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Identifying barriers, hooks and opportunities – WP4COUNTRY PROFILE REPORT

ROMANIA

1. INTRODUCTIONThe purpose of this report is to summarise the findings of the qualitative analysis conducted within EVIDENCE project to assess the status of sustainable transport policy development and SUMPs take-up in Romania. The qualitative analysis was based on an open-questions interview conducted with representatives of various administrative and non-administrative structures and having different expertize/understandings on sustainable transport and its economic benefits.

The interviews have been conducted with:

a) DECISION MAKERS AND POLICY INFLUENCERS from:

Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration – public manager within MA-ROP (Managing Authority of the Regional Operational Programme)

The World Bank Group - Bucharest office – senior urban specialist Regional Development Agencies: “Centru” Regional Development Agency (ADR

Centru) – director and Bucharest-Ilfov Regional Development Agency (ADR Bucuresti-Ilfov) – director

Bucharest municipality – Executive Director for Transport and Traffic Metropolitan Agencies (AZM) and Intercommunity Development Associations (ADI)

management bodies: Iasi Metropolitan Region Agency – Head of projects’ management department; Brasov Metropolitan Region Agency - programmes’ manager , Alba-Iulia Intercommunity development Agency – Alba-Iulia city manager;

b) PROFESSIONAL, PRACTITIONERS AND THEMATIC EXPERTS from:

County capitals: Alba-Iulia, Bacau, Braila, Constanta and Suceava Municipalities: Fagaras and Hundeoara Public transport operators: Alba-Iulia (STP Alba), Braila (BRAICAR) and Bucharest

(RATB)

Report completed and finalised in Dec 2015

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Environment and Energy Agencies: ABMEE (Brasov Agency for Energy Management and Environment Protection), ALEA (Alba Local Energy Agency)

Universities: Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, “Politechnica” University Bucharest, “Politechnica” University Timisoara, University of architecture and urban planning Ion Mincu Bucharest, University of Pitesti

NGOs and professional associations: ATU (The Association for Urban Transition), CiMo (Association Cities on the Move), OPTAR (Romanian Organisation for Alternative Transport), AMM (The Association for Metropolitan Mobility), CODATU Romania, CEP (Centre of Excellence in Planning), Association a Green Yes/Wave (Targu-Mures), ActiveWatch – monitoring agency and the Railways Club,

Companies: Metroul SA, AV Transport Planning SRL and Sigma SRL.

In general the interviewees have been involved in project, activities or initiatives related to sustainable transport such as: ADVANCE, BUMP, CIVITAS, ENDURANCE, Push&Pull, Sustainable Mobility Week, Traffic Snake Game, TRANSPORT LEARNING, etc. Also all were acquitted with the “new wave” of SUMPs development in Romania but from different roles/positions: consultants for or developers of transport projects, including SUMPs, city officials as customers, councillors or technicians, professors and trainers or representatives of monitoring and funding bodies.

The information contained in this report is based on a series of personal and telephone interviews with a broad mix of mobility experts and decision makers conducted between Sept to Nov 2015.


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2. STATUS OF SUMP IN ROMANIAIn Romania the sustainable urban mobility policy is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration (MDRAP), while the national transport policy lies under the responsibility of Ministry of Transport. Thus with few exceptions (such as the Bucharest subway system and operator), sustainable urban mobility programmes are developed and financed through the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration (MDRAP).

In 2014 MDRAP, with the support from EBRD and Jaspers, but also from other EU bodies and institutions, started to define both the legal and financial framework for SUMPs to be take-up at local level, thus to be developed and implemented by the Romanian cities and towns.

A first step made by the MDRAP was the inclusion - in 2013 - of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan in the 350 law on urban and spatial planning as a mandatory component of the Urban Masterplans (the so called PUGs - General Urban Masterplans) for any municipality above 100000 inhabitants. This was a major step in generating a shift on how urban transport and urban planning integrated. Prior to this, transport was included in city strategic planning only in the form of traffic substantiation studies1. In addition, by making the SUMP mandatory for the Urban Masterplan completion and approval, the premises and framework have been set for cooperation between transport and urban planning professionals, with the overall aim to ensure an urban development correlated to sustainable urban transport determinants.

