In mid-September the UBC Sustainable Cities Commission gathered in the Baltic Sea coast city Klaipeda, Lithuania for the annual commission meeting! This year’s meeting on sustainable urban mobility gathered representatives from 16 different UBC cities.

The successful two-day meeting was launched by a welcome speech by Deputy Mayor Mrs Judita Simonavičiūtė, the following program of the agenda was presentations regarding Klaipeda’s current mobility situation. First up was Mr Tadas Jonauskis who talked about different scenarios for the Klaipeda’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP), next followed an introduction to the city’s current mobility situation presented by Ms Indre Buteniene. Dr Audrius Senulis from the University of Klaipeda presented electrical transportation technologies and its possibilities for developing public transportation in the city.

International speakers pursued the topic of sustainable mobility further. Mr Steffen Nozon from the Hanseatic City of Rostock spoke about Rostock’s public transport sector and about the city’s involvement in mobility related projects. The city of Lahti was represented by Ms Johanna Palomäki who described how Lahti operates with integrating urban- and mobility planning in the city’s masterplan. Mr Michael Haufe from the Hanseatic City of Greifswald talked about the use of cargo bikes and addressed how the city takes the transport sector into account when realizing their climate protection process.

The panel discussion on urban mobility and future trends raised many interesting thoughts. One of the topics discussed was on how to create incentives for the behavioral change needed to decrease the use of non-sustainable transport modes. The first day of the meeting was wrapped up by a mobility themed site visit moderated by Mr Tadas Mezinys from the Klaipeda public transport department.

The second day of the meeting was dedicated to UBC network activities and discussions with the member cities about new project ideas and ways to cooperate. Representatives from the cities of St. Petersburg, Lahti, Örebro, Linköping, Turku and Jūrmala presented greetings from their respective cities. Ms Svetlana Ivantsova from St. Petersburg described how the public transport was organized for football fans during the FIFA World Cup in Russia.

The next UBC SCC meeting will be held in Jurmala in May 2019.