The SASMob Project Introduced in Budapest
The target group of the conference named “Energy Efficiency at the Level of Municipalities - Financial Opportunities and Good Examples” was comprised of municipal governments – and one of the reasons for organising the conference was the fact that, after 1 January 2019, new public buildings must meet the “Nearly Zero Energy” requirements.
In the presentations, which covered a wide variety of topics, information was shared about
• Energy Cities – an international cooperation scheme that pools energy conscious municipal governments,
• useful practical experience and advice about the compilation of Energy Saving Action Plans and
• several EU-funded development projects, including Szeged’s SASMob Project.
The Szeged project was introduced by Péter Pázmány, Project Contact Person of the Szeged Development Office & Transportation Expert of the SASMob Project. In the first half of his presentation, Mr Pázmány talked about the European Union’s Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) initiative and informed the audience that Szeged hosted one of the sixteen projects, selected from a total of two hundred and six project proposals, that had successfully applied for funding for such a purpose, in the autumn of 2017, thus becoming the first beneficiary of the initiative from not only Hungary but also Central-Eastern Europe. He then continued with a brief presentation of the SASMob Project. As is well-known, the Szeged initiative is founded on a mobility-focused cooperation scheme between the municipal government, employers and transportation service providers and has significant IT & big-data support. The presentation was closed with a brief description of the benefits to be enjoyed by employers involved in workplace mobility planning or later joining the programme and the expected results and indicators of the SASMob Project.
The conference, hosted by Kossuth Club, also offered opportunities for informal discussions and experience exchange. During coffee breaks and lunch, a number of event participants asked the representative of Szeged about the professional secrets of successfully applying for UIA grants or praised the city’s purposeful, environmentally conscious, consistently concept-driven development projects and their results. A representative of Energy Cities, who also attended and gave a presentation at the event, invited Szeged to their conference to be held in Heidelberg in May 2019 and to present the SASMob Project and its results there.
Urban mobility
