The conference „Merging the Split: Converting Spaces to Places“, held on 25thand 26thof April, proved to be „a totally different conference“. By gathering many distinguished panellists, discussing various urban topics within the irreplaceable architectural and urban environment of Split and primarily – by attracting active and genuinely interested international and national participants, this event has turned a new page in the approach to urban development topics in Croatia.
Relaxed and informal knowledge exchange, supported by a high level of interaction, is the key feature of the conference, which gathered more than 150 participants: experts in various fields of urban development, representatives of urban authorities and other stakeholders relevant for the presence and future of EU cities. The topics included urban regeneration, sustainable mobility, participative methods in urban planning, public space design and quality, energy efficiency of buildings etc. One of the panels related to urban mobility was „Wearing the 7 Mile Boots“, a panel of a symbolic title, which has explored the objective, subjective and social perception of time consumption in urban daily trips, but also the ways in which the key stakeholders of the transport system can impact the well-being of citizens, strongly affected by the aforementioned time consumption.
The panellists were Mr Martin Bućan (Split Dalmatia County), Mr Josip Sikirić (Zadar Airpost), Mr Stipe Španja (The City of Šibenik) and Mr Thomas Vith (Vienna Municipality), thus discussing the projects related to shared mobility concepts, connectivity of islands, intermodality, seasonality of traffic, sustainable mobility planning etc. The panel was led and moderated by Mrs Petra Grgasović. The joint conclusions of the panellists and participants, have pointed to a need for an additional and comprehensive exploration of different users’ needs (both citizens and tourists), followed by a further personalisation of the mobility services in line with the requirements identified.
A detailed programme of the conference can be found here: http://mergingthesplit.events.
