Robert
Pressl
Validated Lead Expert
Generic Skills
B.1. Understanding of integrated and sustainable urban development:
My educational background is based by the studies of Geography at Karl Franzens University in Graz (1984-1991) resulting in the degree of a magister. These studies covered a broad mix of planning theories/methods, city development, impact assessment, city and traffic planning, human geography incl. behavioural aspects, city marketing, ecological and other social sciences
My professional experience looks back at 24 years work in the field of sustainable urban mobility designs and measures. Sustainable urban mobility planning (SUMP) could be seen as the connecting element – the approach was developed as part of the Eltis initiative that I coordinated for 7 years but the activities that are subsumed under this concept are many more. Mobility management and travel awareness, parking management, mobility marketing and campaigning, innovations for urban mobility development, mobility solutions for people with reduced mobility and company mobility plans are the most important ones that I am working with. A special focus lies on active travel programs aiming to increase the share of pedestrians and cyclists to mitigate the negative impacts from overwhelming motorized transportation. Tasks like monitoring and evaluation and know how transfer and education of city staff and transport professionals in terms of sustainable mobility development are included in almost all of my projects. My work is connected to cross-cutting topics such as health, city development and ecological impact
B.2. Understanding of exchange and learning processes at transnational level:
For more than 20 years I am involved in EU-funded training and know-how exchange projects, several of them I coordinated, e.g. PORTAL (Promotion of results in transport research and learning – with more than 30 Universities from all over Europe as partners), COMPETENCE, dedicated to empower management/energy agencies from 14 European countries to become actors at the sustainable urban mobility market, Transport Learning which aimed at capacity building, know-how exchange and mutual learning for employees of cities, management/energy agencies and transportation professionals on sustainable urban mobility designs in conversion regions of 8 European countries with more than 1.000 trainees., Eltis (as coordinator for 7 years and now as partner) with training activities on SUMP all over Europe, Push&Pull and Park4SUMP, two parking projects with trainings in 20 European countries (the latter is still ongoing with 24 partners) and the recently finalised H2020 SUMP project PROSPERITY (as coordinator with 27 partners).
I was involved in 3 URBAL projects with exchange of experience activities between Latin American Cities and European Cities. For the URBACT Active Travel Network I worked as Lead Expert (ended in 2012).
Periodically I act as lecturer for the Karl Franzens University in Graz.
B.3. Proficiency in English:
My work for FGM-AMOR (since 1993) is more than 90% on international project level with partners from different European countries and beyond. English is the main language of communication on daily work. Reporting to the EC, project meetings, skype/phone conferences, webinars, email-exchange, creation of guidelines and documentations, conference presentations as well as delivering educational services all need to be done in English, even when translation for non-English speakers is at hand.
Due to the continuous practice of English since 1996 as the main language for professional tasks as well as partially for private communication (as a result of the international contacts), my English language skills are fluently oral and written.
Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:
Summary Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:
Robert Pressl is developing, co-ordinating and participating (in) EU-projects with transnational and inter-departmental exchange of experience, co-creation, know-how-transfer and learning for 25 years with partners from all European countries and Latin America.
He is part of a multi-disciplinary team that is dealing with sustainable transport solutions for urban areas. His main activities are mobility management, travel awareness, marketing, awareness raising, parking management and active mobility.
Within his work he planned and carried out dozens of project meetings, know-how exchange and learning activities through physical meetings and workshops standalone and at conferences, online based co-operations and discussions, tele-conferences via skype/other software solutions and usage of social media.
He developed and organised the program for the 4th international SUMP Conference in Dubrovnik in 2017 on behalf of the EC.
The work that he is doing focuses on different target groups, from politicians and decision makers, to policy makers, authorities, NGOs, representatives of the industry, academia and also to future transport professionals – within all different cultural backgrounds in Europe.
He is author of different handbooks, good practice and policy documents and developed video clips. His style of work / training includes interactive elements (role-plays, drawings, videos and visual elements, distant learning, online-media and modern presentation techniques).
Thematic expertise:
Theme / Policy:
Sustainable Urban Mobility
Summary Thematic expertise:
Robert Pressl looks back to 27 years of professional work experience in sustainable urban transport covering policy & strategies and implementation of measures for parking, pedestrians, cyclists, mobility campaigns, travel awareness, and mobility management
His work contains research, policy strategies, planning/implementing/evaluating sets of measures and educational activities. These tasksbelong to at transnational but also local, regional and national activities.
He developed competences to create, plan and implement transnational learning processes and know-how exchange from projects like PORTAL, COMPETENCE, Push&Pull, Vianova, Transport Learning, Active Travel Network, Active Access, SchoolChance, Park4SUMP, Prosperity, Endurance, etc. In these projects dozens of training materials have been developed and hundreds of trainings have been carried out.
For 7 years he coordinated the Eltis–the European Mobility Observatory and was involved in several Civitas projects.
As author of guidelines and manuals and producer of videos publishing the results and achievements of EU projects for learning and know-how exchange processes he knows both sides, providers of knowledge as well as external persons keen on acquiring new knowledge and capitalisation on the actions results. Examples are the work with European ministries to develop national SUMP supporting programs, training sessions in 20 countries on parking activities or campaigning for sustainable transport policies
Expertise support to local authorities and other stakeholders in designing & delivering integrated and participatory policies
E.1. Knowledge on participatory methods and tools for co-production and implementation of local polices :
As mentioned in section C3.4. this is one of my main activities. One example is the development of the ParkPAD scheme (project Park4SUMP). It stands for Parking Policy Audit and is a method for cities to assess the own parking policy and to create a joint parking action plan. Here all three main target groups are involved with representatives – which are politicians, authorities and stakeholders. The task is to moderate the whole audit process which means to find a consensus after all participants assessed the parking situation as individual (and which differs often a lot from the one of the others). Then, in further steps to develop the Parking Quality Action Plan in a joint way by bringing in knowledge but also by encouraging and guiding participants to co-create the Plan (creating ownership and responsibilities).