A second step made by MDRAP, with support from JASPERS and EBRD funding, was the launch in 2014 of the development of SUMPs for seven entities of polycentric growth – the so called Growth Poles (Brasov, Cluj-Napoca, Constanta, Craiova, Iasi, Ploiesti and Timisoara) and also for Bucharest-Ilfov Region. Few months later Galati city was added to the GPs group, EBRD funding both SUMP development and implementation; and recently the same EBRD funding scheme has been applied for Sibiu city SUMP.

This second step has been a boost for sustainable urban mobility planning in Romania: on the one hand because it shows support from European level and commitment on behalf of the national level2. On the other, because it is intended for the growth poles SUMPs (whose development is to be finalised by end of 2015) to serve as a role-model for other medium size municipalities in Romania, especially county capitals (41 in number).

However, though the 350 law has set SUMPs as a priority on the local administrations’ agenda, at the date of this report writing, MDRAP has provided only a draft of SUMP guidelines – the guidelines have not been officially released to support local administrations in SUMPs tenders launch and development. In the same time, Jaspers' terms of reference provided for the development of the growth poles SUMPs have been used by other city administrations than the growth poles ones when launching their own city SUMP tenders.

1 Exception from this situation are Bucharest that benefited of two transport masterplans (one in 2000 by JICA and the other in 2008 by WSP), Ploiesti and Sibiu - both with transport masterplans developed in 2008 by AV Transport Planning and WSP. These transport masterplans were developed as standalone plans but included some strategic components and a list of priority projects. However, they had a weak integration with and consideration of land-use, environment, social or health issues, the emphasis being mainly on road infrastructure and car-traffic.

2 Concretely, beside inclusion in urban planning law and also development of the terms of reference the development of the growth poles’ SUMPs has been funded by EBRD with a total budget of: EUR 4,108,840 (Brasov and Constanta – EUR 904,060; Craiova, Iasi, Ploiesti – EUR 1,356,090; Timisoara and Cluj-Napoca – EUR 904,060 and Bucharest Ilfov – EUR 944,630). In addition development of Galati city SUMP received a budget of EUR 200,000 and the one of Sibiu of EUR 260,000


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Other municipalities, mainly county capitals (such as: Braila, Suceava, Targu-Mures, Piatra-Neamt, Botosani, Baia-Mare, etc.) undertaking Urban Masterplans were/are, at the time of preparation of this report, in the position of developing SUMPs in order to have their Urban Masterplans approved, but have not been provided with a guideline to steer them in developing this plan. Though useful and valuable the JASPERS terms of reference do not take entirely into account the local (legal, institutional, social, etc.) context and planning culture and thus are not entirely usable when applied for other Romanian cities’ SUMPs than the growth poles SUMPs.

Another recent initiative of MDRAP through the Managing Authority of the Regional Operational Programme (MA-ROP) to support the SUMPs adoption is their inclusion in the list of projects to be financed by the 2014-2020 Regional Operational Programme (ROP). Thus, Regional Development Agencies, through which the ROP funds are allocated and the programme monitored at local level will condition or support the allocation of funds to cities according to their engagement in the SUMP take-up.

To conclude consistent progress has been made towards sustainable transport integration on the local agendas. However, the overlaps in authority, management and funding of the different MDRAP departments creates a lot of confusion at local level, medium and small sizes administrations not knowing what guidelines to comply to and from where to fund SUMPs: from the ROP (Regional Operational Programme) 2014-2020 or from the local budget as an independent project or as part of the Urban Masterplan (PUG) budget.

3. PESTLE ANALYSISIn this section a PESTLE analysis is performed to provide a general overview of the urban transport in Romania from a political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental perspective. Each of these aspects will be developed in the following section.

