noted that the Russian Ministry of Transport is carefully studying the best practices of improving urban transportation systems. Along with the complex approach to solving transportation challenges, this will help to achieve planned results on the following development lines: to increase the mobility of urban population in Russia, to make urban public transport safer, faster and more comfortable for citizens, and also actively address such urgent problems of large cities as the lack of mobility and environment pollution.

Part 1. Strategies of Developing Sustainable Multimodal Transportation Systems and Eco-Friendly Modes of Transport

The round table was moderated by Igor Albin, Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg and Olga Iakimenko, Green Mobility Project Coordinator, Head of Internet Projects and Marketing Communications at ICSER Leontief Centre. According to the Vice-Governor, sustainable mobility challenges are playinga key role in the spatial development of St. Petersburg and it’s the ecological standards we should rely on while developing successful St. Petersburg transportation system. In fact, development of ecological modes of transport is becoming a key growth area for the city. Currently, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region have 15 charging stations for electric cars. St. Petersburg has 4 gas-filling compressor stations, and another 23 will be built in the next five years.

The first report was made by Vadim Donchenko, Research Supervisor at Scientific and Research Institute of Motor Transport, Elected Chairman of the steering Committee Bureau, TheTransport, Health, Environment Pan-European Program (THE PEP), entitled “Development of Non-Motorized Modes of Transportation and Small Personal E-Mobility Means an Important Alternative to Using a Car in Cities”.

Michael Cramer, Member of the European Parliament, estimated the cycling movement opportunities in Baltic Sea region and told how international bike routes can promote developing the bicycle infrastructure in the Leningrad region.

Raitis Sijats, Director of Latvian Greenways Association, continued the topic and spoke about European Greenways Association, their activities on developing Greenways network in the BSR, especially in Latvia and Estonia, and shared ideas on creating Greenways in Russia.

Stephen Willacy, City Architect, Technology and Environment, Aarhus Municipality, gave a detailed speech on design within a new culture of placemaking from a Nordic city perspective. 

Matti Kahra,Specialist of the Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA, showcased Nordic Green to Scale – Low-Carbon Success Stories to Inspire the World (Transport) project results on behalf of the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Vladimir Kumov, Leader of the Russian Urban Cycling Advocacy Project Let’s bike it!, addressed the outstanding cycling case of the city of Almetyevsk, which now has 100 km of bike paths and continues to work hard on developing an effective cycling infrastructure. Afterwards, Vladimir Kumov presented case studies of the cycling infrastructure in Moscow with facts and figures of its usage among citizens.

Vladimir KumovThanks to the speakers, round table participants managed to study dozens of strategic approaches and complex solutions to provide efficient and safe operation of urban transportation systems, including solutions for development of cycling and other non-motorized modes of transport.

Part 2. Global Trends in Urban Mobility and Transport Accessibility

The second day of the conference opened up with a panel discussion "Global trends of urban mobility and transport accessibility" moderated by Olga Iakimenko, Green Mobility Project Coordinator, Head of Internet Projects and Marketing Communications at ICSER Leontief Centre and Andrey Kostyuchenko,  Chief Project Engineer of Petersburgsky NIPIGrad, LTD. Within the framework of the panel discussion, experts from Russia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain and other countries discussed world trends in the formation of intelligent transport systems, modern approaches to eco driving culture, regulating navigation of cyclists as road users, development of cycling economy and the creation of cycling culture among the citizens, technologies and instruments for sustainable transport systems development, possibilities of cycling in cities with a cold climate, organization of the Winter Cycling Congress in Moscow in 2018.

During the panel discussion, Pekka Tahkola, Vice President and Urban Well-being Engineer at Winter Cycling Federation, Navico Ltd spoke about winter cycling.

Inge Aarhus, Head of the environmental department at the Environment Lillehammer - Lillehammer miljø. of the municipality of Lillehammer (Norway), gave a presentation EV Norway. Powered by nature: a guide to Norway, the world’s leading EV market, in which he talked about the transport infrastructure of Norway in the context of the national policy to tackle the problem of climate change.

