5th Conference of the elevation sector

Hidral participates as a collaborating partner of the Spanish Elevator Business Federation (FEEDA) in the fifth Conference of the Elevation Sector in Madrid.

The conference, which focused on accessibility and vertical transport elements, has also addressed issues such as the new ITC, social inclusion in which this sector has much to contribute, accessibility which is a topic in which Hidral is focusing our efforts and resources thanks to our accessibility division Acros by Hidral, the digital transformation applied to accessibility, as well as architectural and structural solutions for the installation of lifts

Jose Carlos Frechilla, General Director of FEEDA, opened the day followed by the words of welcome from Mr. Antonio Pérez, President of FEEDA, and Mr. José Manuel Prieto, Deputy Director General of Industrial Quality of the Ministry of Industry, who opened the event; In addition, Mr. Manuel Jiménez, member of the Commission of Communication and Statistics of FEEDA, acted as moderator throughout the day.

The whole day revolved around the importance of lifts in the lives of citizens as the key to mobility and accessibility. In particular, Mr. Íñigo de la Serna, Director General of Madrid Green Urban Mobility Lab and former Minister of Public Works (of the Government of Spain 2016-2018), stressed that the elevator sector represents a fundamental part of urban mobility because of what it is able to contribute, and highlighted the importance of recovering this social discourse in the field of mobility and accessibility legislation and in the sector in general.

Other important guests at the event were Elena Moya, vice-president of the Association Against Meningitis (AEM) and Irene López, secretary and delegate of AEM in Extremadura and Western Andalusia. The AEM spoke about the possible consequences of this disease and the key role that the lift plays in people's lives. In this sense, we had the testimony of Irene López, who explained that: "until you see yourself in a situation like this you are not aware of how important it is to have a lift in your life".

For his part, Mr. Jose Antonio Delgado, head of industrial quality and safety of the Ministry of Industry mentioned that they are working on a single regulatory framework at national level to further improve the quality of maintenance of lifting equipment, working closely with FEEDA.

Later, the attendees enjoyed a round table discussion, with the participation of: Carmen Fernández, technical architect of the Universal Accessibility and Innovation Area of the ONCE Foundation, Miguel Castillo, technical director of Carlos Silva, Ricard Bou, Global Director of Strategic Projects of Nayar and Carlos Guembe, from FEEDA's Digitalisation Commission.

This round table highlighted the positive impacts of digital transformation on accessibility through different perspectives and digital solutions in order to "be able to integrate and expand the use of the lift to a part of society with disabilities that until now had found it very difficult to use this means of transport". Later on, José-María Obis, president of the Legislation and Regulations Commission, took up with the new ITC. He indicated the urgency of accelerating the implementation of these measures to improve accessibility due to the rapid increase in the average age of the population, which will make Spain one of the longest-living countries in the world (in 2006, 8% of the population will be over 75 years old, and in 2040 this percentage will increase to 15). According to Obis, "we must continue to work on universal accessibility".

In one of the last presentations, Jesús Hernández, Director of Architecture at Estudio Lamela, explained how mobility and accessibility are being developed in Smart Cities, through a new project that is being developed in Madrid.

Eduardo Agustino, Director Architect at Gesproin, spoke about real cases and complex architectural solutions. And Jesús Guijarro, Operations Manager at HIPUR, presented structural solutions for the installation of lifts in existing buildings.

To close the event, Mr. Jose María García, Vice-Minister of Housing and Territorial Planning of the Community of Madrid, highlighted the fundamental role of the lift in our way of life and took the opportunity to announce that: "52 million euros will be specifically earmarked for the mobilisation of lift installations, thanks to a specific line for accessibility". This measure is expected to result in 4000 new lifts being installed in buildings that do not have them in the next 3 years. He also invited the sector to establish a dialogue with the different administrations to achieve these objectives.

Hidral participated as a collaborating partner of FEEDA with a stand in which members of our commercial team were present, as well as the director of Acros by Hidral (our accessibility division) and her team, because in Hidral we believe that universal accessibility is a priority for our society and we want to do our part to make it a reality as soon as possible.