Olomouc is a founding member of CIVINET Czech and Slovak Republics (since 2014) and is the chair partner since network has been established. Olomouc is also a member of CIVITAS Forum Network since 2017. In June 2018, the Olomouc City Council endorsed the first Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan of the city, in September 2022 the update of the SUMP was made.
The city of Olomouc developed a new parking policy just before ParkPAD audit; the policy is proposing expansion of the existing parking regulation system and other changes (e.g. tariffs). The main challenge for the city was to specify the parking policy in some areas as the approved policy was too general, and get knowledge in proper communicating its implementation with public and the stakeholders.
The ParkPAD audit was realised between September 2023 and February 2024 with auditors from the Czech company CityOne. At the beginning data about city was collected directly from the municipality, then the questionnaires were sent to the ParkPAD group. The first meeting of the ParkPAD working group took place on November 27, 2023. At this meeting, the ParkPAD process was presented, filled-in questionnaires were discussed, some areas were corrected based on the discussion.
During the discussion it became clear that some questions of the ParkPAD questionnaire can be answered differently when considering city centre itself in comparison to low-density suburbs. Because of this it was sometimes difficult or nearly impossible to find one common answer of the question before its more detail specification or division into clearer and site-located question.
There was an extensive discussion about the current situation in sharing the information concerning parking needs and cooperation between municipality and citizens. Large reserves are seen in cooperation with external organizations and mutual exchange of information. It is necessary to improve communication among the city, city districts, neighbouring municipalities and the region. There is also a lack of regular systematic contact with large employers in order to find out their transport needs and plans. The largest employers in the city are the University Hospital and Palacký University. Both have 4-5 thousand employees and in addition generate additional traffic for patients, visitors and students. What affect the planning of changes in parking in the city as well is the fact that most of parking houses are owned by private subjects which are not being invited for discussions. This must be changed and the communication improved. The next important finding is that the city´s bicycle master plan does not deal with bike parking, and there is no city-wide plan for bike parking. Tips on how cyclists themselves can participate in identifying new bike parking spaces were also mentioned.
The second meeting took place on February 13, 2024 where the conclusions of the first meeting were summarized and selected areas were discussed. Examples of good practice and frameworks of possible measures were presented, the detailed content of the proposed measures emerged from the subsequent discussion.
A draft of the measures was presented and discussed during this meeting. ParkPAD group agreed that one of the core measures will be creation of a communication platform for the involvement of important stakeholders in the field of parking planning. This will be supplemented by institutional mobility plans, mobility plans for mass events and development of bicycle parking masterplan.