The kick-off conference of the Project on Attractive Urban Public Transport for Accessible Cities (ATTAC) took place in Miskolc-Lillafuered, Hungary, on 19 October 2011. The conference was attended by high-level officials from the Hungarian Ministry of Development, the European Commission, and from the South East Europe Joint Technical Secretariat. The event represented an important opportunity to showcase the project’s objectives to a wider public.
The importance of promoting sustainable transport in the South East Europe Area by exchanging experience and capitalising on best practices was highlighted. In particular, participants pointed out that effective and quality urban public transport was one of the key elements for fighting congestion and that the use of public transport ought to be promoted. Attractive Urban Public Transport for Accessible cities is a project approved under the Second Call for Proposal of the South East Europe Programme. The project aims at improving the promotion, planning and operation of the urban public transport network of ATTAC cities and regions into the SEE transport backbone as effective main and intermediate nodes of trans-national accessibility, while reducing the bottlenecks in European transport corridors. Various cities and regional governments of the SEE area are involved under the leadership of Miskolc Holding Plc, transport provider of the city of Miskolc, Hungary: from Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia Greece to Bulgaria. The Central European Initiative is a partner responsible for the activities related to the extension of the project’s achievements towards a wider SEE area.The project officially started on 1January 2011 and will last until 31 December 2013 for a total value of 2.452.130,00 €.
The next project meeting will be held in January 2012 in Maribor. For more information: marconato@cei-es.org