Connecting digitally throughout 2021: UITP wraps our Tour around the world

Over the past year and a half, the coronavirus pandemic has reshaped the public transport sector and with it, the special connections made during our in-person events.

These have been unprecedented times, and UITP has worked hard to make sure we retained what makes our sector so special: the global public transport community.

To be able to continue engaging, collaborating and sharing, we launched the UITP Digital World Tour in 2020 to bring together shared ideas and experiences and to support the public transport sector through inspiring digital events.

After many successful gatherings throughout last year, Covid-19 has kept most of us at the virtual table, so in order to to keep your organisation up to date with the latest trends, innovations, and digital networking opportunities, we expanded our Digital World Tour right into 2021.

The first Digital World Tour event of 2021 was the UITP Turkey National Conference on 26 May-28 May. The conference was  a sector-wide online event during which authorities, operators, policy makers, scientific institutes, and the industry as well as service providers discussed how best to turn the hard-won lessons of the pandemic into a healthier and better future for all.

Topics brought up during the Turkey National Conference included clean and energy efficient vehicles in sustainable urban mobility, urban mobility after the Covid-19 pandemic and many more.

Stop number two for 2021 was the APTA-UITP Rail Conference which took place between 8-9 June. By bringing UITP and our American friends at APTA together, allowed for a special rail-focused gathering designed to expand the thinking around urban, commuter, high-speed, and intercity rail modes.

The two-day virtual conference featured high-energy sessions on technology, operations, safety & security, planning, finance, capital projects, workforce development, diversity and inclusion, and more. And a great keynote speaker in Rishad Tobaccowala!

Following our rail gathering, we left the US and headed straight to India for our Bus Seminar held between 15-18 June. This was the 5th edition of the annual bus event and encompassed national and international speakers who shared their knowledge and experiences on themes such as green urban mobility, digitalisation and AI in bus operations, smart payments in bus systems, governance and financing and electric bus & trolley bus systems.

The previous edition of the India Bus Seminar in 2020, part of our first Digital World Tour, got worldwide recognition with participation from more than 130 companies, 398 registrations from 41 countries with 44% registrations from outside India. All the panels included 40% of female speakers.

Our fourth stop took us from India right across to the UITP Latin America Week from 22-23 June 2021. This digital event brought a broad reflection on public policies, as well as necessary actions in terms of new technologies, planning and operation strategies in order for the mobility sector in Latin America to advance and improve the life in cities. Sessions during the Latin America Week were organised on topics such as redefining public transport, institutional strengthening, future challenges for the sector, and others.

We know that nothing beats connecting with one another in person and although Covid-19 continues to impact many cities and countries, there is light at the end of the tunnel as vaccination roll-outs continue and people are able to meet under certain restrictions.

We are hopeful that we can see more of each other in person going forward, and as we move towards 2022 we will be continuing to connect with industry peers for hybrid and in-person events following all necessary health and safety guidelines that will be in place.

Until we meet again, we have one more fully-digital event for you to join…and it’s a rather special and unique idea to bring to you a new way of engaging: The UITP Mobility Dialogue.

It’s about conversations, not presentations.

UITP knows that events should primarily be concerned with sharing ideas through debate and discussion…and our new event will gather leaders, experts, and inspiring speakers in public transport from every corner of the globe,across different time zones over one day.

On26^thOctober 2021, the digital event will consist of numerous conference sessions focused on relaunching the public transport sector, lessons learned from the pandemic and driving transformation in public transport.

Select your time zone and join us! 

The UITP Digital World Tour: which stop did you make?

Join the Mobility Dialogue! Find the right time zone for you!