The project to introduce metropolitan train services in the Bucharest-Ilfov area will be one with a major transformative power in the entire functional area around the capital and will contribute to achieving the objectives of sustainable urban development specified at European and national level. Commuter train is an important segment of the general rail transport market in the European Union. It is also a challenge for the public transport market as a whole, making a significant contribution to increasing the sustainable urban and peri-urban mobility of people, but also to encouraging the transition from private car to mass passenger transport, thus providing access to major cities, but also to decongest road arteries.

www.tpbi.ro

Over the years, local authorities have invested in the technical PT infrastructure, but the approach has been inconsistent at regional level. Public transport currently fails to provide basic passenger information (visual or audio), as well as real-time passenger information in stops (dynamic displays), making the service unpredictable and not adapted to the special needs of all citizens. The project foresees the modernisation of the public transport system by developing the ITS components, installing displays to provide real-time information on the organisation and operation of the PT schedule, both visual and audio (text-to-speech button), for a number of 1.615 strategic stops within Bucharest and Ilfov County, as well as static information for the additional 2.197 stops, creating a strong, unitary visual identity for public transport in the region. The total estimated value of the project is approx. 33 mil EUR. The objective is to digitise passenger information services in stops in order to increase the attractiveness of the public transport system, through integration and interoperability between services and operators, to improve the quality of the transport service by increasing the level of predictability, and ultimately to decrease transport emissions by reducing the modal split of individual private transport. The investment also aims to make the system accessible for all citizens, by equipping the displays with audio devices.
The Prefeasibility Study “Smart & Green Mobility Integrated ITS System for the Bucharest-Ilfov Region – Project 3. Integrated Passenger Information System” elaborated by TPBI ensures an integrated vision and approach to the public transport information systems in the region. At the same time, TPBI supported the submission of 3 financing applications through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, with a total value of over 10.7 mil EUR. So far two financing applications have been approved, one for a partnership between Bucharest Municipality and 5 sectors, and a second for a partnership between 21 local authorities in Ilfov and Ilfov County Council, with a total value of 9.1 mil EUR, with the third application still pending evaluation.

www.tpbi.ro

Realizing how important the aspects regarding the environment, the increase in energy prices and global warming are, we decided together with the employees of Buteni town hall to submit as many green house projects as possible to the citizens of the commune. Thus, we managed to submit 119 projects and win 107, to be implemented in 2023.

www.buteni.ro

Investment in education is the safest and most profitable investment. The City Hall and the Local Council have been involved without reservations in supporting the educational sector in Cluj-Napoca. 20% of the local fees and taxes paid by Cluj residents is invested every year in the education of children and young people. The City Hall of Cluj-Napoca constantly invests to increase the quality of the educational and didactic process in the city by modernising the infrastructure of schools in all neighbourhoods but also through public policies aimed at facilitating access to education. Onisifor Ghibu High School became one of the most modern schools in Romania following the completion of the modernization and expansion works. The value of the investment is 6 million euros. The project was financed from European funds. By completing the investment, the municipality aimed to increase access, quality and attractiveness of education by equipping it with teaching equipment, IT equipment, modernising utilities and creating special facilities for people with disabilities in order to reduce school dropout.

