Recent Transport and Mobility Conferences and Meetings
Panteia is active in national as well as international settings, working with clients and partners in many different countries. This also entails attending or hosting conferences and meetings, both online and in person. In this article, we would like to highlight some of the recent conferences and meetings that experts from our transport and mobility team took part in.
Transport labour market conference
On 23 April, the European Commission hosted a participatory conference in Brussels to address labour market developments and shortages in the EU transport sector. The event brought together stakeholders, including public authorities, employers' organisations, transport companies, trade unions, and education and training institutions, to discuss key challenges and share good practices. There is a significant demographic change taking place across transport modes, particularly an ageing workforce, necessitating long-term strategies for ensuring ongoing operations, succession planning and talent development. Additionally, the green and digital transition is driving substantial upskilling and reskilling needs.
Labour market challenges identified by stakeholders include poor working conditions, weak enforcement of EU social legislation, negative industry perceptions of the transport sector, barriers for mobile workers and third-country nationals, education and training obstacles, lack of stakeholder collaboration, and data discrepancies.
Key recommendations discussed include improving working conditions, enforcing legislation, creating innovative marketing campaigns to attract new workers, establishing EU-wide training programmes, adopting a holistic approach with clear accountability, streamlining administrative processes, making training more accessible and affordable, enhancing stakeholder collaboration, developing a knowledge exchange platform, and implementing nuanced data collection. These measures could contribute to creating a sustainable and resilient transport labour market across the EU.
SMARTA-NET
In May, Panteia experts Jan Kiel and Daniela Mattiuz took part in an in-person SMARTA-NET event, together with other experts, practitioners and members of the European Rural Mobility Network (ERMN), such as rural municipalities. SMARTA-NET is an initiative of the European Commission. Its aim is to enhance rural mobility. Panteia is part of the SMARTA-NET project consortium, together with MemEx Srl, TIS - Consultores em Transportes, Inovação e Sistemas, E40 Communications, and NIT.
The event was held in Évora, Portugal. Activities included workshops, discussions, site visits and interactive sessions. Participants were able to explore innovative approaches and share best practices, with the aim of empowering them to drive improvements in the mobility of their communities. Our experts lead two workshops: one on mobility hubs and one on how the COVID-19 pandemic changed individuals’ mobility habits.
i4Driving meeting in Warwick
Also in May, there was a workshop for the i4Driving project at the University of Warwick. The vision of i4Driving is to lay the foundation for a new industry-standard methodology to establish a credible and realistic human road safety baseline for virtual assessment of Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM) systems. The goal of the meeting was to align on the next steps for the upcoming project phase looking at how the models developed in the first phase of the project can be applied to real-world contexts. There also was a tour of the WMG 3xD simulator.
Ambassadors for Diversity In Transport Conference
On Tuesday, 4 June 2024, we hosted our second official Ambassadors for Diversity In Transport Conference in Brussels, This was the second large scale, hybrid collaboration between our Ambassadors. They got the opportunity to learn from each other’s work related to diversity and inclusion for users and workers in the EU transport sector, network with each other and discuss activities and ideas for a future Network roadmap. The Network brings together a truly unique group of individuals working across various areas in the transport sector, types of companies/organisations and a variety of backgrounds, as a result of which many creative ideas emerged from the discussions.
