UITP’s 58th World Congress and Mobility & City Transport Exhibition will be held from 7 to 11 June 2009 in Vienna, a city that offers an extensive multimodal public transport system and that is recognised for its forward-looking, consistent and successful mobility policy.
With about 2.5 million inhabitants, the Greater Vienna region forms the most important metroplitian area in Austria and one of the largest in Central Europe. It is the national economic and political centre, as well as an important transport hub for transcontinental European networks, in the heart of a region with a booming economy and dynamism.
2009 will mark the 25th anniversary of integrated public transport provision in the region. Despite enjoying a remarkably high modal split, Vienna has managed to further improve its excellent public transport performance over the past few years: significantly increasing the modal share of public transport, and decreasing the cost of transport for the community at the same time. This is the result of a combination of policies aiming at integrating urban and transport planning (within the city and in the surrounding region) and shifting traffic to environmentally-sustainable modes of transport. The latter objective was achieved, in turn, through a combination of measures related to developing public transport infrastructure, improving public transport quality and its image, stringent parking space management measures for commuters, and the improvement of conditions generally for pedestrians and cyclists.
Vienna has ambitious targets set for the years to come, in particular to further increase the modal share of public transport. The outlook for Vienna looks very positive and certainly justifies its selection to host the 58th World Congress of UITP. |
