4 TID Banica Eva Iatu 2 2019
4 TID Banica Eva Iatu 2 2019
4 TID Banica Eva Iatu 2 2019
Alexandru BĂNICĂ
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iași, Faculty of Geography and Geology, ROMANIA
Romanian Academy - Iași Branch, Geography Group, ROMANIA
alexandru.banica@uaic.ro
Mihail EVA
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iași, Faculty of Geography and Geology, ROMANIA
mihail.i.eva@gmail.com
Corneliu IAȚU
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iași, Faculty of Geography and Geology, ROMANIA
corneliu_iatu@yahoo.fr
DOI: http://doi.org/10.23740/TID220194
ABSTRACT
Urban transport is one of the most unsustainable activities in Romanian cities. Green and smart mobility solutions
could help them in becoming more sustainable. However, it is generally acknowledged that successfully implementing
green, smart and sustainable solutions depends highly on local stakeholders’ engagement and public acceptance.
Against this background, the current study explores stakeholders’ perception and media coverage of some urban
transport issues in Romanian cities. Our approach is only exploratory as it is not aimed at testing hypothesis, but
rather at 1) exploring stakeholders’ opinions concerning the state of urban mobility in Bucharest, Iași and Cluj-Napoca,
and at 2) identifying the main urban transport issues reflected in local newspapers from Iași and Cluj-Napoca. Results
concerning stakeholders’ opinions suggest, inter alia, an overwhelming influence of local authorities and transport
engineers in the decision-making process, a fact that is contrary to sustainable and good governance practices. Urban
transport issues reflected in local newspapers pinpoint the high importance of public transport in Romanian post-
socialist cities, a rather incipient emergence of green and smart practices, and some significant differences in the
propensity of inquired cities to modernise their urban transport services.
Keywords: sustainable urban mobility, stakeholders’ perceptions, tag cloud, local newspapers, survey
Cite this article as: Bănică, Al, Eva, M. & Iaţu, C. (2019). Perceptions of Green and Smart Urban Transport Issues in Romanian Cities: A
Preliminary Exploratory Analysis. Territorial Identity and Development, 4(2), 58-75. DOI: http://doi.org/10.23740/TID220194
INTRODUCTION
During the last decades, the sustainability of cities has been in the centre of urban policies, as a
need to balance urban development and environmental protection (Hiremath et al., 2013). In
this endeavour, the transformation of transport into a sustainable practice is a key challenge
that is recognized as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) adopted by United
Nations Member States in 2015. The contribution of transport is acknowledged to be essential
and explicitly implied by SDG target 11.2: “By 2030, provide access to safe, affordable, accessible
and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public
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Perceptions of Green and Smart Urban Transport Issues in Romanian Cities: A Preliminary Exploratory Analysis
transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children,
persons with disabilities and older persons” (World Bank Group, 2016, p. 43).
To attain this target, cities should be capable of engaging various stakeholders in the innovation
process on a very broad range of activities, fostering a governance system centred on citizens,
but also aiming to put into place sound ecosystems that will produce valuable (but
unquantifiable) services (Bria, 2012; Angelidou, 2014). The United Nations highlighted this idea
during the Habitat III conference in Quito 2016. Promoting smart cities as a new paradigm for
development is also a rather new policy direction that could support the transition towards
more sustainable and resilient urban areas (UN-Habitat, 2016, p. 45). Meanwhile, the EU
Transport Policy has also explicitly stated that transport sector should be integrated in the future
clean, digital and modern economy, and, therefore, a comprehensive and updated strategy for
sustainable and smart mobility is needed (EC, 2019). Therefore, urban policies now aim not only
at attaining sustainability but also at encouraging smart mobility, which may (or may not)
overlap with sustainability goals.
The challenge now relies on putting into place such visions. From a broad perspective, two main
approaches have been implemented so far (Sultana et al., 2019): one that is based in managing
the offer of transport services (heavily relying on technological innovations) and one that targets
the management of the demand (heavily relying on changing social behaviour towards more
sustainable practices). It is now acknowledged that policies aiming at managing the offer have
not succeeded in tackling unsustainable transport activities (Chapman, 2007; Sultana et al.,
2019). This is due mainly to the fact that technological improvements in reducing energy
consumptions and pollution have been offset by increasing demand.
On the other hand, implementing policies aiming at changing social behaviour is much more
challenging for at least two reasons. First, the implication of different stakeholders is essential in
order to have clear and coherent results. Urban mobility experts and experienced practitioners
can contribute with their knowledge to the development and implementation of innovative
mobility solutions such as smart infrastructure, autonomous vehicles, and vehicle sharing that
could urgently and radically transform the urban transport landscape (Ruprecht Consult, 2019).