POLITICAL

Urban transport problems have been constantly present on the political agenda during the last 15-20 years, but generally in the form of projects addressing car-traffic congestion through road infrastructure extension and building of parking places (especially in city centres). This ‘political vision/approach’ has taken a sustainable turn only during the last 5-7 years, when the European transport policy has started to be felt through incentivizing funding that supported governmental, regional or local initiatives which favoured sustainability in transport. Other essential factors triggering the ‘political shift’ toward sustainable transport have been the inclusion of the SUMPs in the urban planning law and the funding of SUMPs by European money (either EBRD or structural funds – Regional Operational Programme).

Though in many ways a sustainable understanding of transport has been a top-down process, once the SUMPs framework has been initiated and relatively set-up, the national level does not interfere much at local level – only through the Regional Development Agencies when approving projects and allocating funding. This shows a clear tendency of decentralisation, decisions on what transport projects should be have priority for funding in a certain city being up to that respective city local council. However, in the previous financing period 2007-2013, in many cases funding was given only on a project/plan submission basis and this did not allow a close monitoring in terms of sustainability compliance. Some of the policy influencers interviewed expressed the opinion that this should be changed in the next financing period (2014-2020) because beside a better integration of sustainability concepts in transport projects this will also enable local


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administrations to give feedback of the barriers faced in SUMP adoption and in this sense will lead to improvement of the newly set-up framework.

These issues are partly addressed by the next financing period and the 2014-2020 Regional Operational Programme – ROP. The 2014-2020 ROP identifies sustainable urban mobility as a new type of investment under the 4th Axis of funding – “Supporting sustainable urban development” (out of 11 axes). “Growing urban mobility” is up-fronted by the new ROP as a new type of investment, its aim being “the development of an efficient urban transport, to determine citizens to give up travelling by private motorised vehicles and use more friendly transport modes”3. The new ROP allocates funds for projects focusing on electric and non-motorised transport as well as on developing the necessary infrastructure to support their operation. The first priority of the 4 th

Axis emphasises the role and necessity of developing SUMPs for adopting strategies to reduce CO2 and emissions, for all territories but particularly for urban areas. The investments’ results should be monitored and assessed against relevant indicators such as: “no. of passages transported by public transport”, “total length of new or improved tram or metro lines”, “levels of GHG resulting from road transport”, etc.

With regards to decisions on what transport projects should be part of the local agenda, there is, in the opinion of some interviewees, an certain influence/pressure exerted by certain interest groups that favour own profit or political gain at the expense of the general sustainable good, experts'/professionals' opinions being rarely taken into consideration in these cases. However, this occurs less frequently in the last years in the larger cities where civil society has started to play an active role in raising awareness about benefits of sustainable transport, while bringing into the light the hidden or unknown effects of some apparently highly economic beneficial projects. Amongst these projects considered (generally by local administrations and road lobbyist companies) economically beneficial there are: roads widening or insertion of highways and/or parking areas in the city centre or building underground pedestrian passages for car traffic priority and fluency. However, not all these projects/ideas have been implemented; some (e.g. building an underground passage for pedestrians in one of Bucharest’s central squares, Romana Square) are still under consideration/debate - due to strong civil society opposition or because they require consistent finance.

ECONOMIC

In majority the interviewees from the small and medium municipalities pointed out the financial difficulties confronted when intending to include in the local budget the implementation of sustainable transport projects. One interviewee from a small city explained that the annual budget voted by the local council and allocated by the national level cannot cover expenses with sustainable transport. “When the budget is decided priority is given first to overhead and salary costs; then to projects in the social area (allowances and help for disadvantaged or vulnerable groups); when it comes to transport on top of the list are the projects initiated the previous year that need to be finalised or continued (these being mainly maintenance of the road infrastructure - asphalt pavement works) and when projects on sustainable transport (such as development of a cycling network or of an efficient PT service) are mentioned money are no longer available”. Of course, as also admitted by some of the interviewees, this distribution of the budget unfavourable for sustainable transport is also due to the fact that local councillors do not understand completely the concept and do not see investments in it as having an immediate impact and as generating image and politic gain for them.

