Countdown begins to Global Public Transport Summit

The countdown to the Global Public Transport Summit (May 15-17, 2017) in Montréal, Canada, has begun with the event now just one year away and the preparations are already in full swing.

The biennial Global Public Transport Summit, organized by UITP (the International Association of Public Transport), is the only event that covers the challenges of urban mobility worldwide and brings together transport CEOs with the likes of urban leaders, tech wizards and policy watchers.

The public transport sector is currently facing a variety of changes and the theme of the 2017 Summit will be ‘Lead the TRANSITion’. With digitization, advances in green energy and the emergence of new players such as Uber and Lyft, public transport is witnessing rapid change and a drastic evolution in urban mobility. The sector needs to face these challenges head on and find its role in this new ‘ecosystem' for public transport and urban mobility.

Within the theme, the assembled transport community will address the following topics: the urban and social transition; digitization; energy efficiency; greater entrepreneurship in the sector as well as financial or regulatory dimensions and their influence on the new urban mobility landscape. The Summit’s exhibition will also offer the opportunity to explore the very latest products, solutions and innovations that are set to transform urban mobility in the years to come.

“We are very much looking forward to the Montréal Global Public Transport Summit,” said UITP Secretary General, Alain Flausch. “It will be the first time the event has been to North America in almost two decades, the last occasion being Toronto in 1999. With public transport witnessing such rapid and drastic change, the event will be the ideal forum to discuss and debate the outlook for urban mobility”.