IBE International Bus Expo 2020 – reassuring signs for the sector’s future
A positive balance for the 9th edition of Italian Exhibition Group’s international expo dedicated to buses. The three Rimini days hosted moments of crucial networking between associations and institutions and laid the foundations for the restart of the entire passenger transport sector in the light of the energy transition.
IBE International Bus Expo confirms its role as the reference appointment for the world of shared transport. Simultaneously with TTG Travel Experience, Regeneration! By SIA and SUN, the 9th edition of the International Bus Expo closed on 16th October.
Organized by Italian Exhibition Group at Rimini expo centre, IBE represented a true restart for one of the sectors most put to the test by recent months’ emergency and featured the participation, along with associations and leading companies, of the decision-makers of public transport companies, bus operators, coach hire companies and qualified trade members in general.
The 2020 edition of IBE International Bus Expo hosted over 60 exhibitors and some important new features, in terms of new powertrains with low environmental impact and a strong push towards green mobility anticipating the growth trends of local public transport. From urban mobility to long-distance travel, from small public transport vehicles to shared mobility: the supply chain is becoming dynamic along with the adoption of alternative power. It was possible to try out these solutions during the 150 test drives with the new models of vehicles with the most recent technology for assisted driving for road safety.
On Wednesday 14th,, connected in streaming, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport Salvatore Margiotta inaugurated the event and concluded the conference on the topic “Sustainable mobility policies and the recovery plan in Italy”, at which opening speakers included: Corrado Peraboni, CEO Italian Exhibition Group, Roberta Frisoni, Rimini’s Municipal Councillor for Mobility, State-owned Marine Land, Territorial Programming and Management, and Andrea Corsini, Emilia-Romagna’s Regional Councillor for mobility and transport, infrastructures, tourism and commerce. This was followed by a round table with some of the sector’s key players: ANAV chairman Giuseppe Vinella, ASSTRA chairman Andrea Gibelli, AGENS chairman Arrigo Giana and Severino Briccarello of the UNRAE bus section. The moderator was journalist Morena Pivetti.
“The transport world has shown an incredible ability to hold strong”, said Margiotta, “and it was one of the sectors that came under the greatest stress. In the name of the principle of subsidiarity, all the players involved, including private companies and individuals, must do their utmost. This is a sector that reasons with very strong synergy with the ministerial policies, a synergy that must be maintained to all work in the same direction.”
Numerous issues for reflection characterized the 18 conferences and workshops on the expo days, with the supervision of a Technical Scientific Committee chaired by Giuseppe Catalano, lecturer at Rome’s La Sapienza University, which brought together the sector’s most important associations: from ANAV to ASSTRA, AGENS, UNRAE, ANFI, Federmetano, MotusE and Kyoto Club ; the institutions, from the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport to the Ministry for the Environment, through to the Emilia-Romagna Region and the Municipality of Rimini, Rome’s La Sapienza University and Milan Polytechnic.
The presentation was held of the report realized for ANAV by the Transport Policy Laboratory, on the occasion of the conference on “Commercial bus transport during the Covid-19 period”, which highlighted, among other things, a drop in commercial bus passenger transport companies’ turnover of approximately 72%, due to the anti-contagion measures adopted by the Government in recent months.
IBE was also the occasion for inking agreements between the sector’s players, such as the protocol signed by Enel X and ASSTRA, which foresees a series of activities aimed at promoting sustainable mobility in Italian cities: from the development of new business models that speed up the energy transition of buses’ supply systems to the planning of infrastructures and avant-garde recharging columns, through the definition of new solutions for Smart Cities able to reduce the consumption of their fleets, the maintenance and supply costs and the design of mobility services with a higher added value.
AGENS on the other hand gathered its companies’ top representatives to discuss on which industrial and technological processes to focus in order to face the mid-and long-term effects of the Covid emergency, proposing practical solutions.
Like all the expos organized by Italian Exhibition Group, IBE 2020 was held according to the #safebusiness protocol which, from travel from hotels to the expo, to personal protection devices, constant sanification of the various areas and rooms, to dematerialized tickets, the “no-queue” app for food service, through to the cloakroom service with an automatic cycle, enabled everybody to participate in the Expo in complete safety.
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