The final event of the PIP program was held in Wroclaw, Poland as part of the Innovation Festival.
On the last day of the festival I had the chance to introduce myself along five other Pioneers representing the different regions of the program. This was an excellent opportunity to sum up my experiences, motivation and results of my placements. I set up a rather personal presentation in order to bring the “spirit” of the program as well as the field of transport/mobility closer to the audience consisting of experts from representing various professions. Why I applied for the program? Because working locally for an „international” company like TRENECON-COWI often provides me with opportunities in learning about innovative mobility planning and management methods (like bike-sharing or car sharing), but most of the time the applicability of these are quite limited in a CEE environment. Although my enthusiasm and commitment towards life-long learning, sharing and knowledge transfer remains sky-high, we are still facing the lack of integrated smart mobility approach in CEE. Being a father of two I am well aware of the future of the youth that we are practically stealing by building cities for cars instead for people. With PIP I could put myself into different environments professionally, corporately, culturally to “test and prove” my different mindset. The new tasks and the positive feedback I received from my hosts gave me a fundamental boost for keeping up the good work! My domestic placement at REC was hosted by Greg Spencer, a great expert and well-known opinion-leader on the field of sustainable transport. A concrete result of my four-week activity is the Hungarian version of a handbook that was published in seven languages as a tool of the Mobile 2020 project in order to:
My work included the proofreading of the handbook. I was inspired by the feeling that I can make a step further after my former activity in the editor’s board of the infamous UME (Hungarian Design Standard). This time I had the chance to sink deeply into the so-important technical language of cycling-friendly planning and fine tune the text of a detailed professional material with perfectionism. Beyond that I proposed some changes for the editors (Csaba Mezei and Péter Szuppinger) and provided them with a great batch of photos and illustrations. It is so good to finish a job with satisfaction! My international host, MOVUS has got a real integrated approach with a full portfolio including the operation of a public bike-sharing and electric car-sharing service, transport planning and R/D. Thus the company has an effective influence onto mobility innovations and not only in the Valencia region. With the kind assistance and mentorship of Mauro Fiore, Isabel Espinós and Juan Bueno I got a deep insight into the company’s business activity. My consultancy was highly appreciated in relation with various activities of MOVUS on the field of sustainable mobility:
On the other hand I learned a lot about company culture and communication technics. The onsite experiences gave me a better understanding of transport system(s) I am working with as a planner. Another bike-sharing scheme, City Bike Szeged was announced yesterday in Szeged, south Hungary, a city of 130.000. A private vendor company in the region received appr. 120.000 EUR EU-funds for the development of the system hardware which will be tested live in the city as a pilot project, Looking at the pictures it is obvious that the "good old" Hungarian engineers could not put the hammer down if we are talking about innovation which is on a conspicuously modest level in this case. The design of the rough bicycle comes from Neuzer. At least the docking mechanism is different this time: it looks like an innovative(?) mix of the technology used by Clear Channel and that of the cheapest low-end systems from Spain and Italy. Although a user test hasn't been yet possible, after a closer look to the photos about the equipment an inevitable question emerges: Does a country like Hungary really needs more than one company to start public funded R/D on a field where competition is sky-high and most of the competitors (even in the region) had started years earlier?
My approach is to celebrate any developments regarding bike-sharing in Hungary. But how can one remain proud when City Bike Szeged promotes itself as a service while - just like EBI, the other Hungarian bike-sharing system already in operation - it is obviously not more than a pilot project. A live experiment on the poor citizens of Szeged. I can state without any cynism that this is a worst practice. This approach (funded from public money) depreciates the prestige and the possible rising of bike-sharing systems in the region. But let's try to stay positive and enthusisatic! City Bike Szeged at least has a website (as EBI still doesn't)...featuring a primitively photo shopped picture stolen from the big brother Vélib on the opening page. May the public funds were not enough to finance a proper photo shooting? Fail. Juan Bueno is the spin doctor of MOVUS. He knows how to sell bike-sharing. He is aware of the fact that the only way forward is to make cycling trendy, fashionable and a common, daily activity. A discussion about the structure of the company, the different products and services prooved that MOVUS is doing a best practice integrating operation and consultancy on the field of sustainable transport.
A workshop for introducing bike-sharing in Miskolc, a city of 200K in East-Hungary was organized by Inform Média, a local newspaper and Kerékpáros Miskolc Egyesület, a local partner organization of Hungarian Cyclists' Club. Beside a presentation and some discussion a crowdsourcing approach was applied to gain useful information about the demand of local citizens for a bike-sharing service in their neighbourhood. This ongoing best practice of communication in order to establish a BSS project founded upon a wide knowledge base of all relevant stakeholders is organized by Zoltán Kunhalmi, a great voluntary champion of cycling!
On the Eurpean Mobility Week cycling was a hot topic in Budapest, too. A Cycling Conference, featuring more than 80 participants (planners, consultants, NGO's, local municipalities and governmental bodies) was organized by the Közlekedésfejlesztési Koordinációs Központ (KKK).
I had the chance to prepare a presentation about TRENECON COWI's best practice project, the "Complex cycling-friendly development of downtown Kaposvár". The presentation was held by János Tóth, the vice-mayor of this city of 70.000, a nice mid-sized town in south-west Hungary. Our plan was implemented from a mere 200.000 EUR covering the whole inner city with innovative cycling-friendly solutions. Nonconventional measures like speed reduction, bike boxes, contaflow cycling, advisory cycle lanes and sharrows weren't welcome by all of the audience in the beginning. No doubts remained however after the end of the presentation when the vice-mayor announced that there hasn't benn a single recorded traffic accident concerning cyclists since the implemantation of the project in Kaposvár! Another topic of mine was a joint venture presentation with the great champions of urban cycling Virág Bencze-Kovács and László Vértesy representing our client BKK. The presentation was about the planning process of the bike sharing system Bubi that is going to be opened next spring. The presentation was identical with that English version we had held on the Velo-city conference in Vienna, back in June. Full list of presentations Review of HCC The first implemented urban bike-sharing scheme in Hungary was launched in Esztergom this week. The vendor/operator is a Hungarian company Neuzer testing his own hardware with 6 terminals/50 bicycles/80 docking stations on-site. A later expansion to 10 terminals/100 bicycles is planned as a second phase of the project. The company has been strongly supported by EU-funds in the past years to develop its business. The owner of Neuzer explained in an interview before that they are going to market their product in smaller cities in Hungary and all around Europe as well. A
This morning we had a short talk with an external consultant about the international strategy of MOVUS. The company is going to expand towards new markets having its Spanish opportunities been shrinked in the crisis.
As a promotional activity regarding my placement a bike trip and another visit to Bioparc which is a kind of Safari in Valencia are to be organized. These will be promotional events of MOVUS for all Pioneers in VLC. A Pioneer's task is to support support Juan, the marketing/PR manager by setting up and sending out a promo mail to all PIP's in VLC. Another Pioneer's activity of mine istThe DOROTHY project. It is an international project regarding innovative urban logistics. I'll be able to help in networking. In the lunch break (2.30 PM) I had the chance to drive a Peugeot Ion (see on the left side of the photo below), the flagship of the electric car sharing fleet of MOVUS. What a good feeling to drive without any noise! The vehicle weighs 1200 kgs though, 600 kgs the battery only...The car on the right side is a Think City car - there are 5 like this in the fleet of MOVUS Back in the office I had a short discussion i with Pablo and Gabriel. They are going to "attack" new markets with the bike-sharing business of MOVUS. |