The European Commission has launched the Smart Cities and Communities European Innovation Partnership (SCC) which aims at developing the urban areas in a sustainable manner and implementing projects in the field of energy, transport and information technology. For the programmes to be implemented, EU financing will have a bigger value in 2013 than in 2012, the projects in the transport and energy sector being a priority.
One of the major challenges faced by the EU is the development and adaptation of cities within a sustainable and smart environment. Three quarters of the European citizens live in urban areas, consuming approximately 70% of the EU energy, the congestion costs amounting to 1% of the annual GDP. In order to reduce the costs involved in the activities carried on in these areas, smart technologies have a significant contribution.
The initiative was launched in July 2012, the allocated funds reaching EUR 81 Million for transport and energy, but, in order to contribute to the cities’ development in a sustainable manner, in 2013 EU will allocate funds amounting EUR 365 Million. The initiative’s purpose is to support cities in the adoption of measures and implementation of projects aiming at reducing emissions by 40% until 2020 (over 2,700 local authorities have committed to reduce emissions at the level of their own territories by 20% until 2020). This requires systematic approaches for the development of programmes on the energy efficiency, the reduction of emissions, within the European initiative, the energy and transport sector being prioritized.
“Transport is the lifeblood of every city for people and business. But Europe’s cities suffer most from road accidents, congestion, poor air quality and noise. We need to drive forwards the research and innovation that can bring us to our goals of CO2 free cities, phasing out conventionally fuelled cars from city centres, to smart charging of electric vehicles and smokeless silent buses”, declared the European Commissioner for Transport, Siim Kallas.
Within the European Initiative on Smart Cities, programmes are developed for the optimisation of the degree and attractiveness of the public transport use, including by means of smart applications on the ticketing, information, communication and traffic management system. The implementation of these systems will determine the optimisation of transport interconnections, the increase of the public transport share and the rethinking of the smart infrastructure for electric vehicles, key features in the development of a smart and sustainable transport. In the transport sector, there will be financing for projects on urban mobility, the electric public transport prioritized as (tram, underground, trolleybus), a transport which capable to reuse the energy surplus (by implementing new braking, acceleration systems). In addition, electric vehicles can use IT systems for the management of energy flows, thus succeeding in rebalancing the energy necessary in cities.
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