Skip to main content

City of Madrid elected as Polis president 2015

The city of Madrid, Spain has been unanimously re-elected to be the president of the Polis network in 2015. Madrid has been promoting sustainable transport for many years, both locally and through cooperation across borders. Outstanding initiatives in the Spanish capital include the city's ambitious Air Quality Plan, the promotion of cycling and walking, Madrid's intelligent on-street parking scheme, its multimodal interchanges, and its pioneering urban consolidation centre for electric freight. "Wit
November 28, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The city of Madrid, Spain has been unanimously re-elected to be the president of the Polis network in 2015.

Madrid has been promoting sustainable transport for many years, both locally and through cooperation across borders. Outstanding initiatives in the Spanish capital include the city's ambitious Air Quality Plan, the promotion of cycling and walking, Madrid's intelligent on-street parking scheme, its multimodal interchanges, and its pioneering urban consolidation centre for electric freight.

"With other Polis members, we share the opinion that improving local transport is crucial to guarantee the sustainability of our cities and regions", said Diego Sanjuanbenito Bonal, Madrid's Deputy Mayor for Transport and Environment. "Time has come for Madrid to take a step forward and assume even more responsibility in this process. We will do our best to continue to support the Polis network and to work together towards deploying innovative urban transport technologies and policies for a more sustainable Europe."

Pisa and Stuttgart region were also elected to join the Management Committee of Polis for a second term.

The Annual Polis Conference "Innovation in Transport for Sustainable Cities and Regions" begins today in Madrid, gathering around 300 urban mobility professionals from across Europe. Diego Sanjuanbenito Bonal will open the conference and welcome high-level speakers including Madrid's mayor Ana Botella Serrano, Spain's minister for Public Works and Transport Ana Pastor, and Italy's transport minister Maurizio Lupi, who currently holds the presidency of the Council of the EU.

Related Content

  • Phoenix rises to the Smart City challenge
    December 10, 2015
    Andrew Bardin Williams looks at the City of Phoenix where voters backed a $30bn plan to revamp its transportation network to cultivate a more connected community. According to a Land Use Institute study, half of all Americans and even more millennials (63%) would like to live in a place where they do not need to use a car very often. The City of Phoenix is putting in place plans to revamp its urban development and transportation policies to meet these changing quality of life perceptions.
  • Q&A: IBTTA president Mark Compton
    January 20, 2021
    Mark Compton is CEO of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) in Middletown, PA. IBTTA's Bill Cramer sat down with Mark to learn a bit more about his background and interests
  • Improve and increase mass transit systems to minimise congestion
    January 24, 2012
    Rather looking to solve congestion by spreading the load, perhaps we need to look at concentrating it. Michael L. Sena writes. We humans were made to walk and run at embarrassingly slow speeds by comparison with other, more fleet-footed organisms. The sea is not our natural habitat and we were definitely not designed to fly unaided. Nevertheless, humankind has evolved a method of living during the past century that is dependent on transporting its members over very long distances during relatively short per
  • European Truck Platooning Challenge winds up at Intertraffic
    March 2, 2016
    As holder of the EU Presidency in 2016, the Netherlands has organised the 2016 European Truck Platooning Challenge and it is no coincidence that it will involve Intertraffic Amsterdam. Truck platooning, where two or more trucks travel in convoy very close to each other, provides many benefits. The first truck does the driving while the ones following are connected by a wireless electronic communications system, like the carriages of a train.