Second, sustainable, smart, and green solutions must be largely accepted by the population in
order to become a day-to-day practice. Against this background, the current paper first surveys
the local stakeholders’ opinions concerning the state of urban mobility in a post-socialist urban
context (taking as case studies Bucharest, Iași and Cluj-Napoca). In the second part, it explores the
main urban transport issues reflected in local newspapers from Iași and Cluj-Napoca.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The complementarity and interconnectedness, but also the competition between smart and
sustainable cities are being debated as the goals declared by smart cities promoters are similar
to those proposed in sustainable urban development strategies. However, in recent years, one
can see that an increasing number of cities have shifted from sustainability approaches, that are
found to be too general, towards smart targets (Marsal-Llacuna, Colomer-Llinàs & Meléndez-
Frigola, 2015). Nevertheless, the approaches are far from completely overlapping. Numerous
smart city strategies lack an explicit environmental dimension while predominantly highlighting
social and economic issues (Ahvenniemi et al., 2017). Moreover, scholars define smart cities in
Alexandru BĂNICĂ, Mihail EVA, Corneliu IAȚU
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Perceptions of Green and Smart Urban Transport Issues in Romanian Cities: A Preliminary Exploratory Analysis
many ways (Albino, Berardi & Dangelico, 2015) and only some definitions reflect an obvious
relationship with the sustainability targets and goals.
Generally, smart cities strategically capitalize on the Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) developments, seeking to achieve wellbeing, to increase effectiveness and
competitiveness on multiple social-economic scales. Smart cities integrate not only products but
also services (i.e. platforms and applications), that need smaller investments and are also very
adaptable to changing societal needs (Angelidou, 2014). Using ICT can make communities more
interconnected while their urban habitat can become more comfortable, attractive and safe
(Lazaroiu & Roscia, 2012).
In this regard, smart cities have knowledge-intensive and innovative strategies able to increase
the socio-economic, logistic and ecological performance and competitiveness of cities (Kourtit
& Nijkamp, 2012).
To a certain degree, there is an overlap and even a cross-fertilization between the two concepts
as smart cities aim also at being greener and green cities imply the resource efficiency and the
clean technologies promoted by smart mobility approaches (De Jong et al., 2015).
Another critique that is being addressed to smart city approaches is that they emerge from a
certain ideological background of ‘green technology’, ‘universal infrastructure’ and ‘ubiquitous
computing’ and aim to put into an advantage and to enlarge new technologies market with no
consideration towards their wider social and environmental impacts (Viitanen & Kingston,
2014). Moreover, smart technologies would create advantages for the private firms that
produce or commercialize the infrastructure while marginalizing the social categories that do
not possess the skills or do not want, by any reason, to use these edge technologies (Colding &
Barthel, 2017). Plus, using certain technologies such as virtual spaces could change social
interactions which transform spatial and temporal linkage creating a “non-place urban realm”
(Carmona et al., 2010). This implies a change not just of urban realities, but also of their
perception, which, finally, results in changing urban identities.
Technological innovation is generally aiming at integrating the development of infrastructure
and buildings with a certain physical design, advanced technologies, modern amenities and
other best practices of urban planning (Pentikousis et al., 2011; Angelidou, 2014). Nevertheless,
the replication of certain technological solutions can be risky. One solution will not suit for all
cities. Meanwhile, technological innovation should also be socially accepted (Figure 1).
Integrating technological innovation in social behaviour is based on the need of collaboration
among private actors and population and the engagement of the public, to design more liveable,
sustainable, and smart cities (Sassen, 2011). This is the reason why bottom-up approaches would
accelerate the innovation process. Moreover, it is stated in the literature that demand-driven
approaches ware preferred by the most successful smart cities rather than supply-driven
strategies (Angelidou, 2015).
As a consequence, the users-profile approach of technology is needed: technology should be
responsive to individual needs and diverse skills and interests of users (Bria, 2012; Roche et al.,
2012; Angelidou, 2015), but also “environmentally friendly” in itself. Therefore, the acceptance
of new technologies and their actual impact on greening the cities should be assessed.
