1st Regional Stakeholder Group Meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania

Within EMBRACER, JUDU organised its first Stakeholders meeting in Vilnius on 22 June 2023.

Vilnius partner’s stakeholder group consists of representatives from the following institutions: Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of the Interior, “Neutralus klimatui Vilnius” VšĮ (ZeroNet Vilnius), Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VilniusTech), Intelligent Laboratory UAB, Gaučė&Co UAB, transport agency Klaipėda Transport VšĮ, transport agency “Kautra” UAB, “Vilniaus planas” UAB, and Vilnius City Municipality.

The purpose of the first stakeholder group meeting was to present the project and results of the  kick-off and the first EoE meeting, to discuss a recently launched pilot action in Vilnius, stakeholder group importance for the project, and plans for the improvement of Vilnius policy instrument (SUMP). 
The Project Coordinator Birutė Jatautaitė presented the major project: challenges, goals, major activities, expected stakeholder involvement and needed expertise. 
Kristina Gaučė (Gaučė&Co) and Anton Nikitin (Vilnius City Municipality) – shared their views about EMBRACER and their experiences from the first EoE meeting in Portugal. 

The project is about "connectivity", thus relevant foreign experience (e.g., Portuguese, Romanian, Finish, etc.) must be analysed. Project partner innovations shared at the EoE meeting are worth to be further explored. It is necessary not to forget the main goal of the project, and therefore the essence of the pilot action - not only to test something, but first, to make sure for whom and for what and whether Vilnius or other cities will really need that test model. 

Solveiga Stankevičienė and Marius Pakėnas, partner team members from Sustainable Mobility Department described the pilot action. 

JUDU is the only partner that is conducting a pilot action in the project. The goal is to test the autonomous shuttle bus service for first-last mile travelling in an underserved territory of the city of Vilnius. The partner has been formulating criteria for selecting the territory of the pilot action, collecting data on the presence or absence of infrastructure in potential territories, analysing foreign experience and lessons learned - what worked, what might not. The city has some previous driverless car experience – the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Lithuania conducted a bus test in 2017 (with no passengers on board). At that time there was no proper national regulation. Today, adequate regulation is in place for testing a driverless bus with people on board. Vilnius partner lacks information and/or knowledge about EV market - manufacturers or some relevant service providers. Within a few coming months the partner will clarify overall conditions  suitable/required for an AV service and will choose a territory for the pilot action. Discussions with residents of potential territories will be organized.

Discussion covered the following issues:

- To take a look also at Estonia's experience (they might have a list of lessons learned).
- The first-last mile model for Vilnius is very necessary. The service in question might speed up travel and help some people to give up their own car more easily.
- The pilot action/project must necessarily have a very clear and measurable goal, not to mention the intention to contribute to the improvement of the Vilnius SUMP. 
- It is critical to very clarify very well what we want to test and achieve (e; g., explore several different territories? Identify the most suitable route? to better understand the shortcomings of the Vilnius SUMP and/or legislation? 
- The test might supplement Vilnius SUMP with some new criteria, analyse the key aspects of infrastructure and autonomous transport.
- It is important to find out whether autonomous transport is/can be a solution at all. If so, what issues would it solve?
- The final and long-term goal could be to replace all PT in Vilnius with autonomous cars in the future, which would solve the problem of driver shortage, driver strikes, etc. 
- Applicability of the achieved project results will be important.
- Acquisition of AV buses in the city of Vilnius.