Airport Regions Conference

Airport Regions Conference
Motto "Regions make Europe fly"
Location
Area served
aviation, airports, spatial planning, interregional cooperation, EU projects, key-player in EU decision-making process
Services Sharing of best practices, Representation to EU institutions
Members
32
Key people

Sergi Alegre Calero, President

Lea Bodossian, Secretary General

Alexandra Covrig, Communication Officer

Ana García Sainz-Pardo, Research Associate

Petra Holm, Administrative Officer

Elena Maximova, Junior Communication Officer
Employees
3-6

Airport Regions Conference (ARC) is an association of European regional and local authorities that host major international airports.[1] It was founded in 1994.[2] The ARC brings together a wide range of expertise at the interface of air transport and local and regional policies. A common concern is to balance the economic benefits generated by the airports against their environmental impact, notably the effect on the quality of life of local residents.

ARC cooperates with several European institutions, such as the European Parliament, the European Commission (mostly with the European Commissioner for Transport and her cabinet, Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport and the Directorate-General for the Environment), the European Committee of the Regions and with the European Economic and Social Committee.[3] ARC also works together with Eurocontrol (on topics like air-connectivity in Europe) and organises international events (e.g. about intermodal passenger transport).

Purpose and mission

The common concern of ARC and its members is to balance the economic benefits generated by the airports against their environmental impact. The ARC debates practical urban issues,[4] bringing together a wide range of expertise at the interface of air transport and local and regional policies, aiming to strengthen the position of cities and regions against higher level forces.[5] ARC represents more than 30 European regions and cities with about 100 million citizens.

Projects

Current projects

  • ANIMA

ANIMA (Aviation Noise Impact Management Through Novel Approaches) is a project funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union which aims to mitigate the impact of aviation noise through novel approaches. On the occasion of the project’s kick-off meeting, all ANIMA partners have gathered in Paris to proceed with the start-up activities. The coordinators of three other related projects, ARTEM, RUMBLE and AERIALIST, joined the meeting in order to strengthen European inter-project cooperation. The project manager of INEA (Innovation & Networks Executive Agency) was also present and contributed to raise awareness on the research policy on transport in H2020.

ANIMA’s overall objective is to develop new methodologies, approaches and tools to manage and mitigate the impact of aviation noise, enhancing the capability to respond to the growing traffic demand. The project aims to reach this objective via a strategic approach based on three pillars: 1. community engagement as mitigation, 2. improving the quality of life by enriching knowledge on noise-related annoyance and capitalizing knowledge through European coordination.

ANIMA is financially supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever and it is the financial instrument implementing the Innovation Union. ANIMA project is a 48-months project with a total budget of over €7.4 million. The project also partakes to Future Sky, a global initiative aiming at addressing major challenges faced by the European Air Transport by 2050.

  • LAirA

LAirA (Landside Airports Accessibility) is a new Interreg Central Europe project that has started in May 2017. The Airport Regions conference is participating to this project as the communication partner, being in charge of the communication work package. The ARC’s role is to lead the communication activities of the project, to disseminate the LAirA outcomes and to manage the stakeholders involved in the project.

LAirA addresses the specific and significant challenge of the multimodal, smart and low carbon mobility integration of airports and airport landside access in the mobility systems of Central Europe. The project’s objective is to reduce the energy use and the environmental impacts of transport activities in airports and hinterlands. LAirA is planning to achieve its objective by changing mobility behaviours of airports passengers and employees and by building novel strategies of public entities in low carbon mobility planning. LAirA integrates seven key thematic areas: Electric mobility, Air-Rail links, Walking & cycling, Shared mobility, Intelligent Transport Systems, Wayfinding, Road Public Transport.

LAirA is financially supported by the European Union’s Interreg Central Europe programme, which is an EU cohesion policy programme that encourages cooperation beyond borders. LAirA is a 30-months project with a total budget of €2.3 million.

Past projects

  • dAIR

The goal of dAIR (Decarbonated Airport Regions) was to improve the surface accessibility to airport zones and the CO2 neutrality of airport operator activities. The project paid special attention to the optimal involvement of business R&D communities in creating well connected green airports. dAIR looked at how can the carbon from surface access and airport operations be reduced. These two together account for about half of the carbon footprint. Through study visits and workshops, as well as stakeholder forums, the 14 member organizations were able to exchange experience and see what reduction solutions had been used and had worked at other airports and how they could be applied to their own.

  • QLAIR

The QLAIR (Quality of Life in Airport Regions) project is addressing the need for new and innovative ways to improve the quality of life for the citizens most affected by airport activities and airport expansion. The project identifies how instruments for mitigation, compensation and investments can be used in the areas most affected by airports.

Members

In January 2018, these are the members of ARC:

 Austria
 Belgium
 Czech Republic
 Finland
 France
 Germany
 Hungary
 Ireland
 Malta
 Poland
 Romania
 Spain
 Sweden
 The Netherlands
 Norway
 United Kingdom

References

  1. ↑ "Lotniska jeszcze nie ma, za to członkostwo jest (There is no airport yet, but there is membership)". Gazeta Wyborcza (in Polish). 2007-09-17. Retrieved 2008-03-30.
  2. ↑ Alexander, E. R. (June 1998). "Amsterdam in the Red Queen's Country: Interorganizational coordination and EU-local interaction in spatial planning and policy". European Planning Studies. 6 (3): 283–298. doi:10.1080/09654319808720462. Retrieved 2008-03-30.
  3. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-11-30. Retrieved 2012-09-25.
  4. ↑ Bischof, Günter; Pelinka, Anton; Gehler, Michael (2006). Austrian Foreign Policy in Historical Context. Transaction Publishers. p. 201. ISBN 1-4128-0521-X.
  5. ↑ Schneider-Sliwa, Rita (2006). Cities in Transition: Globalization, Political Change and Urban Development. Springer. p. 246. ISBN 1-4020-3866-6.


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