www.primariaclujnapoca.ro

Modern transport systems are the backbone of successful economies, they are the lifelines of cities and regions, and provide important economic and social factors. Bearing in mind the need to balance the relationship between people’s growing demand for private motorization and the development of urbanization and the huge economic, social and environmental costs brought by them, Galati Municipality has, over the course of the last years, heavily invested in the modernization of both the public transport fleet and its adjacent infrastructure. For this, we have acquired no less than 105 new and modern means of transportation, including the city’s first hybrid buses and the first new trams in over 40 years: 8 trams, 17 trolleybuses, 20 hybrid buses, 20 new smaller buses, 40 Euro6 buses that each deliver a 67% reduction in NOx. Through the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Romania, we expect the purchase of 57 new non-polluting means of transport worth over 52 million euros. The first contract involves the purchase of 10 18-meter trams and 2 non-polluting minibuses (approximately 24 million euros), the second contract the purchase of 22 10-meter electric non-polluting buses and 2 non-polluting minibuses (approximately 13 million euros), and the third contract the purchase of 20 electric buses and a non-polluting minibus (approximately 14 million euros). These projects are carried out in partnership with the Town Hall of the Vanatori commune. Galati Municipality has also invested in redesigning the service and networks in a way that it would overcome existing barriers. It is both challenging and inspiring to include the tram system in our smart city concept; trams are electric-powered and thus zero-emission vehicles. we have heavily invested in the replacement of the tram tracks and the contact infrastructure. Moreover, we acknowledge the fact that a state-of-the-art trolleybus subsystem is an efficient tool for attaining the goals of sustainable development and quality of life in Galati. The trolleybus subsystem has a set of technical and technological, ecological, and economical advantages over other passenger transport subsystems. Based on a contract in total amount of approximately 1 million euros, we have modernized and rehabilitated the electric trolleybus transport network. We have installed 130 high quality waiting facilities (metal structure, wooden bench, display board) and 30 extension shelters for disabled people, to which we add 25 transport tickets points of sales, 89 ticket vending machines (to charge nominal cards and issue paper tickets). We have implemented all sorts of informational tools adapted to people with disabilities such as visual or tactile assistance systems in both waiting areas and in vehicles.

We have implemented an innovative pricing scheme for public transport (eg. through smart card payment system) by implementing an automatic data collection system that has five travel ticket distribution channels: operator’s 25 points of sale (which issue and charge nominal smart cards and and non-nominal smart cards, Mifare Ultralight smart cards, issue paper tickets), third party network – points of sale in 10 locations, TVM network in 89 locations, webshop at www.transportgalati.ro, specific mobile application. Our passenger information system makes use of a cutting-edge technology that focuses on providing customized solutions related to various traffic management and transportation systems. This technology provides the user with prior information about their travel like real-time running information of bus/train and improving the user’s safety and comfort. We have 102 passenger information multi-line led panels (with ambient light sensor for automatic brightness adjustment) all throughout the city. Also, through the Trip Planning mobile application, travelers can plan their desired route, etc. Furthermore, our fleet management system based on Swarco Mizar’s NEXT software package allows for data analysis, personalized reporting and improved scalability. We will also soon implement a modern passenger counting solution (passenger counting devices will be installed in all vehicles) with a 95% precision. This solution will provide accurate reports on the number of trips on each individual line, thus allowing us to make necessary changes to accommodate passenger needs. This integrated system is considered to be the most modern and efficient of its kind in Romania. We have a CCTV network (140 cameras located in the vehicles and and in as many stations) that aims at reducing the risk of vandalism and other crimes or misdemeanors, while increasing the safety of our travelers.

We have supported the construction of bicycle stands and residential parking facilities, as following: 50 bicycle parking systems necessary to facilitate the parking of bicycles in public spaces and 210 parking spaces in the multi-storey car park. Now that electric vehicles are starting to take off, Galati Municipality is on an equitable and just transition to electric private transportation, as we encourage the use of non-polluting means of transport. So far, 38 electric charge stations have been installed in the city, and their number will increase more and more thanks to the projects being carried out with funds through Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Thus, in a short time the city of Galati will become one of the cities with the most stations for charging electric cars, namely 200.

Pedestrians are an important and integral part of the transportation system in Galati and every transportation project, whether planning or design, should consider the needs of pedestrians from the start. We have set public lighting installations and asymmetric lighting devices equipped with LED technology for 50 pedestrian crossings that operate permanently at night.

www.primariagalati.ro

In 2022 we introduced an innovative way of involving citizens and NGOs in the decision-making process to find the most suitable solutions in different areas of urban development. The theme of the first Urban Development Community Hackathon in Miercurea-Ciuc was bringing back the glory of the only pedestrian street of our town, which suffered a decline in popularity due to various factors. The 48-hour-long event was attended by 72 people with various professional and social backgrounds, who worked through the weekend to find solutions to the aforementioned problem. 5 very complex ideas were developed into projects with the help of our professional mentors. The winning team elaborated a multiannual transformation plan, including a series of events and physical infrastructural developments, these already being included in the 2023 budget of the town.
We plan to organize similar events every year for new areas, providing a platform where citizens can work together on our `city of tomorrow`.