By integrating the two emerging city planning directions, Smart Green Cities (SGC) is a concept
that was included in urban development models based on the utilization of social and
technological capital for more developed and prosperous urban agglomerations (Angelidou,
2014). Consequently, the European Commission’s “smart city” relies on green mobility that
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Perceptions of Green and Smart Urban Transport Issues in Romanian Cities: A Preliminary Exploratory Analysis
implies, inter alia, energy efficiency and the use of renewable forms of energy for the large urban
areas (ESC, 2012). It is a response to some major social and environmental issues the cities
confront with: increasing energy use and emissions, barrier effects of transport infrastructure,
traffic congestion, noise and accidents, the expansion of transport infrastructure replacing green
areas or existing built environments (Næss & Vogel, 2012).
“Smart” and “green” approaches for sustainable mobility in cities would include: modernization
of public transport fleets, enhancing the efficiency of the public transport system, the larger-
scale use of electric cars and bicycles, increasing bike using and sharing, car-sharing and car-
pooling services, public transport and general traffic monitoring, optimizing parking lots, etc.
(Casini, 2017).
Nevertheless, a broader view should be considering the promotion of sustainable and
“ecological” transport. Holden (2007) argues that “green” vehicles and infrastructure are not
always climate and environmentally friendly, especially if the productions and consumption
balance within their life cycle are taken into consideration.
It is highly needed that green and smart dimensions to be integrated into various aspects of city
development to co-create the image of the city to outsiders but also residents (Chan & Marafa,
2017). To be sustainable, the plans and the measures regarding urban transport should be
acceptable to the public as they imply changes in travel behaviour (Corpade et al., 2012).
The current paper tries to analyse, from different perspectives how ecological balance and
technological innovation are integrated into urban life by using official statistical data, analysing
urban mobility strategies, assessing the perception of urban stakeholders and the impact of new
approaches on urban image reflected by local newspapers.
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Perceptions of Green and Smart Urban Transport Issues in Romanian Cities: A Preliminary Exploratory Analysis
The Romanian cities are worth considering as they epitomize all the above-mentioned
difficulties and rank very low at European level when it comes to green and smart development.
Most Romanian cities are not meeting the EU requirement of a minimum of 26 m3 of green areas
per inhabitant (Ghenai, 2012) and rank very low according to the overall Green City Index, as
well as according to indexes reflecting sustainable transport and air quality fields (EIT, 2012;
Bănică et al., 2020). Indeed, the shrinkage of green areas (Ianoș et al., 2015; Petrișor et al., 2016;
Picioruș, 2015) and the increasing urban mobility demand are nowadays two of the greatest
challenges that Romanian cities must overcome.
Romanians use less private cars (28% – the 2nd lowest rate in EU) and are more inclined to use
public transport (22% use it at least once a day – 4th highest rate) and to walk (81% walk at least
once a day – 7th highest rate) (European Commission, 2012). Nevertheless, these figures–which
seem positive ̶ do not come from the existence of healthier and greener cities, but rather from
lower motorization rate and lower financial resources that the population can allocate for personal
mobility. However, as Romania is passing through a period of robust economic development, the
middle class is gaining in size, the motorization rate is rapidly rising and the process of residential
urban sprawl is flourishing (Iațu et al., 2011). Consequently, one can notice increasing rates of
urban mobility that demand sustainable and/or smart solutions. Against this background, a new
policy instrument – the sustainable urban mobility plan – has been adopted by Romanian cities
following the recommendations of the EU (COM(2009)490; Tomasciuc et al., 2016).
METHODOLOGY
The current exploratory approach assesses the transformations occurred in the area of urban
mobility from the green and smart cities concepts perspective. It first uses available official
statistical databases to highlight the main dynamics in urban transport/mobility. Second, it
applies a survey on three categories of stakeholders that could have an influence on urban
planning in the selected cities (Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Iași). Third, the paper briefly analyses
the public image of urban transport reflected by local newspapers. Stakeholders’ perception and
local media reflection of the subject are important, as enhancing smart urban mobility is also a
matter of political will, an outcome of the vision/perception from the part of local stakeholders
(Axelsson & Granath, 2018) and a result of local population’s participatory attitudes.
Statistical data
This study makes use of statistical data published by the National Institute of Statistics of
Romania. Data are publicly available throughout TEMPO Online database of the institute (INSSE,
2020a, 2020b, 2020c). Table 1 provides an overview of the indicators considered in our analysis
to define the actual context and some of the present challenges urban mobility faces in Romania.
