In Germany, public transport organizations are mainly owned by public authorities. Procurement in Hamburg involves the buses and infrastructure instead of transport services. The procurement process for buses and infrastructure is performed by the transport companies. Such processes must meet German and European public regulations. Therefore, public tender and procurement procedures for buying buses by German Public Transport Operators (PTOs) can be more complex and lengthier than procurement by private PTOs in other countries. As a result, the public transport companies are not primarily driven by profitability, but also by obligations towards the public and political aims. Obligations can comprise to provide affordable, environmentallyfriendly transport services for the citizens. In Hamburg, the public authority incorporates obligations (requirements) for the e-buses in their tendering documents. In Utrecht, as well as most of the rest of the Netherlands, public transport is carried out by private companies, under an operating contract (concession) with a public transport authority. In Utrecht, this authority is the province of Utrecht. The e-buses are the operators’ private property and they are obliged to account to the province of Utrecht for their implementation of public transport. When the province of Utrecht procures the operation of public transport services by means of a European tendering process, private transport companies can offer a bid for this tender. Both, the authority and operators, want to provide good public transport for their customers, but they both have different goals. The operators want to earn a reasonable profit margin on public transport, while the authority wants to fulfil certain public policy goals. The tendering process is where these two come together. It is a strong mechanism to get the best ‘value for money’ out of the market – for example, the most public transport, or the highest number of e-buses running in the area, within the available budget of the public transport authority.
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Climate change and continuous urbanization contribute to an increased urban vulnerability towards flooding. Only relying on traditional flood control measures is recognized as inadequate, since the damage can be catastrophic if flood controls fail. The idea of a flood-resilient city – one which can withstand or adapt to a flood event without being harmed in its functionality – seems promising. But what does resilience actually mean when it is applied to urban environments exposed to flood risk, and how can resilience be achieved? This paper presents a heuristic framework for assessing the flood resilience of cities, for scientists and policy-makers alike. It enriches the current literature on flood resilience by clarifying the meaning of its three key characteristics – robustness, adaptability and transformability – and identifying important components to implement resilience strategies. The resilience discussion moves a step forward, from predominantly defining resilience to generating insight into “doing” resilience in practice. The framework is illustrated with two case studies from Hamburg, showing that resilience, and particularly the underlying notions of adaptability and transformability, first and foremost require further capacity-building among public as well as private stakeholders. The case studies suggest that flood resilience is currently not enough motivation to move from traditional to more resilient flood protection schemes in practice; rather, it needs to be integrated into a bigger urban agenda.
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Presentation at the ALM28 Conference: Numeracy and Vulnerability, 5-7 july, Universität Hamburg, Germany.
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Poster displayed at the BC&E conference in Hamburg 2014, regarding the Flexigas Simulator, a map based model for designing and planning biogas production chains.
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The Interreg Europe eBussed project supports the transition of European regions towards low carbon mobility and more efficient transport. The regions involved are Turku (Finland), Hamburg (Germany), Utrecht (The Netherlands), Livorno (Italy), South Transdanubia (Hungary) and Gozo island in Malta. It promotes the uptake of e-busses in new regions and supports the expansion of existing e-fleets. Within the project, there are four thematic working groups formed that aim at delivering a best practices report and policy recommendations to be used in the partner regions. Thematic Working Group 4 (TWG4) focusses on the topics of Procurement, Tendering and Costs of e-busses. As a starting point for TWG4, the value chain for e-bus public transport per region has been mapped. By mapping how the value chain for e-bus public transport works and defining the nature of the issues, problems or maybe challenges per region can be better understood.
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Presentation held at the 13th anniversary of the International Sustainability Academy at Hamburg, Germany on September 13, 2022.
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De Rotterdamse haven moet niet meer inzetten op groter en goedkoper, maar op meer en hogere kwaliteit en op innovatie. dat laatste doen andere grote havens ook in Le Havre-Hamburg range en op de wereld (Singapore, China, Dubai). De mainport Rotterdam kan het verschil maken door niet alleen meer kwaliteit te bieden in de haven, maar in de hele logistiek-productieketens achter de haven, en dus ligt de toekomst in de regio (het achterland)
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This paper will discuss the process of the MA program ePedagogy / Visual Knowledge Building during the first semester of the academic year 2005 – 2006. This MA program is a joint venture between the Universities of Helsinki, Hamburg and INHOLLAND. This publication will discuss and evaluate the concrete steps (in terms of learning process) during this first semester. In particular the role of the eTutor will get special attention. This publication is based on the principle of action research. Hart & Bond defines action research as “it is a form of reflective inquiry which enables practitioners to better realise such qualities in their practice. The tests for good action research are very pragmatic ones. Does it improve the professional quality of the transactions between practitioners and clients/colleagues? This action research approach is being realised upon three main sources. As an eTutor and member of the staff of this program I weekly filled in an “Evaluation Log” in which the following questions are centralized: 1. What happened (this week) 2. Significant experience 3. Reflection 4. Actions Secondly I used a little survey which was being used by the staff to evaluate the first semester. All the three Universities filled in a form with the following questions concerning the education and organisation: Education 1. What do you consider most hindering in your teaching? 2. What do you consider most beneficial in your teaching? 3. What kind of teaching methods do you prefer in this program? 4. Do you think the course offers are attractive for the target group? 5. How do you evaluate student’s engagements and motivation in your courses? 6. What can / should be improved in terms of collaborative learning activities and processes? Organisation 1. In what specific context do you spot organisational constraints? 2. Does your organisation recognise and support the MA program? 3. What is your short-, mid- and long term vision on this program? Thirdly an important source for this action research approach was the International Seminar which was hold in the middle of February 2006. In this seminar the changes based on the questions of the questionnaire were discussed and implemented. The theoretical framework in this publication is based on the dissertation of Karel Kreijns (Sociable CSCL Environments). In this dissertation he discussed the collaborative cognitiveand epistemic performance in a CSCLE. The social presence theory takes a central position in this dissertation. In this paper the pitfalls and barriers concerning a sociable CSCLE are being discussed and evaluated. This paper describes, the interventions the staff took, in order to improve the educational context of the program. From this perspective we looked very carefully to the barriers and pitfalls in our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). We found evidence for the fact that a good CSCLE consists at least a good balance between Content, Community and Pedagogy. In the program we emphasised our focus (too much) on content and (too) little on community and pedagogy. The community was poor because of the fact that we used three content learning systems, which didn’t stimulate the group processes. Pedagogy was too much based on individual eTutor behaviour. In January 2006, after the courses were ended, the Universities organised a little survey. In this survey was shown that we have to some interventions to improve the learning process. At the International Seminar in February 2006 eTutors and students discussed the problems. The following interventions are being considered and implemented: 1. The use of three Virtual Learning Environments should be decreased. Especially the INHOLLAND / Blackboard system doesn’t reflect the open source philosophy. Besides this the accessibility of this system is not very easy for foreign students 2. The collaborative aspect should be increased, by emphasising the interdisciplinaryand international co-operation. The formation of international subgroups is implemented.
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