Similar is the situation when developing a sustainable urban mobility plan. I was co-ordinating the project when SUMP was firstly developed and was also in the team that recently updated it (SUMP 2.0) The method foresees both, intradisciplinary and inter-departmental cooperation and also participation and co-creation (projects Endurance, Prosperity, SUMP PLUS). In Prosperity I cooperated with ministries to jointly develop SUMP supporting programs (see C1.1). Methods that were used are exchange of experience sessions, peer meetings, discussion rounds etc. In my function as URBACT expert in the past I used e.g. the stakeholder selection and involvement methods.
E.2. Knowledge on integrated approach for the design, delivering, monitoring and evaluation of urban strategies/policies:
As mentioned already my main field of work is sustainable urban mobility. The latest approach (which I was lucky to have contributed to its development) was SUMP. In this approach eight crucial key principles have been named including “Develop all transport modes in an integrated matter”, “Cooperate across institutional boundaries” and “arrange for monitoring & evaluation” – see https://www.eltis.org/mobility-plans/sump-concept
These principles are used in the projects ENDURANCE, PROSPERITY, Park4SUMP and SUMPPLUS that I used to work / coordinate or am currently working in.
Other tools: for mobility management & integration of land use planning Max Lupo http://www.epomm.eu/index.php?id=2748 and for evaluation and monitoring Max Sumo http://www.epomm.eu/index.php?id=2602
The SUMP Self assessment tool helps to evaluate and improve mobility planning in the city or functional urban area. https://www.sump-assessment.eu/English/start
The URBACT method is a perfect approach to empower the main actors. The pillars “integration”, “participation” &“action learning” provide numerous possibilities to give those involved in city development a voice and opportunities to co-create their environment. The vertical coop. between all levels of government and local players as well as the horizontal coop. among policy areas of municipality and territorial coop. between neighbourhoods or nearby rural areas and the balance between hard & soft investments build a successful basis for progress
E.3. Awareness of the main policy and funding schemes for sustainable urban development at EU and national level:
For more than 25 years I am involved in EU transport projects. Many of them I was coordinating or I wrote at least the proposals for. In each of these projects it was necessary to describe the relation to the work program. Only in the recent projects, the European Green Deal (Dec. 2019), the Urban Agenda (2016) and the EU Strategy for Low Emission Mobility (2016) were studied in detail by me.
Aspects like traffic and travel avoidance, optimising the use of existing infrastructure, supporting modal shift towards more efficient modes or new governance models for transport were always included.
Furthermore, within the last decade, the EC has recognised the particularly important role cities and Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP) can play to stimulate a shift towards cleaner and more sustainable transport in urban areas and has emphasised the importance of the SUMP planning concept in various policy documents, e.g.:
• The Action Plan on Urban Mobility (2009),
• The Transport White Paper, “Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area - Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system” (2011)
• The Urban Mobility Package, “Together towards competitive and resource-efficient urban mobility” (2013)
• The EC’s Guidelines on the Development of a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan.
All these policy documents are in close connection to EU funding schemes and the knowledge of these schemes is of fundamental importance for cities and included in all work with them.
E.4. Ability to understand specific local situations and adapt tools and content to different local realities:
In my work in PROSPERITY (role: coordinator) we developed national SUMP programs and tools for selected countries. The main concept to achieve a take up of SUMP was the involvement of the national ministries / high levels of government and cities by addressing their cultural differences. This happened in two ways: regular peer-to-peer exchange between the national level authorities of different countries – and a regular nat. development process in each country, in which national level and cities interacted. The central Q was how could a general approach of SUMP be adopted so that it worked also in countries and cities with different (legal, social, institutional) frame conditions
Another example is the parking policy audit tool were the demand was that the tool should work in different advanced cities– from beginners to advanced champions. The work is ongoing (Park4SUMP project) The test phase in 16 cities (15 countries) has already been finalized. My role: main tool developer
The transfer of good practice implementations and tools from one country to another by taking into account different local realities is demanding in my internat. work. What works in a Greek city doesn’t automatically work in a Port. city and the planned campaign had to be adapted – an experience from my Active Access project. Much more difficult was the situation in my URB AL project CULTURA where the adaption of EU and Latin American approaches for the application in other continents was the topic
Summary Expertise:
During the work in PROSPERITY which I coordinated we developed national SUMP programs and tools for selected countries. The main concept was to achieve a take up of SUMP by bringing together city representatives with national ministries / high levels of government and addressing their cultural differences on the horizontal (different countries) level as well as the needs and demands from cities and supporting opportunities of national institutions on the vertical level in the own country.
The most recent highlight on participatory methods and tools for co-production and implementation of local polices is the development of the Parking Policy Audit which is a method for cities to assess the own parking policy and to create a joint parking action plan by involvement of all major stakeholders such as politicians, authorities and externals. The work with the SUMP approach is also a co-creative one and foresees the interdisciplinary cooperation on horizontal, l vertical and territorial level incl. soft&hard investment options as advised by URBACT. For the transport area this is up-to-date the most integrated approach. The pillars “integration”, “participation” and “action learning” are key for co-creation here.
My work in EU funded projects for more than 25 years gives me insight and knowledge in the most recent policy documents such as the EU Green Deal (Dec. 2019), the Urban Agenda (2016) with the Urban Mobility Package and the EU Strategy for Low Emission Mobility (2016).
Informations
Residence location:
Austria
Languages:
German - Mother tongue
Foreign Languages level:
Foreign languages:
Email:
pressl@fgm.at