Table 1: Transport infrastructure and urban mobility indicators employed in our study
Geographical level
Indicator Period Reference
National County Local
INSSE
Town street length 1990-2018 N N Y
(2020b)
Length of modernized town INSSE
1990-2018 N N Y
streets (2020c)
1Y = data available at the specified geographical level, N = data not available at the specified
geographical level
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Perceptions of Green and Smart Urban Transport Issues in Romanian Cities: A Preliminary Exploratory Analysis
(a) (b)
Figure 2: The structure of the sample used for the survey by: (a) Field of work; (b) city
Source: own representation
The geographic distribution of the answers is not very well balanced as most of the answers
came from the cities of Iași and Bucharest. Answers from Western geographic regions of
Romania came from three different cities: Cluj, Oradea and Timișoara (22% of the total).
Most of the respondents have a good experience of working in their fields that are related, more
or less, to transport systems (Figure 3). A number of 100 answers came from stakeholders that
have more than 10 years’ experience in their fields. Thus, most of the opinions came from
respondents that are supposed to have a good knowledge on urban mobility issues related to
their cities and, at the same time, that are better positioned to evaluate current/recent trends
in the field.
60
50
no. of respondents
40
30
20
10
0
0-3 3-10 10-20 20-30 over 30
Figure 3: The structure of the sample used for the survey by years of experience in work
Source: own representation
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Perceptions of Green and Smart Urban Transport Issues in Romanian Cities: A Preliminary Exploratory Analysis
account as investments in electric buses are being made by local authorities in Iași, Cluj-Napoca
and Bucharest (among other cities) (VEGACOMP, 2020).
(a) (b)
Figure 4: (a) Evolution of modal split of urban public transport in Romania (own elaboration,
according to data from INSSE, 2020a); (b) Evolution of the number of passengers transported
with local public transport (own elaboration, according to data from INSSE, 2020a)
Local administrations implemented numerous projects since Romania joined the EU. In fact,
during the last 13 years, the largest Romanian cities underwent advanced more in implementing
European policies, which resulted in important investments in urban mobility projects. Yet,
these investments focused more on building critical transport infrastructure than on developing
smart transport networks and services. This should not be surprising as in most cases critical
infrastructure was missing, as suggested in Table 2. Moreover, the intensification of urban
sprawl added pressure on local authorities for building new roads serving new residential areas.
In the early 1990s, Cluj-Napoca had only half (51%) of the road network covered with shaped-
stone, asphalt or concrete, while Iași (67%) and Bucharest (45%) were also suffering from lack
of a fully modern network of transport infrastructure. However, starting with early 2000s, Cluj-
Napoca underwent an accelerated process of urban development, including a modernisation
process of the transport network. In 2018, almost the entire length of the road network has
been modernised (95.78%), while Iași is now lagging behind (with only 73.14%).
Investments in transport infrastructures were not part of any integrated local transport strategy
during 2007-2013 financial period, as it is the case starting with the new financial period. In the
new financial framework (2014-2020), the main instrument used to promote a coherent and
sustainable development of cities is the SUMP. However, their adoption during the last six years
encountered numerous obstacles, of which the lack of tradition in good governance approaches
stands apart.
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Perceptions of Green and Smart Urban Transport Issues in Romanian Cities: A Preliminary Exploratory Analysis
Scholars’, local administration’s and transport experts’ opinions on urban mobility issues
The three cities of Romania that were chosen as case studies are evolving at different paces, with
Cluj-Napoca taking the lead in sustainable urban mobility. According to questionnaires, the main
stakeholders’s perception supports this statement. Cluj-Napoca is a leading city for all the
indicators we took into consideration (Figures 5 and 6). Bucharest and Iași are lagging far behind,
without a clear distinction between their perceived performances: Iași has a better perceived
public transport and a better perceived intelligent signalling, while Bucharest is viewed as assuring
a higher quality of transport infrastructure in the central area, a higher degree of interconnectivity
and better performance in terms of exclusive lanes for public transport (compared to Iași).
Figure 5: The average scores for different topics of urban transport in the analysed cities
The adoption of different solutions for increasing the efficiency of urban transport from both
technological and ecological points of view is also differently perceived among the three cities.
Cluj-Napoca is once again performing far better than Iași and the capital city. Bikes rental, the
tracking of public transport with GPS, real-time schedules and exclusive lanes for public
transport are measures that had the highest rate of success in implementing. By contrast, in Iași,
only intelligent signalling and traffic lights and bicycle infrastructure were introduced to a certain
degree, while Bucharest is perceived to lag in the implementation process.
Bike lanes
Although the general perception is that traffic has a significant negative impact on air quality
and life quality in the city (Figure 8), a very high percentage (40%) of respondents would prefer
good accessibility by car over life quality (Figure 7a). At the same time, 37% of the total number
of respondents acknowledges that they know about the existence of at least one impact
assessment of traffic air pollution on health (Figure 7b).
