In the 14th and 15th of May the kick –off meeting of the CIPTEC project took place at the Electra Palace hotel in Thessaloniki city, in Greece. The full name of the three-years duration project is “Collective Innovation for Public Transport in European Cities”. CIPTEC was recently approved for funding in the frame of the European Research Programme “Horizon 2020” (in the calls’ topic “Mobility for Growth”), after being evaluated by external experts in two phases, among other and very competitive project proposals throughout Europe.
Aiming at contributing in the long-term growth of Public Transport modal share in Europe, CIPTEC will analyse initially the characteristics of demand and supply in the sector, recognise the problems of PT providers and explore users’ needs and motives having them at the centre of its focus. Following this, CIPTEC will evaluate existing innovative practices in the Public Transport sector and promote the creation of new ones through the exploitation of “collective intelligence”.
The project consortium consists of 12 partners, coming from seven different countries (GR, BE, IT, NL, DE, UK, FR), including European scale “umbrella organisations”/ networks, Public Transport Agencies, as well as research groups of universities and specialised consultancies involved in the fields of public transport, marketing research and innovation management. The Transport Systems Research Group of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki acts as the Project Coordinator.
Figure: “Family” memorial photo of the CIPTEC partners at the kick-off meeting in Thessaloniki.