Urban Nodes Workshop in Budapest held

Posted: 9th May 2018

On the 3 May 2018, the fifth workshop of the Vital Nodes project was held in Budapest. Sixteen Hungarian stakeholders participated in the workshop in which interesting challenges were addressed. The Hungarian capital, with an population of 1.7 million inhabitants serves as a major economic and transport hub at the intersection of several TEN-T Corridors. Challenges dealing with different (modes of) infrastructure, mobility and spatial developments on different geographical levels (local – city level, regional level and national – corridor level) were discussed.

Main challenges discussed during the workshop are, amongst others:

  • The need to reserve space for future use (e.g. sustainable logistics);
  • Road and rail bottlenecks in the city;
  • Lack of (open) data to monitor policy changes in mobility and logistics;
  • Adaptability in policy changes and innovations.

Besides zooming in on these challenges the discussion dived into multiple good practices as well. Examples are:

  • The cargo bike logistics that focuses mostly on the last mile deliveries and has its impact on the vitality of the city of Budapest;
  • The first SUMP based transport development strategy for Budapest (BMT = Balázs Mór plan);
  • The freight transport strategy, taking into account special access permits and weight restrictions.

During the workshop the participants used local, regional and corridor maps to draw and point out important aspects related to freight and logistics, while taking into account passenger transport and spatial planning aspects. In the final stage of the workshop also the role of Budapest on the TEN-T core network corridors was related to the more local challenges and possible bottlenecks.

Clear take-aways were:

  • The awareness of the urban node function;
  • Possibilities and impossibilities of micro and midi hubs in the city;
  • Vulnerability of the network in and around the urban node Budapest;
  • Interconnection between infrastructure networks.

The Vital Nodes consortium would like to thank all participants for their valuable contributions and enthusiasm!