The Polytechnic University of Timisoara (PUT) is one of the biggest and most well-known technical universities in Romania. The Department of Transportation Engineering (DTEng) is a relatively newly established department in the University, which actively participated in the modernisation and the continuous optimisation of the Romanian transport system and the improvement of urban mobility in Romanian cities.
The main role of PUT in CH4LLENGE is to coordinate the summer schools and to support the project partner city Timisoara (RO) in their SUMP processes and the Romanian city Tirgu Mures which is one of the Follower Cities. PUT supports the City of Timisoara in their first CH4LLENGE pilot scheme which deals with participation processes of local stakeholders and involvement of citizens in developing the SUMP. Based on the experiences of the project’s Optimising Cities and also local experience, PUT will contribute to the development of the CH4LLENGE Participation Kit, helpful in solving the challenges related to participation in SUMP development.
In regard to institutional cooperation, PUT helps Timisoara and Tirgu Mures to test new strategies for successful involvement of relevant institutions (at horizontal, vertical, sectoral and spatial level) in the process of SUMP development and implementation in order to improve the efficiency of the cooperation between different institutions. Furthermore, PUT supports effective measure selection and application for the project’s advancing cities with particular focus on New Member States (NMS) and will take part in the kit development. PUT also contributes to the development of evaluation programmes with focus on cities in the NMS and gives help in piloting the Romanian cities in the process of developing the best monitoring tools and methods with regard to the local context. Subsequently, PUT will share the NMS experience with the project partners for the development of the CH4LLENGE Monitoring Kit.
In addition, PUT is the coordinator and organizer of the CH4LLENGE Summer Schools and will help Timisoara in organising the National SUMP Seminar for Romania. The experts of PUT will also support the Follower Cities and especially Tirgu Mures in developing SUMP road maps – a tailor-made plan helping them get started with SUMP.
