📋 Tender Overview
On Tuesday, January 16, 2024, a regional event was held in the hall of the municipality of Krško within the framework of the project Facilitating multimodal mobility of persons with various disabilities.
The project, implemented by the Geodetic Institute of Slovenia (GI) and managed and financed by the Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy (MOPE) , has been running for the eighth consecutive year and is aimed at improving accessibility and mobility for residents with various disabilities, especially in municipal urban areas.
The project encourages municipalities to adapt their infrastructure and ensure adequate accessibility for people with various disabilities. "We are glad that the project is widely recognized, more and more people are taking it as their own. It's not just about implementing legislation, but above all about improving people's quality of life," said Vojmir Drašler from the Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy. He pointed out that from 2016 to the present, 75 Slovenian municipalities with more than 1.4 million inhabitants have joined the project , and data on the accessibility of infrastructure for the disabled (for example, sidewalks, roads, intersections, toilets) was collected in the participating municipalities , parking places, public buildings, stations and stops and others).
M.Sc. Roman Rener , the project manager at GI, said that the collected data is used to create an online and printed accessibility map, to create action plans to remove obstacles and to navigate in space. "We standardized the data for four vulnerable groups: physically challenged people, blind and partially sighted people, deaf and hard of hearing people, and the elderly," explained Rener. GI's expert colleague, Marina Lovri?, added that the data set, which is carried out in the field by the disabled themselves, has become fully digitized. Aljoša Škaper , a data collector on a wheelchair, highlighted the importance of the viewer for users: "Planning a route is essential for disabled people, even before leaving home we have to check the accessibility of facilities, parking lots, routes, public toilets..."
Janez Kerin, mayor of the municipality of Krško, which hosted the regional event, emphasized that they are striving for a municipal infrastructure that will be friendly to all citizens: "In the past years, we have adapted many sidewalks, installed elevators, adapted means of transport and adopted many other measures." Mirko Sinti? from the Association of Paraplegics of Dolenjska, Bela Krajina and Posavina also confirmed that the accessibility situation in the entire Posavina region has greatly improved : "I have been in a wheelchair for 44 years, the changes for the better are obvious. I can say that the municipality of Krško is truly accessible, all new projects take the aspect of accessibility into account. As for existing barriers; we draw attention to them, and the municipality always tries to eliminate them as soon as possible."
At the event, they also spoke about online accessibility. Sabina Jani?ijevi? from the accessibility sector at Založba Beletrina emphasized that the Internet provides access to key information, so it is essential that mobile applications and websites are regulated in accordance with the guidelines for accessibility of online content.
By ensuring adequate accessibility and inclusion of persons with disabilities, municipalities respect the commitments on accessibility and personal mobility of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the EU Strategy on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for the period 2021-2030, Directive (EU) 2019/882 on accessibility requirements for products and services and of the Act on accessibility to products and services for the disabled. The goal of the project is to connect all 212 Slovenian municipalities. All information on the accessibility of the infrastructure is available to users free of charge on the website Accessibility of space .
