01/05/2010
In March 2010, Cantabria's START members had the opportunity to interview Mr Marín Sánchez, Cantabria's Transport and Telecommunications Director General, to ask him about the region's participation in this European project.
Cantabria is taking part in START and is particularly interested in traveller information systems. Do you consider it is important to prioritise this issue in order to encourage the use of public transport in the Autonomous Community?
Improving the information systems for public transport users is currently essential. It is a low cost and effective way of improving the services on offer. It is important for people to have access to accurate bus timetables, especially in rural areas where transport services are limited owing to low demand and which are less frequented. Furthermore Cantabria is a region with great potential for tourism and the best way to encourage people who visit the region to use public transport is to provide appropriate and reliable information that everyone can understand.
Within the project, Cantabria is leading the activity that focuses on smart card systems. Would you mind explaining briefly what this is about?
For the last two years Cantabria has been working on implementing a public transport payment system for regional public transport users based on contact less smart card. The system is fairly innovative as it incorporates several money slots, extending its use for all the different regional transport operators. For that reason, we were particularly interested in sharing our experience in this field and learning from other regions which are implementing similar systems. Improvements are generated by sharing experiences.
What do you feel are the key benefits that Cantabria will enjoy by participating in START?
Participating in START and other similar activities really is in Cantabria's interest. It gives us the opportunity to share experiences with other European regions with similar issues to ours and learn from them. It also offers us the opportunity to share our own experiences, which may be useful to other regions. These types of benchmarking initiatives are very valuable for promoting territorial and economic cohesion between the different European regions, which is a very important aspect. Furthermore, START has proven to be particularly useful in Cantabria. There is a young team managing the transport in our region and they are learning from the bottom up. Our participation in this initiative provides us in turn with a great opportunity to learn.