Fresno International Transportation Innovations Summit

On October 27th and 28th, students specializing in transportation engineering at the Department of Civil Engineering of FH Münster University of Applied Sciences will participate in the “Fresno International Transportation Innovations Summit PEDAL 2023” in Fresno, USA. The main focus of the conference this year is bicycle traffic and sustainable mobility. Professors Dr. Jeannette Klemmer and Dr. Birgit Hartz will accompany five postgraduate students who will be presenting on the “Alternative Transportation” panel.

As part of the master’s module on urban planning held in the past winter semester, the students developed a sustainable mobility concept for a future urban district in Münster. Five of them are given the opportunity to present their findings at the summit. One emphasis of the presentation will be the consideration of sustainable mobility concepts at the start of the planning process. “If you think about the mobility concept from the beginning, you don’t have to worry about getting cars out of the neighborhood later,” Klemmer said of one of the main aspects of the presentation.

The invitation came as part of the twin-city program between the cities of Münster and Fresno. Researchers and students from FH Münster were specifically invited to present a practical example from Münster at the conference. The trip was made possible with support of the German Center for Research and Innovation (DWIH) in San Francisco, which here supports German early career researchers, and second a larger scale effort to initiate long-term contacts between FH Münster University of Applied Sciences and California State University in Fresno. As part of the UAS7 network of seven German universities of applied sciences, FH Münster is part of the DWIH SF main supporter network.

“We could not have timed this start of collaboration and our academic exchange any better, as it vibes very well with the ongoing NRW-USA year”, Klemmer resumes happily.

The travel group will set off for the U.S. on October 20 and will use the days before the conference to take a look at urban planning and traffic aspects in San Francisco and the surrounding area, such as Lombard Street.