EPTA project presented outcomes at its final conference

The EPTA project held its final conference in Brussels on 28 May. About 100 stakeholders attended the conference, ranging from ministries, city and regional authorities to organisations representing public transport authorities and EU institutions’ representatives.

The conference presented first the main results of EPTA partners’ work. An important outcome of the project was the conclusion that small and medium size cities need a different model and structure for a Public Transport Authority (PTA) from large cities and metropolitan areas. This is due to the fact that smaller cities dispose of less financial resources, expertise and decision-making powers. The most cost-effective PTA structure for small and medium size cities appears to be that of a decentralised agency which is commissioned by the regional or national government.

Following EPTA’s conclusions, EPTA cities made the audience acquainted with their feasibility studies. An interesting case is the city of Brasov in Romania which managed to establish a PTA already during the project. The city never had a PTA before. Polis member Bologna, coordinator of the EPTA project, presented an optimisation algorithm which allows to better control the services provided by the PT operator.

The afternoon session of the conference took a bird’s eye view on the issues discussed in the morning putting them into the EU policies’ framework. UITP and EMTA speakers concluded the conference by casting a view on tendencies in Europe as well as worldwide concerning the formation of PTAs.

All presentations can be found on EPTA’s website.

A brief overview of the project’s main results is available in the EPTA final brochure. Another legacy of the project are the online trainings which remain available on the EPTA website.