3 Regional Operational Programme 2014-2020, approved in May 2015, accessible at; http://www.inforegio.ro/ro/por-2014-2020/documente-de-programare.html


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Other cities intend to invest in sustainable transport with funds from the Regional Operational Programme, the 4th priority Axis. However, since this Axis of the ROP allocates money to municipalities not only for transport projects but also for others sectors (such as public and green spaces and landscaping), some municipal interviewees consider these funds as insufficient to cover all necessary sustainable transport projects and highlight difficulties in prioritising between sectors and projects.

In contrast with the situations above there are few municipalities that initiated partnerships and requested funding from third parties – private investors (for PT development in the case of Alba-Iulia) or the Swiss funds (for electric bus fleet acquisition and power supply system development in the case of Suceava).

SOCIAL

Citizens, especially large settlements citizens are highly aware about the impact of excessive car use and, in general, of the unsustainable transport way of life for environment, health and the economy. However, car is still perceived as the most convenient and rapid way of getting from one place to another. This perception is quite common in the case of less economic prosperous small-medium size cities, where congestion is not acute and does not occur often and where monthly fuel consumption is not a burden for the family budget.

Also car is seen as the most convenient mode of transport by the inhabitants of the recent urban developments (office-buildings and large supermarket districts or individual housings) adjacent to large cities, which have a poor accessibility and PT connectivity. In this sense some of the respondents (both local administration and NGOs representatives) emphasised the necessity for the planning/design solutions of these new developments to better provide for public transport and better integrate alternative modes. Also, better integrating and coordinating transport modes between city, its suburbs and, in general, city’s larger transport perimeter is considered an important aspect for solving both residents and commuters mobility problems.

Some of the interviewees mention that car still is seen by many as a social object used for wealth and social status display. By contrast with the communist times, owning a car is now allowed and shows financial power. However, especially in large cities (Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Timisoara, etc.) there is a trend among young people to cycle for daily trips. Though the increase of trips by bike has not been exponential (now representing only 2-3% in the modal split), according to ongoing SUMPs surveys, these trips are made by young people having medium level incomes and affording car ownership. Thus, cycling for them is not a necessity but rather an option.

TECHNOLOGICAL

Though some ITS projects bringing results in terms of sustainability and congestion reduction have been mentioned by some of the respondents, not all of them are aware of ITS potential in achieving sustainability in transport. Higher interest on technological improvements was shown by interviewees from large cities where technological and ITS solutions gave concrete results. Small cities representatives however have shown less interest in ITS and its benefits for urban transport. One the one hand this is due to the inapplicability of ITS solutions for small scale cities (that are crossable on foot in one hour and do not have complex transport systems needing complex ITS management solutions); on the other is due to the limited budget resources of the small cities that need to invest mainly in infrastructure maintenance and repairs, which doesn’t leave much place for consideration of technological acquisitions, often wrongly considered as expensive/unaffordable investments.


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LEGISLATIVE

As detailed in Chapter 2, “Status of SUMPs in Romania”, a legislative frame has been set-up for SUMP development, these being included in the 350 law on urban and spatial planning as a mandatory component of the Urban Masterplans for any municipality above 100000 inhabitants (this in accordance with the SUMP European guidelines). However, guidelines on what should be the content of the SUMPs and what steps should be undertaken for their development have not been yet officially released by the same Ministry department that included the SUMPs in the 350 law.

Presently the guidelines supporting the SUMPs development are the terms of reference provided by Jaspers for the development of 8 growth poles SUMPs. These guidelines are circulated and encouraged by MA-ROP (the Managing Authority of the Regional Operational Programme) especially when a city decides to develop a SUMP as a standalone project (not necessarily correlated with the urban master plan), financed from ROP trough the 4th Axis.