www.miercureaciuc.ro

Cluj Metropolitan Area (CMA) is the first metropolitan area in Romania (and one of the few in Europe) to have a comprehensive and open geographic information system mapping (GIS) database (link: https://beta.getlayer.xyz/cluj). The information presented in the GIS platform mainly comes from the administrative-territorial units’ GUPs, the Cluj County Territorial Development Plan, CMA’s IUDS and Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, plus public (open) sources (with data layers extracted from open sources is automatically updated). The GIS platform can be utilized by a variety of stakeholders, such as investors (to make better, evidence-based strategic decisions) and also by the CMA IDA (to generate maps and analyse data for communication purposes, reports, project preparation, eg., to develop territorial analyses, such as measuring the size of parcels of interest). It will also serve as the main platform for coordinating territorial investments among the 20 local governments within the MA.

www.clujmet.ro

Transborder project focused on improving the analysis and planning framework and as well on the modernizing of the public transport services at the level of 2 cross-border urban poles Oradea (Romania) and Debrecen (Hungary).
The main targeted results were: the elaboration of studies and plans (Passenger Flow Study, Origin-Destination Survey, Transport Development Plan, Technical Study for designing a validator prototype for the e-ticketing system), procurement of 11 new Euro 6 and hybrid buses, modernizing of the Automatic Vehicle Location and passengers information system, setting up of a mobile route planner application that allows real-time travel planning at the level of the public transport systems in Oradea and Debrecen, Organizing the European Mobility Week campaign both in Oradea and in Debrecen.
The project was implemented in the frame of INTERREG V A Romania-Hungary cross-border Operational Program 2014-2020, for a period of almost 3 years, from 01.02.2019 to 31.12.2021.

www.otlra.ro

The name of the Project is “Electric waste is transported ELECTRICALLY for RECYCLING”. It is a project in collaboration with the Municipality of Iasi and the Iasi Public Transport Company, through which to motivate the citizens of the municipality to collect the W.E.E.E. separately. The project aims to raise awareness of the population in the city of Iasi to actively participate in the separate collection of electronic waste. The main goal of the project is to improve the level of training, awareness and involvement of the local community in the field of WEEE collection. The project takes place only in the municipality of Iasi, its direct beneficiaries being the citizens of the municipality. Every weekend, a tram modified in accordance with the activity it carries out circulates on all the arteries of Iasi, and stops at each station to pick up waste from the population in a free system.

www.salubris.ro

The Municipality of Lupeni embodies two major urban cores: an old permanently inhabited core with residential areas and a new dynamic core based on seasonal tourism. The main goal of the regeneration is to accomplish the transition from a mono-industrial coal mining economy into a tourism eco-friendly economy. In order to obtain this, the proposal consists of four main key aspects:
1.The reconversion of an old industrial area into multifunctional areas with permanent tourist functions such as: accomodation facilities, commercial areas, green spaces, sport and educational facilities, cable based transport, means of alternative energy and different tourist attractions.
2.The functional and aesthetic value of the West Jiu river are enhanced by creating a river promenade in relation to the city fabric, pedestrian bridges and bicycle lanes that connect both sides of the river.
3.More public transport stations are developed between the two major cores.
4.More permanent activities are to be developed in the touristic core.
Status : in implementation.

www.municipiullupeni.ro

The impacts of economic and environmental factors on sustainable mega project development: role of community satisfaction and social media

www.talmaciu.ro

Drinking water facility and network, waste water treatment plant and network in Prahova County. Aprox 120.000 people. Value 690 mil Euro. Financing in LIOP. Starting the public aquisition for project. Previous projects 160 mil Euro.

www.hidroprahova.ro