(a) (b)
Figure 7: (a) Prioritizing between accessibility by car and life quality in the urban environment;
(b) Knowledge about the existence of impact assessments of traffic air pollution health effects
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Figure 8: The perception of traffic contribution to air pollution in cities (scores 1-10)
(1- major negative impact, 10 - no negative impact)
Indeed, Figure 8 shows an overwhelming contribution of local authorities and transport experts
in the decision-making process. By comparing this fact against the conceptual background
defined by Ruprecht Consult (2013, 2019), we can conclude that the actual decision-making
process resonates more with the traditional planning of urban mobility than to the sustainable
planning of it.
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Perceptions of Green and Smart Urban Transport Issues in Romanian Cities: A Preliminary Exploratory Analysis
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Local Engineering Public or NGOs Citizens Others
authorities teams private
consultants
Figure 9: The contribution on planning the actual transport system (Sum of scores, that were
expressed in the questionnaire on a 1 to 5 scale)
Furthermore, the high influence of local authorities and engineering teams (Figure 9) suggests a
rather top-down approach, whereas a bottom-up one would be more desirable. Some recent
studies even describe the SUMP effort in Romania as being a “catching up” process, arguing that
“because of the lack of general education on the mobility issue of the population, businesses,
technicians and the political class, this catching up appears as an imported concept, not a home-
grown need and phenomenon, and it occurs with little coherence or coordination” (May et al.,
2017, p. 9).
Figure 10: Most frequent 100 words in the case of Cluj-Napoca and Iași respectively
Figure 11: Most frequent 50 words in the case of Cluj-Napoca and Iași respectively
The articles from “Monitorul de Cluj” do employ words related to the metropolitan area of Cluj-
Napoca (“metropolitan” and “Florești”), while such words are absent in the case of Iași. This
pinpoints to the fact that the local media of Cluj-Napoca might identify their city as being
metropolitan to a higher degree compared to the newspapers of Iași. Another interesting fact is
revealed by two words reflecting issues of modernization of public transport services: “card”
and “pass” (“abonament”) are among the top ten keywords employed in the case of Cluj-
Napoca, while in the case of Iași, “card” is absent and “pass” in less frequent (the 36th rank).
However, in the case of Iași, we found the word “application”, although it is not very frequent
(the 28th rank). Such issues are hard to be related to urban identity; however, they show a
greater propensity from Cluj-Napoca Municipality to take practical steps towards promoting
smart and sustainable solutions, a fact which is in line with the results from our questionnaire.
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Perceptions of Green and Smart Urban Transport Issues in Romanian Cities: A Preliminary Exploratory Analysis
CONCLUSIONS
This study has explored the stakeholders’ perceptions and the local newspapers coverage of
some aspects related to smart and sustainable urban mobility in three major Romanian cities
(Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Iași). Results reported in the current paper are preliminary.
However, they pinpoint some interesting facts that could be the start for more in-depth studies.
Stakeholders’ perceptions lead us towards the following conclusions:
First, there is an overwhelming influence of local authorities and transport engineers in the
decision-making process, a fact that is contrary to sustainable and good governance practices.
The decisive role in urban management is thus taken by these two stakeholder categories, while
other professionals are hardly integrated into the decision process. Therefore, a significant part
of stakeholders questioned complain of being ignored (or not informed) during the planning
processes and decision making. However, all categories of stakeholders’ state that they are
willing to contribute to promoting environmentally friendly transport.
Second, stakeholders’ perceptions suggest that in all three cities, some “traditional” problems
of urban mobility such as those related to urban air pollution are still perceived to be major (a
fact which is in line with official statistical data concerning air quality in urban areas). This could
be interpreted as a consequence of the fact that none of the three studied cities succeeded in
limiting the impact of high use of individual passenger cars.
The second section of the exploratory analysis ̶ the content analysis of local newspapers
coverage of transport issues ̶ pinpoints the high importance of public transport in Romanian
post-socialist cities for the general public, but also a rather incipient emergence of green and
smart practices. The latter information is also confirmed by the stakeholders’ perceptions, who
suggested that the implementation of smart green mobility in Romania is at an early phase in
both simple measures and complex IT-related equipment installation.
Finally, according to stakeholders’ perceptions and local newspapers coverage of urban
transport issues, the inquired cities envisage different stages in planning and implementing
sustainable transport solutions. Overall, in the last 10 years, Cluj-Napoca showed clearer signs
of sustainable modernization and proved to be more open to smart and green solutions, while
in Iași and Bucharest these processes also occurred, although at slower paces.
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