UTT hosts closing workshop for ASSET Transportation Project

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go host­ed the Clos­ing Work­shop for the Ad­vanc­ing Safe­ty and Sus­tain­able En­vi­ron­men­tal Trans­porta­tion (AS­SET) Project. The project was fund­ed by the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of African, Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic States through the ACP In­no­va­tion Fund, with sup­port from the 11th Eu­ro­pean Union De­vel­op­ment Fund.

The AS­SET project was launched in No­vem­ber 2023 un­der the HIT RE­SET Caribbean Pro­gramme. Its main ob­jec­tives in­clud­ed im­prov­ing ac­cess to safe, af­ford­able, and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion for com­muters, while con­tribut­ing to the re­duc­tion of car­bon emis­sions in the lo­cal trans­port sec­tor.

The project sup­port­ed the de­vel­op­ment of part­ner­ships be­tween aca­d­e­m­ic in­sti­tu­tions and the pri­vate sec­tor, in­clud­ing maxi-taxi as­so­ci­a­tions and civ­il so­ci­ety groups. Re­search con­duct­ed un­der the project has pro­duced find­ings that can in­flu­ence na­tion­al trans­porta­tion pol­i­cy.

Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing, Hansen Nar­i­nesingh, ad­dressed the Clos­ing Work­shop. He said the AS­SET project re­flects the prin­ci­ple of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment and shows how re­search and in­no­va­tion can con­tribute to scal­able change.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go ac­knowl­edged its role in the project, sup­port­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion and on­go­ing di­a­logue among stake­hold­ers. The in­sti­tu­tion re­in­forced the im­por­tance of us­ing da­ta and pub­lic en­gage­ment to guide fu­ture trans­port de­vel­op­ment.

The AS­SET project is part of a wider strat­e­gy to ad­dress trans­port needs us­ing re­search, plan­ning, and stake­hold­er in­put. Its rec­om­men­da­tions may con­tribute to fu­ture pol­i­cy and plan­ning ef­forts fo­cused on sus­tain­abil­i­ty and safe­ty.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go con­firmed its in­ten­tion to con­tin­ue pro­mot­ing re­search and part­ner­ships that ad­dress na­tion­al chal­lenges and align with glob­al de­vel­op­ment goals.

The AS­SET project con­cludes with a frame­work aimed at guid­ing fu­ture im­prove­ments in trans­porta­tion ac­cess and en­vi­ron­men­tal per­for­mance. The Clos­ing Work­shop marked the end of the for­mal project pe­ri­od but high­light­ed the on­go­ing work re­quired to main­tain and build on its out­comes.