BUSTRIP starts Peer Reviews in Gdynia

The city of Gdynia kick-started an exciting and challenging urban transport project on 3 April as it welcomed an international team of sustainable transport experts. Gdynia is part of the BUSTRIP project that is testing new ideas and developing new tools for European cities as they struggle with the need to improve living standards whilst managing the ever increasing impacts of transport.

Gdynia is the first out of the 12 partner cities that will receive a peer review that will assist them in understanding their current progress towards Sustainable Urban Transport. They will use this to prepare their SUTP and revise existing plans; from this they will implement pilot actions that will make tangible progress.

BUSTRIP will produce a SUTP toolbox of techniques, collecting all the learning experiences and best practices from the cities. The toolbox will assist European cities to understand SUTP and the opportunities available to move towards sustainable urban transport.

The 12 partner cities in the BUSTRIP project are the first in Europe to start preparing and implementing Sustainable Urban Transport Plans. SUTP's are advocated in the European Commissions' Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment (6th Environmental Action Plan). BUSTRIP is uniquely positioned to show European cities how to deliver sustainable transport whilst generating economic growth.

The project is coordinated by UBC Commission on Environment Secretariat. Two other core partners are UBC Commission on Transportation and Chalmers University of Technology (in Göteborg). Twelve local and regional authorities from Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden take part in BUSTRIP.

BUSTRIP is part-funded by European Union within the BSR INTERREG III B Neighbourhood Programme, Finnish Ministry of the Environment and the partner cities. Project budget is 3,1 MEUR.