One of the most important ways to find new partners is to participate in the URBIS – The Smart Cities MeetUp fair. It takes place from 2 to 4 June in Brno. The faculty has accepted the offer of its long-standing partner SmartPlan and is presenting its skills in the field of smart solutions for cities and regions at a joint stand, for example through the HE CapaCities 2.0 project. It participates in it together with the Ministry for Regional Development and 54 other partners from a total of 27 countries. The CapaCities 2.0 project is dedicated to climate issues, or rather Net Zero Cities, for which the topic of transport is absolutely key. The Ministry for Regional Development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Centre for Regional Development also stated at the URBIS fair that up to 43% of the total allocated amount of 2 trillion euros should be allocated to climate-related projects in EU funds for the period 2028-2034.
“At the Faculty of Transport, we have been dedicated to issues related to the quality of life, or smart cities, for a long time and are involved in many national and HE projects dealing with this issue,” says the Dean of the Faculty, Assoc. Prof. Stanislav Novotný, who also visited the fair in person.
Faculty representatives are actively participating in workshops and panel discussions at the URBIS fair with representatives of the aforementioned representatives from government bodies, but especially with representatives of cities and municipalities, and are also offering their expertise through the National Center for Transport 4.0, established at the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics of the Czech Technical University in Prague, of which the Faculty of Transport is a part.
In the next subsidy period, great emphasis will be placed on decarbonization and digitalization, when subsidy calls will be implemented through the National Regional Partnership Plans (NRPP) and targeted support will be directed to the regions.
"I see the main role of our faculty in providing sophisticated consultancy and creating sustainable transport concepts, which is our long-term expertise. We offer solutions with so-called innovative added value, because as has been said many times at URBIS, a smart project does not consist of subsidy support for its implementation, but in using financial support purely to start it up. Subsequent financing of its operation and sustainability is already based on the positive externalities in the given area that it will generate," adds the dean of the faculty.
The university's main mission includes education, not only of young people through standard study programs, but also of public administration. Therefore, the Faculty of Transport offers cities and municipalities education not only in the areas of transport solutions for territories, but also, for example, in the area of awarding contracts in the form of the Best Value method or data infrastructure. All these aspects of public life have been addressed at the faculty for a long time, and the faculty has achieved high expertise in them, supported by many implemented projects and other forms of cooperation.