A shortcoming in the process of SUMPs adoption is the lack of a clearly defined framework for their implementation – in terms of defining bodies/institutions involved and their role but also of defining financing mechanism and identifying funds to support implementation. Municipal representatives but also professionals and activists signalled this shortcoming with statements like: “We are good at developing a plan/policy and having it on paper, but we are bad at applying this policy!”. Some of the interviewees admitted that successful implementation is also highly dependable on the political will and engagement for sustainability. Still support from the national/regional level in defining an implementation framework has been claimed and sometimes declared as essential to overcome implementation barriers.

ENVIRONMENTAL

The environmental arguments are highly evoked as change generators of both mobility behaviour and transport policy. However they tend to be more listened to when correlated with impacts on health. In general both the general public and politicians are less sensitive to arguments relying on GHG and CO2 emissions – they see them as something far away from our times and to affect us in a distant future. More convincing seem to be the arguments detailing NOx and particles effects for our health. Unfortunately, there were still voices among the interviewees arguing that this is one of the reasons that should impede us from cycling, in their opinion, cyclists being highly exposed to emissions from car traffic thus, when cycling putting their health in danger.

4. STATUS BASED ON ANSWERS TO CORE QUESTIONS

4.1 Power structures/decision making

The power structures involved in decision making for sustainable transport are:

- at national level for urban transport the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration (MDRAP) either through the MA-ROP (the Managing Authority of the Regional Operational Programme) or through the General Directorate for Regional Development and Infrastructure; and for all national road transport and all rail transport, including urban rail, the Ministry of Transport;


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- at regional level the Regional Development Agencies that act as intermediaries between the national level (mainly MA-ROP) and the local level – cities’ local administrations

- at local level the Mayor and the Local Council: the Mayor supported by the technic departments forwards proposals to the Local Council. The local councillors through vote approve the local strategies, the projects, their implementation and also their budget.

In general the national level (MDRAP) does not interfere in the projects priority for funding at local level, its main role being to set the overall budget allocated for a certain region on a certain axis of funding (for the 2014-020 financing period sustainable transport is financed through axes 3 and 4). However, when it comes to transport projects outside the city area or when larger infrastructure projects are discussed (such as: bypasses to national highways, ring roads, railway infrastructure projects either within or outside the city borders) transport projects are subject to decision and allocation of funding from the Ministry of Transport – thus in this case the decision-making process is not so decentralized.

Interviewees have pointed out the contradictions and limitations resulting from the double management (local level and Ministry of Transport), when trying to define a regional/metropolitan transport strategy that covers not only the city area but rather the urban transport perimeter, extending beyond the legal city limits. This situation is also due to administrative ambiguities: though the growth poles and the capital city have an unofficially recognised metropolitan area, these areas are not legally constituted and do not the power to act and take decisions on behalf of the metropolitan entity. Thus it is rather difficult for them to defend and advocate for the local/metropolitan/regional urban transport interests and priorities when negotiating with the Ministry of Transport (in change with allocating funds for transport projects outside the urban/city area). There are however few successfully cases of cooperation for setting a regional public transport service – the cooperation between localities was formalised through Intercommunity Development Associations (the cases of Alba-Iulia and Oradea).

As for the cost-benefit analysis for selecting and prioritising transport projects opinions of interviewees are divergent. Some confirm the guidelines and government decision supporting cost-benefit analysis development and recognise it as a part of the feasibility study. Others claim that though CBA has an application framework and is conducted for some large transport projects, it is done however only formally to get the funding from the national and EU level, after its completion remaining a ‘drawer document’ having nothing to say in projects’ prioritisation.

Several interviewees had interesting remakes on the relevance of the CBA for sustainable transport projects’ prioritisation. Some drew attention to the fact that CBAs are done mainly for infrastructure projects and the methodology considers only direct economic impacts and some environmental parameters; social and health impacts are not included because they are difficult to quantify and integrate (partly due to lack accurate, up-to-date data). Another interesting point of view was that CBA is ‘adjustable’ to the wanted results, by integrating those inputs drawing towards the outputs that favour the projects seen as top priority by the decision-makers. Though not present in many statements this opinion is quite relevant as it came from experienced professional, mainly economists and modellers dealing with CBA in their activity.

