Photo: Cities-converge-20-20

Cities converge on London in search of transport solutions

06 July 2015

by Jonathan Andrews

Fourteen cities, represented by mayors, deputy mayors and senior government officials, met in London last week for the first of a series of international meetings, organised by Cities Today. Held from 1-3 July, the cities came together in a roundtable format in City Hall to discuss transport solutions with companies which included IBM, PwC, Philips, Thales, BYD and MasterCard. Also participating were non-governmental associations Polis, the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

“We are very pleased that Cities Today has chosen to hold its first meeting here,” said Matthew Pencharz, Deputy Mayor for Environment & Energy in London. “London is growing very quickly, around 110,000 people a year, as are many other European cities, who share the same strict planning laws, and so we all have the same questions about how we grow our cities while ensuring they are as sustainable as they can be, and it’s important to share ideas, plans and schemes.”

Isabel Dedring, Deputy Mayor for Transport in London, hosted the meeting at City Hall and opened the roundtable discussions, which included presentations from cities including Guangzhou, Paris, São Paulo and Fukuoka. The city representatives discussed and compared best practices, while also listening to and engaging with the private sector in a bid to enhance business-city collaboration.

(L-R) José Evaldo, Deputy Secretary of Transport, City of São Paulo and Jonas Donziette, Mayor of Campinas at the London cycle hire operations centre

“We have representatives from cities from all over the world at this meeting highlighting successful solutions for urban mobility,” said Jonas Donizette, Mayor of Campinas, Brazil. “In Campinas in 2015, we have registered 1,000 new babies, and at the same time 3,000 new cars, which obviously poses a big problem for our roads and congestion. We have started looking at new ways to improve our public transport, through services such as BRT [bus rapid transit] and VLT (light rail transit).”

(L-R) Masanao Nakazono, Deputy Mayor of Fukuoka; Michael Fahy, Director of Sustainable Mobility, WBCSD; Liu Baochun, Director General of Foreign Affairs, Guangzhou
(L-R) Masanao Nakazono, Deputy Mayor of Fukuoka; Michael Fahy, Director of Sustainable Mobility, WBCSD; Liu Baochun, Director General of Foreign Affairs, Guangzhou

After the roundtable meetings, delegates were transported along the Thames via commuter riverboat, before boarding the Emirates Air Line cable car to the Siemens Crystal building for a networking drinks reception and a tour of the permanent exhibition on sustainable urban development.

The three-day event drew to a close on Friday 3 July with a tour of the cycle hire operations centre and a visit to a Crossrail station, part of the largest ever European construction project.

“The most important aspect of the meeting is the collaboration between cities,” said Manuel Valdés López, Deputy Manager of Infrastructure and Urban Coordination in Barcelona. “We have seen that cities from all the different continents have the same problems, and certainly many of the issues that Paris is facing are very similar to ours in Barcelona. We could definitely learn a lot from Amsterdam’s cycle solutions.”

The 14 cities that participated in the first 20-20 meeting were: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Campinas, Copenhagen, Dublin, Fukuoka, Gothenburg, Guangzhou, Hamburg, Hangzhou, London, Manchester, Paris and São Paulo. In addition, Budapest, Madrid, Chengdu and Helsinki plan to join the next meeting.

For further information on joining the group or to receive the 20-20 reports (in Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, or English), please contact: editorial@cities-today.com

  • Reuters Automotive
https://cities-today.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Dawn-crop.png

Technology inclusion goes beyond internet access in LA

  • Reuters Automotive