We upstarted our day of mobility talks – our final MIMOSA conference “Boosting cross-border passenger mobility – more sustainable and connected services with solutions” – with welcoming inspirational speeches:
Nina Kodelja, Deputy Secretary General of Central European Initiative (CEI) said that she feels that, at the end MIMOSA project, the connections between Italy and Croatia are stronger. She also stressed that mobility at cross-border level, which is supported by transnational cooperation programmes, significantly contributes to social and economic integration and thus CEI and other stakeholders are working on capitalizing on MIMOSA results. The goal is to provide citizens with clean and safe passenger services, while promoting further transport integration of Italy-Croatia territory. Continuing established cooperation and widening the cooperation within SusMob network will enable these goals.
Hrvoje Grancarić, Project Officer at Interreg Italy-Croatia – Joint Secretariat (JS) expressed his joy with the Programme’s decision to continue financing projects dealing with sustainable multimodal transport in the future, which offers many opportunities for capitalization.
Ana Perić – Hadžić, Ph.D., Dean of Faculty of Maritime Studies at the University of Rijeka said that MIMOSA successfully met the upcoming challenges of passenger mobility, with applying cross-border approach, which brought new knowledge to Faculty’s scientific research portfolio. The topic of multimodal sustainable transport is very relevant today in overcoming obstacles, finding new solutions and making future vision in the light of synergies and 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.
Snježana Prijić - Samaržija, Ph.D., Rector of University of Rijeka stated that she feels the energy and enthusiasm for the project topics and feels that two things are most important to mention – Cross-border mobility & Sustainability. With cross-border mobility meaning “more closely connected, bringing many advantages for all” and sustainability “frontrunners, thinking about the future of passenger mobility”, Ms. Prijić – Samardžija is positive that the collaboration will continue in some form because “the end of one project is the beginning of something else”.
Paolo Dileno, MIMOSA Project manager from Central European Initiative (CEI) elaborated on MIMOSA project key results:
- Improving knowledge on cross-border passenger mobility
- Developing new solutions to improve sustainability of passenger transport in cross-border region
- Improving cross-border cooperation.
Thinking about impacts and opportunities in the long-term perspective, this entails: influencing policies, follow-up on piloting activities and institutional dialogue. Mr. Dileno concluded the introduction to the MIMOSA project with a final thought “The sea unites the countries that it separates”, which perfectly describes the Programme and the project.
The topics of the following sessions were connected to the key results, elaborating on the results of analysis and studies made as part of the project, good practices regarding sustainable passenger mobility in the cross-border area and a model of future cooperation in the region and beyond.
We closed the conference with addresses from Hrvoje Grancarić, Project Officer at Interreg Italy-Croatia – Joint Secretariat (JS), who presented plans for cross-border passenger mobility in the next programming period of Interreg Italy-Croatia, and the host, Igor Rudan from the Faculty of Maritime Studies at the University of Rijeka.