In majority the interviewees recognised that during the last 5-7 years cycling association have been making their voice heard more clearly and loudly. Also the academia opinion is taken into account in the development of the SUMPs of Bucharest and of the Growth Poles. In the case of Bucharest the founding of Bucharest Mobility Group was a big step because brought together professionals and activists from various sustainable transport domains giving them the


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opportunity to express with a common voice recommendations for the transport projects proposed by the municipality and for the SUMP.

4.2 Funding sources

For implementation of SUMP measures and projects local administrations (either small-medium cities or large urban areas) rely highly on EU structural funds, Regional Operational Programme. In majority the interviewees do not consider TEN-T and Cohesion Funds as helpful in funding urban transport , but mainly road infrastructure (bypassed and ring roads) and railway infrastructure for the cities located along the European transport corridors. In this case highly relevant for funding would be Bucharest’s regional railway transport system, whose rehabilitation and upgrade could be funded from EU funds coming through the Ministry of Transport; many interviewees from Bucharest consider that in this way road commuting to/from Bucharest can be considerably diminished and that premises for transit oriented development (TOD) are set.

The question on whether funding could be diverted from the road construction sector to sustainable transport grouped respondents in four categories: one group considers the question as irrelevant in the Romanian context, as, in their opinion, both national and urban road infrastructure are poorly developed compared with other European countries (especially western European countries); the second group appreciated that a part may be diverted but however road construction is still a way of getting many villages out of isolation, in these cases investments in road infrastructure being justifiable and useful; the third group stated that it might be possible but the in-place procedural and legal frameworks do not facilitate this diversion; and the fourth group appreciated that this could be one of the solutions to give a boost to sustainable urban mobility measures and make their benefits more visible.

5. FUTURE of Romanian SUMP Implementation & EVIDENCE Project

This section provides an overview on how Evidence Project set out to provide objective, robust information to support Romanian local and national policy initiatives seeking a substantial change in the flow of funding towards sustainable urban transport investments. In the Organogram attached to the end of this report, one can see which deliverable is most useful for which stakeholder.

Connecting current political priorities to SUMP measures

Generally, there is a clear tendency in Romania towards decentralisation when decisions are made on what transport projects should be given priorities locally. As mentioned above, the new Regional Operational Programs allocates funds for projects focusing on electric and non-motorised transport as well as on developing the necessary infrastructure to support their operation. Depending on the local demand for mobility and the local public transport characteristics, cities should consider the costs and benefits arising from interventions which would complement the dedicated investments on reginal and national level in Romania. Per the studies reviewed, benefits will increase if interventions are integrated together with enhanced public transport network. Where possible, pricing and incentives should also be used to carefully manage the integration.


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EVIDENCE project has analysed the costs and benefits of clean vehicles and fuels and non-motorised transport, namely:

Cleaner Vehicles (no.1) Electric and Fuel Cell Vehicles (no.2) New Models of car use (no.18) Walking (no.19) Cycling (no.20) Bike Sharing (no.21), Inclusive urban design (no.22)

Therefore, the following local initiatives could complement the national/European SUMP implementation in Romania: Infrastructure changes that facilitate and encourage walking. Promoting shared spaces and home zones. Building integrated networks of bikeways with intersections that facilitate cycling. Good quality bike parking at key destinations and public transport stations. New bike sharing schemes, Carpooling and Car sharing schemes. Include Electric Vehicles in municipal fleets, or in city-owned public transport.

Overcoming challenges of limited public funding resources

Majority of interviewees claim to have very limited funding sources to support potential sustainable mobility initiatives. Some explained that the annual budget allocated by the national level cannot fund the full implantation of sustainable transport projects. Some cities depend mainly on the Regional Operational Programme while others depend on EU funds and private developers.

