Seamless Multimodal Mobility for Sustainable Cities: UITP Eurasia Conference 2026 Wraps Up in İzmir
From 1–3 July 2026, İzmir welcomed the 12th edition of the UITP Eurasia Conference, bringing together around 200 public transport professionals under the theme “Seamless Multimodal Mobility for Sustainable Cities.” Experts, operators, policymakers and innovators travelled from China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom to exchange ideas on how cities can move from fragmented transport systems towards fully integrated, low-carbon and future-ready mobility ecosystems.
Hosted at the Ahmed Adnan Saygun Arts Center and organised together with İzmir Büyükşehir Belediyesi and İzmir Metro, the conference combined a closed regional platform meeting, hands-on workshops, a full day of high-level sessions, and a technical visit to İzmir’s transport facilities.
Day 1 — The Eurasia-MENA Urban Rail Platform and Workshops
The conference opened with the closed Eurasia-MENA Urban Rail Platform (EMURP) meeting, bringing rail operators and industry representatives together to discuss a newly finalised study on governance, financing and regulatory models for urban rail. Discussions focused on key learnings, emerging trends and the challenges facing urban rail development across the region, including the role of public-private partnership models and how governments can better support them.
The platform also welcomed new members, with representatives from Hitachi Rail, Tashkent Metro, CTS Astana, Bozankaya and CRRC presenting their activities and regional projects.
The afternoon continued with two practical workshops that drew more than 50 transport professionals:
- Designing Integrated Multimodal Mobility Systems — exploring how public transport, walking, cycling, shared mobility, digital tools and urban planning can come together to build seamless, user-friendly networks.
- Planning the Transition to Zero-Emission Public Transport — covering fleet assessment, charging infrastructure, financing, procurement and roadmaps for zero-emission bus and public transport systems.
Participants worked through real-world scenarios, gaining hands-on experience in planning multimodal systems and mapping out pathways to zero-emission operations.
Day 2 — A Day of Dialogue on Integration, Digitalisation and Decarbonisation
The second day opened with welcome remarks from Sinan Karakuzu (CEO, İzmir Metro), Mohamed Mezghani (Secretary General, UITP) and Zeki Yıldırım (Secretary General, İzmir Metropolitan Municipality), setting the tone for a day built around one central idea: the future of public transport will not be built around a single mode, but around systems that complement each other and place people at the centre.
Sessions throughout the day explored:
- Multimodal integration and mobility hubs — how metro, LRT and bus can be woven together through coordinated operations, integrated ticketing and physical hubs that double as social and service spaces, not just transfer points.
- Social inclusion in mobility hubs — treating hubs not merely as interchange infrastructure but as inclusive public spaces designed around shared mobility systems and broader transport-planning criteria.
- Digital integration and single-app access — the case for letting passengers plan, book and pay for an entire multimodal trip through one application, rather than juggling separate systems for each operator or mode.
- Artificial intelligence and digitalisation — practical applications of AI and data analytics to improve the passenger experience, from real-time information to predictive operations and personalised journey planning.
- First- and last-mile connectivity — how paratransit, ride-hailing, car-sharing and micromobility are becoming core parts of transit system design rather than optional add-ons.
- Decarbonisation and modal shift — a reminder that attracting more passengers onto public transport is just as central to carbon-neutral mobility as fleet electrification, and that the two goals need to be pursued together.
- The Eurasia CEO Roundtable, where transport leaders from Antalya, İZBAN, Bursa and Istanbul shared good practices and lessons learned from their own cities.
The day also included a New Members Ceremony, welcoming Yapıdrom Mobility, Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality Public Transportation, TURSİD and BMC into the UITP family, and closed with a Gala Dinner at Teras 1885.
Across every session, one message recurred: technology alone is not enough. Physical, digital and service integration matter, but the deciding factor is institutional integration — aligning policy, sharing data and building the governance structures that let all the other pieces work together.
Day 3 — Technical Visit: İzmir Metro and ESHOT
The conference closed with a technical visit to İzmir’s transport infrastructure. Participants toured the İzmir Metro Workshop and Operations Control Centre, learning about the system’s history, its fleet of vehicles from different providers, and how day-to-day operations and maintenance are managed.
The visit continued at ESHOT’s facilities, where participants saw first-hand the strength of the in-house technical team — capable of everything from routine maintenance to reverse-engineering and producing spare parts for discontinued bus models.
A Shared Commitment to Sustainable Mobility
Closing the conference, UITP thanked all speakers, moderators, interpreters, the İzmir Metro family and İzmir Metropolitan Municipality for making the event possible, along with every participant whose questions and insights turned the conference into a genuine platform for knowledge exchange.
As the closing remarks put it: the most important thing needed to build more sustainable cities is not technology, but the will to act together. UITP looks forward to carrying that spirit of collaboration forward to the next Eurasia gathering.