On 16 of November, the Central European Initiative has successfully organised in Tirana the seminar on “Urban Freight Management: an Exchange of Good Practices in the European context and beyond” in the framework of the SUGAR Project (Sustainable Urban Goods logistics Achieved by Regional and local policies), co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and made possible by the INTERREG IVC programme.
About 40 participants, from EU and non-EU Member States attended the event, among which high-level officials from the Ministry of Transport of Albania, Austria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia, as well as the Ministry of Environment of Italy and several other relevant stakeholders such as the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the University of Tirana, the Albanian Institute of Transport, the South East Europe Transport Observatory (SEETO), etc. The aim of the seminar was to illustrate SUGAR’s achievements and explain the potential to transfer its best practices beyond the partnership. It also represented an opportunity to discuss policy experience and good practices in the field of urban freight management, by highlighting successful policies and conditions for good practice transfer. In this context, it is important to mention that after 2 years from the start, the project is already showing signs of political commitments from the relevant stakeholders, thanks to the work of the whole partnership. The seminar was organised back-to-back with the Second Ministerial Conference organised in the framework of the SEETAC Project (South East European Transport Axis Cooperation). This vast audience allowed a wide dissemination of SUGAR’s objectives and results by targeting high level officials from the SEETAC Ministries of Transport. The Lead Partner of the Project, Emilia Romagna Region and the Institute for Transport and Logistics as Technical Coordinators, expressed satisfaction over the results of the seminar and stated that “the event made synergies between projects and experiences possible and it paved the way to new cooperation for policy improvement in city logistics.” For more information about the SUGAR Project please visit http://www.sugarlogistics.eu/