Alf Johansen, Secretary General of the Innovation Circle Network, presented a TENTACLE Project report on international transport corridors existing in Europe, America and Asia, as well as the Euro-Asian transport routes that are planned to be built to connect major cities of Europe and Asia with each other and reduce the time to move from one center to another.

Christian B?ttgerChristian Böttger, Development Director of A + S Transproject LLC, presented a report "Mobility as a Service - a Challenge that Requires the Transport Planning Paradigm Shift", which outlined the ways for the future urban transportation development and the expected results of the transition to the autonomous and sharing modes of mobility as a service.

Alexei Ignatiev, adviser to the governor of the Kaliningrad region and CEO of the Kaliningrad Regional Economic Development Agency, talked about eco-mobility in the Kaliningrad region.

Finn Andersen, director of the Danish Cultural Institute in St. Petersburg made a presentation on Green Denmark: Environmental Issues and Solutions and presented the results of the Greenday & CO2 Green Drive Ecological Festival, which is a part of a large international project of Nordic-Russian cooperation GREEN MOBILITY – towards clean, healthy and accessible environment.

Advisor to the Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg, Daria Tabachnikova presented the implementation process of the Priority project "Cycling Saint Petersburg".

Also, the following speakers took part in the discussion: Grigoriev Alexander, Committee for Nature Use, Environmental Protection and Ecological Safety of St. Petersburg. Head of the Department of State Regulation in the Field of Environmental Protection and Environmental Monitoring; Nerovnaia Anastasiia, Karelian Regional Public Organisation “Cycling movement of Karelia”. Chairperson; Kobyz Kristina, Pskov City Administration. Head of Cross-border Cooperation Department; Talvet-Unt Sille, Gravitas Consult Ltd. Member of the Board Gravitas Consult Ltd. Member of the Board; Bulatova Maria, State Committee of the Pskov Region for Economic Development and Investment Policy. Consultant of the External Economic Relations Department; Kumov Vladimir, Project curator, Russian urban cycling advocacy project Let’s bike it!. 

Green Mobility Award

In addition, Final Conference hosted Green Mobility Award - an international awarding ceremony celebrating the achievement in the field of sustainable urban development. The coordinator of the Green Mobility Project Elena Belova has presented the award to the representatives of cities that are eager to become open, pedestrian, safe and environmentally sustainable, as well as experts and partners of the GreenMobility Project, actively promoting the principles of sustainable mobility towards becoming the "Cities for People".

• Federal Level: Nikolai Asaul, Deputy Minister of Transport of Russia

• Saint Petersburg:  Igor Albin, Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg

• Kaliningrad: Alexei Ignatiev, adviser to the governor of the Kaliningrad region and CEO of the Kaliningrad Regional Economic Development Agency

• Pskov: Ivan Zetsersky, Mayor of Pskov

• Petrozavodsk: Nerovnaia Anastasiia, Karelian Regional Public Organisation “Cycling movement of Karelia”. Chairperson

• Moscow: Kumov Vladimir, Project curator, Russian urban cycling advocacy project Let’s bike it!. 

• Denmark: Pablo Celis,  civil engineer in the Traffic and Transport Department of the Municipality of Aarhus, Director at CelisConsult;

                  Stephen Willacy, City Architect, Technology and Environment, Aarhus Municipality,;

                  Finn Andersen, director of the Danish Cultural Institute in St. Petersburg

• Norway: Inge Aarhus, Head of the environmental department at the Environment Lillehammer - Lillehammer miljø

• Finland:  Pekka Tahkola, Vice President and Urban Well-being Engineer at Winter Cycling Federation, Navico Ltd

A highlight of the final conference was the presentation of the video clip and the hymn of the project GREEN MOBILITY – towards clean, healthy and accessible environment)