Kick-off meeting: building a more sustainable, more innovative city
NextGenMobility launched with its opening partner meeting at Nyíregyháza City Hall. The goal: understand how young people move, then develop and test sustainable mobility solutions shaped around their needs — in line with the 15-minute-city concept. The project runs from 2026 to 2028.
Hungarian and international partners gathered in Nyíregyháza for the opening meeting of NextGenMobility, a project funded under the European Union's Driving Urban Transitions programme. Over the course of the day, the consortium aligned on a shared aim: to map young people's mobility habits and to design and test sustainable transport solutions that improve quality of life, widen travel options and make cities more liveable.
A central strand of the work is the 15-minute-city concept — the idea that a city functions well when residents can reach the most essential services within roughly fifteen minutes by walking, cycling or public transport.
Proximity that works in every neighbourhood
Béla Kézy, managing director of MEGAKOM, explained why the concept matters and why it is not always simple to deliver. Someone living in the centre of a city like Nyíregyháza may already enjoy a 15-minute city, with everything close at hand. But further out — in the suburbs and housing estates — not every service is reachable within that window. The challenge, he noted, is to shape walking, cycling and public transport so that proximity becomes a reality across the whole city, easing travel demand and reducing car dependency along the way.
The aim is to make walking, cycling and public transport work well enough that the 15-minute city holds true beyond the centre, too. Béla Kézy · Managing Director, MEGAKOM
Research that listens to young people
Nyíregyháza is joined in the partnership by Oradea and by universities and research institutes from across Europe. Eötvös Loránd University's Institute of People–Environment Transaction is carrying out the city-analysis research that will underpin the project's wider work.
Bálint Balázs, research assistant at ELTE PPK, described the institute's role: understanding what young people in each of the study cities actually think about their transport systems. The team will reach these groups through carefully designed surveys and focus-group methods, examining the challenges cities face in mobility so that better plans and solutions can follow — and so that young people's relationship with transport is properly understood.
We want to map what young people in each city really think about their mobility systems — and we can study that with good questionnaires and focus groups. Bálint Balázs · Research assistant, ELTE PPK
A more liveable city for the next generation
Deputy Mayor Menyhért Jászai welcomed the outside, expert perspective the international partners bring — one intended to support and strengthen the city's own work. He stressed that the focus on youth mobility reflects real differences in how people travel: a young teenager moving between home, school, sport and leisure has very different expectations from a young adult balancing work, school and childcare in a city they want to be liveable.
Nyíregyháza has invested heavily in transport in recent years — strengthening public transport, opening new bus routes and expanding its cycle network — all in service of a more sustainable urban environment. The deputy mayor framed NextGenMobility as a source of fresh ideas for continuing that work, with more partner meetings to come.
Based on reporting by the City of Nyíregyháza (nyiregyhaza.hu), 12 June 2026. Summarised for the NextGenMobility project.