On the 12th October 2018 at the headquarters of Airports of Puglia S.P.A. in Palese-Bari, the kick-off meeting and the press conference to launch the cross-border cooperation project “FRESH WAYS – Cross-border mechanisms for Green Intermodal and Multimodal Transport of fresh products ” has been held. The project is funded by the Interreg V-A Greece–Italy 2014-2020 Programme with a total budget of 2.621.935,00 EUR.
Airports of Puglia S.P.A. will lead the project partnership, composed of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Crafts, Agriculture of Bari, the University of Salento – Department of Innovation Engineering, the Chamber of Commerce of Preveza, and the University of Patras – Department of Civil Engineering. The Department for Local Public Transport and Major Projects of Puglia Region will participate to the project implementation as associated partner.
The overall objective of FRESH WAYS is to develop a strategy to optimize the transport system by reducing the dependency on road and maritime solutions, and increasing the range of available connection between the two Countries involved.
In detail, the project aims at increasing passenger traffic between Italy and Greece and testing the use of the available space inside the aircrafts’ holds to transport fresh products. Moreover, a cooperation platform, involving Public Administrations, research centres and business sector, will be developed and promoted in order to identify the most innovative and suitable future solutions in the field of eco-sustainable transport.
The project will last 24 months, from July 31, 2018 to July 30, 2020.
“Airports of Puglia has been devoting great efforts to cross-border cooperation projects in the last years since they fall under the company’s internationalization strategy. As a matter of fact, our strategy, besides including the main continental hubs, takes into high consideration also those neighbouring but not easily accessed areas” – declared Tiziano Onesti, President of Airports of Puglia. “FRESH WAYS project, led by Airports of Puglia, will contribute as much as past and ongoing projects to ensure free movement of goods and people in the Adriatic macro-region in a concrete and effective way”.