Looking ahead to the UITP Global Public Transport Summit in Barcelona

By Mohamed Mezghani, UITP Secretary General

The new year begins with a sense of excitement in the air for UITP, as we continue our preparation towards the next Global Public Transport Summit.

As the largest event of its kind focused on urban mobility, the 2023 gathering in Barcelona will be our first edition in four years.

The enthusiasm will be felt by the entire public transport community, as Barcelona becomes the international capital of urban mobility across four days (4-7 June 2023).

It is a huge undertaking to plan and prepare for an event such as the UITP Global Summit. It takes a lot of effort, and this preparation is done alongside all other duties the UITP team have, making it even more of an impressive achievement.

Under the 2023 theme ‘Bright Light of the City’, we will offer our attendees a programme developed to best reflect the current status of the public transport sector, and an agenda built around two pillars: cities and people.

We know that public transport defines our cities, and we also know that it should be for the people who work in it and who use it. By determining a direction from those two pillars we are really going to have a programme that is relevant and informative, and that crucially will help move the needle on what the sector should be talking about going forward.

Change

A great deal has changed within the sector since the last Global Summit in Stockholm in 2019, and our programme and agenda must reflect that. There will be a lot of expectation around the conversations that will take place during the summit, as people are looking for answers to the questions facing the world of urban mobility.

That means there is a challenge to create a programme fit for the current climate, and one that covers both public transport fundamentals as well as the current trends and talking points such as the energy crisis, the impact of inflation and staff shortages, which are among the serious issues we face.

For the 2023 edition, we are heading to a city renowned internationally for its successes in urban mobility. With outstanding public transport, Barcelona is an excellent choice to welcome our delegates, and alongside our three local partners – FGC, TMB and Renfe – representing the region (Catalonia), the city (Barcelona) and the state (Spain) – the enthusiasm will be on full display.

We are working closely with such passionate people, and in the lead-up to the Summit in June, we will co-host more local events to showcase what the summit can offer at the local, regional and national level.

With our delegates in mind, we are focused on what makes the UITP Global Summit so special to the sector. It is the standout entry in the public transport diary, due to its ability to bring together all of those with a vested interest in sustainable urban mobility.

When attending the summit, you have the opportunity to meet, listen to, and engage with company CEOs, creative directors, technical experts, decision makers, marketing minds, and many other people working every day to advance public transport.

In fact, what makes UITP such a unique association is its ability to bring such rich networking opportunities to our attendees. It is at the UITP Summit that you can share ideas and work towards solutions with like-minded colleagues.

This year’s event

It is quite exciting to describe what awaits our delegates across all four days, as there is so much activity taking place. Our Exhibition will feature hundreds of internationally recognisable names and faces, our Congress programme will host the topics that are most relevant to our sector, under the direction of some of public transport’s biggest names, and we will also hand out our UITP Awards during the Summit – a ceremony that the sector has really come to value.

If you add in all of the expo sessions, poster sessions, side events, pre-event study tours, and technical visits, then every single delegate will have a calendar full of exceptional activity and a mind full of cherished memories by the time we reach our closing ceremony.

We began welcoming registrations for the summit last September, from individual bookings to group rates, and it’s exciting to see the numbers steadily climb. This is a global event, and the names and faces joining us will reflect that international feeling.

This month, we also began including the global press among those registered, when the media registration officially opened on 16 January. For the previous edition in Stockholm in 2019, almost 170 journalists from nearly 40 countries joined us to cover the activities for their international outlets. I hope to see the same energy for the 2023 edition, where an impressive agenda of access will be offered to the press in attendance.

There is an energy in the air as we look forward down the road to Barcelona, and what our delegates can learn and take away from four days of congress, exhibition, networking and social events.

I know that the enthusiasm we can already feel will continue to grow across the next six months.

I hope to see many of you in Barcelona from 4-7 June – stay tuned for more to come in the times ahead! www.uitpsummit.org