EVIDENCE project has analysed demand management strategies which are highly cost-effective and only induce little upfront investments, specifically:

Access restrictions (no. 4) Roadspace reallocation (no. 5) Environmental zones (no. 6) Congestion charges (no. 7) Parking policy (no. 8) Site based travel planning (no.9) Personal travel planning (no.10) Marketing and rewarding (no.11)

Depending on the local mobility demand, Romanian cities should consider investing in such interventions which would complement regional and national mobility policies in Romania, requires minimum funding, and are highly cost effective.

Involving the population to foster sustainable mobility initiatives

Owning private cars is perceived as the most rapid and convenient way for travel in Romania. This is quite common especially in small and medium cities, where streets are not fully congested and where monthly fuel consumption is not a burden for the family budget.

Evidence project highlights that people active participation in sustainable mobility is key for successful implementation. The project analyses the socio-economic impacts of mobility


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management strategies and explains that mobility management strategies are key for the active participation of the population in sustainable mobility initiatives.

Often, these strategies include the collaboration of employers and employees. Those measures consider people perspective on mobility and thereby provides key support to boost travel behavioural changes. The interventions listed below have been discussed thoroughly within the Evidence project:

Site-based travel plans (corporate, school, university, public buildings, major traffic generators such as hospitals, stadia, measure review no. 9)

Individually focussed travel planning, e.g. in new housing developments (measure review no.10)

Marketing/social marketing which is brand/image/lifestyle focussed or rewards-based schemes, e.g. Ecodriving (measure review no.11)

Considering technological options

Smart mobility concept has already been introduced in Romanian large cities, while small cities representatives have shown less or no interest in ITS and its benefits for urban transport.

EVIDENCE project provides information about Transport Telematics, clean vehicles and fuels. The information provided under the reviews listed below is very helpful for future implementation of the technology:

electric battery and fuel cell vehicles (no. 1) cleaner vehicles (no. 2) e-ticketing (no. 15) traffic management (no. 16) travel information (no. 17)

Fostering local environmental initiatives

The environmental argument in Romania correlates with the impacts on health. The main argument concentrate on NOx and particles effects on citizen’s health. Moreover, the priority of the 4th Axis emphasises the role and necessity of developing SUMPs for adopting strategies to reduce CO2 and emissions, for all territories but particularly for urban areas.

EVIDENCE project provides information about Congestion Charges (Evidence measure review no. 7) and Environmental Zones (Evidence measure review no. 6) which could help foster local environmental initiatives.

The basis for decision-making - moving beyond CBA

As mentioned, views regarding the real value of cost-benefit analyses in Romania are mixed. Some confirm that the decision-making process supports CBA and recognise it as vital for making final decisions regarding funds’ allocations, some claim that CBA is conducted only formally to win national and EU funds whilst it has nothing to do with projects’ prioritisation. Others questions the importance of CBA for sustainable transport projects.

The EVIDENCE common practice reader discusses advantages and shortcomings of CBA and discusses other tools, which may be applied. These may be more appropriate to support decision-


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making in sustainable urban mobility planning processes. SUMPs may stipulate interventions which are not eligible for public (co-) funding or which do not need public (co-) funding.

5.1 Data requirements

It was appreciated that most useful in supporting the adoption of sustainable transport measures and projects would be the evidence in form of examples/best practices explaining clearly and in detail the entire process (from SUMP development, to gaining acceptance of unpopular measures and to funding and institutional schemes set-up for implementation).

Also, in majority, respondents from small-medium size cities consider as useful and relevant for their cities, where the concept of sustainable transport in not yet well-known, trainings presenting the concept but tailored to local needs and context. These trainings should include best practices comparable (in size, economic and demographic conditions) with the cities of the trainees.

A recurring idea across the interviews is to make information (either in the form of best practices or in the form of guidelines and documents) easy accessible – sometimes a video or a webinar being more effective in passing on information than the written form.

Many interviewees (especially practitioners or technicians in the local administration) consider that convincing politicians to support sustainable transport and engage implementation cannot be generated only through participation in workshops and conferences, where presentations are brief and too general. Politicians would gain confidence in investing in sustainable transport and would get more proactive if involved in bilateral exchanges, “shadowing” type events, in which they have the opportunity to see on-site how is done, the progress of work and the real benefits.

Some practitioners and academics pointed out the lack of certain specialists from the Romanian professional transport landscape, emphasising that currently no university is forming these specialists; these are: transport economists, specialists in transport safety and in logistics and urban freight. Others, on the contrary, stated that specialists are present on the market but what is missing especially when it comes to SUMPs development is the common but also strategic understanding; the road engineer does not understand transport, the transport engineer does understand what the road system is, the traffic engineer does not share the perspective of the urban planner, etc.

5.2 Data dissemination

The professional backgrounds of the experts interviewed are mainly in engineering (civil, transport, environment or mechanics), urban planning or architecture, economics and sociology. Some of the professional networks mentioned for information exchange or for membership are:

City networks: Romanian Association of Municipalities, Covenant of Mayors CODATU Romania CITIVAS working groups, The experts Group on Urban Mobility set-up by the European

Commission in 2014 Romanian Register of Town Planners Urban Mobility Group of Bucharest municipality UITP and URTP (Romanian Union of Public Transport) ERRAC IET, ITS National


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The main information channels and sources of information used by experts interviewed are:

Mobility platforms on the internet: ELTIS, mobilityplans.eu, CIVITAS, ENDURANCE, EPOMM/ECOMM, etc.

Workshops, conferences, trainings Newsletters: ECOMM, ELTIS Printed magazines/journals : Urbanismul serie noua, URTP magazine,

6. CONCLUSIONSThe European Commission’s support, incentives and pressure, the commitment of the Ministry of regional development and Public Administration as well as the civil society sustained actions and the academia involvement have started to pay results during the last 5years and generated a shift in transport planning and culture towards sustainability. Though initially awareness on sustainable urban transport has been better created in large scale urban communities or in the ones more exposed to European contact, the message is now also being heard/understood in smaller communities.

Thus, presently with MDRAP and EU support funding is being allocated for SUMPs development and also sustainable transport measures and projects implementation. However, a shift from funding large (sometimes utopian) road infrastructure projects is still required and decision-makers need to be convinced about the benefits of sustainable transport compared with road infrastructure investments.

For this the legislation and frameworks already in place needs to be better defined and enforced. Though useful and used in SUMPs development the guidelines provided for the growth poles SUMPs need to be completed with documents supporting implementation of measure and projects, its steps, possible funding schemes, institutional partnerships, monitoring and appraisal methods, etc.


ORGANOGRAM – EVIDENCE Materials Needs Analysis


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Appendix 1

Below is a draft outline of decision making for thematic transport related issues as drafted by Ion Dedu during interview with him:

Discussed the process of decision making (see diagram attached).

Starting with a strategy, financing plan and an estimated budget.

It could take as long as 6 months to get a project to the feasibility study stage and at this stage of the process, the Transport Department would be involved.

Once the Feasibility Study is ready its presented to a select group of council committees:

- BC - Budget Committee- TC – Transport Committee- PC – Patrimony Committee (estate/property / heritage)- LC – Legal Committee

To pass through these committees could take as long as one to two months. In between the completion of the feasibility study and the presentation to the committees, there is room for negotiation. After the committees (with either the YES or NO decision), it goes to the General Council who vote on whether to support it for funding. Within this part of the process, projects will include in their presentations elements of the Technical and economic indicators.

From here (whether Y or N) it goes into ‘storage’ to wait for the Budget Department to decide (this is dependent upon what funds they have; these funds coming from Local or EU sources and this info is only known some 45 days after the annual State budget approval process has been finalised). Process of decision making here – up to 2-months and


EVIDENCE

through the same four committees before approval for budget. Once through this – its gets the approval and budget allocated.


INTRODUCTION - European Commission · Web viewHowever, especially in large cities (Bucharest,...

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