Croatian Motorways (HAC) and the City of Zagreb have embarked on an extremely expensive joint project to give Zagreb a brand new southern entrance in order to attempt to relieve troublesome traffic issues and jams.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 6th of November, 2019, the construction of the viaduct above the Ranžirni kolodvor (station) should begin next year, giving Zagreb a totally brand new, southern entrance to the city.

This will relieve the Buzin junction and the Velika Gorica road, where huge traffic jams are often created, causing enormous and clearly needless traffic issues when entering the Croatian capital city by road. Those who have usually been using the entrance via Buzin to join or leave the bypass, will be able to do so at the Jakuševac junction after the construction of the viaduct above the Ranžirni kolodvor when the project is completed.

Croatian Motorways (HAC) expects that as much as fifty percent of the traffic from Buzin will be diverted to Jakuševac owing to the construction of this viaduct, which, as stated, will provide enormous relief for drivers entering Zagreb, as the average annual daily traffic between these two junctions is as high as 57,912 vehicles.

According to Vecernji list, HAC and the City of Zagreb are embarking on this joint project that, in addition to the construction of the overpass, of which HAC is in charge, includes the reconstruction of Sarajevo road, which will also receive a new tram line, with the City of Zagreb being responsible for that part. The implementation of the project will also improve the connectivity of the Croatian capital city with its international airport.

The estimated value of the investment stands at an eye-watering 68 million euros. Of this amount, the viaduct and junction on Sarajevo road are worth 48 million euros, while the reconstruction and extension of the road will cost 13.3 million euros in total. On top of all that, the construction of the new tram line would cost 6.7 million euros. Croatian Motorways say they want to launch a viaduct tender early next year and start work by the end of 2020.

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Are you a user of Zagreb's public transport system? We recently updated you on the fact that you can now use Google Maps to see whether or not your ZET bus is going to be late, just how late it's going to be, and whether or not it's wiser to take another, otherwise longer route to arrive at your desired destination.

Whether it's buses or trams that you use for your daily commute, you'll know that the Croatian capital city's system isn't perfect, but a new investment from ZET is set to ensure a reportedly significant improvement for passengers.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 1st of July, 2019, even on existing ZET screens that can be seen dotted along the pavements next to the city's tram lines, the information on what's coming and when isn't always accurate, but passengers can at least (usually) get a general idea of when their bus or tram is set to arrive at their stop.

ZET has announced that they're working on improving this, and that the Zagreb company's brand new displays will be set up at all of the city's tram stops, and they're now in the process of getting even more of them.

As Vecernji list writes, the sixteen brand new ''passenger information display" systems will be set up at stops in the city where it's been uncomfortably known for a while that Zagreb's residents have been able to do little else other than speculate when their bus or tram will finally arrive.

Each of the new ZET displays will cost almost 12,000 each, and it has been estimated that all sixteen new display systems will cost 190,000 kuna.

The information screens themselves, at least according to what has been stated in the tender used to select a contractor, should arrive in Zagreb within two months, meaning that after the summer, they should definitely be fully in place and operational.

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A sigh of relief as the long-awaited and much anticipated Zagreb on the Sava project finally gets underway, and there's even been talk of an opening date.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of June, 2019, the "Zagreb on Sava" (Zagreb na Savi) manifestation will take place at three locations on the south and north river coasts of two popular Zagreb bridges, Most Slobode (Freedom bridge) and at the so-called Hendrix's bridge.

Rather unsurprisingly, this Zagreb project failed to begin on June the 19th, as was recently announced by the City of Zagreb, and there's now a brand new date for the opening of the long-awaited "Zagreb on Sava", Vecernji list writes, with accompanying photos.

The planned summer program set to be held on the banks of the Sava river which runs through Zagreb should, at least according to Sanje Cvjetko Jerković, head of the capital city's strategic planning office, begin on July the 5th this year.

The installation of the assembly pavilions has already been completed, and part of the planned activities, she said, will also be organised earlier. - The holiday program, called Odmorko, which is for children who intend to spend their school holidays in Zagreb, is set to begin in the next few days, claims Sanja Cvjetko Jerković.

The schedule for this year's summer has been published on the website of the Zagreb School Sports Association, which is organising the "Odmorko" program on the south side of the Sava river, next to Freedom bridge. According to them, from the 26th of June to the 12th of July, volleyball on the sand can be played. In addition, the Croatian flying disk alliance will organise the playing of various sports with discs on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Various other events have been organised and arranged within the scope of this much anticipated Zagreb summer manifestation, and as previously mentioned, when finally complete, "Zagreb on Sava" will take place in three locations.

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As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 7th of June, 2019, Venice is sinking, the Berlin metro is going to collapse into the earth, and the surface of the earth has risen in some places by up to two metres after the earthquake in Japan and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima - all this is what we know today thanks to the European Space Agency and the European Commission - Copernicus, worth more than ten billion euros, and presented recently at the premises of the Croatian Employers' Association in Zagreb.

This ambitious program monitors the atmosphere, the oceans, and the earth's land surface, it is based on a satellite system designed for observing the earth, and the use and application of its data open up great opportunities for the Croatian economy.

At the program's presentation, prof. dr. sc. Željko Bačić from the Zagreb Geodetic Faculty highlighted the fact that the European Commission's studies show that by the year 2030, in terms of jobs directly related to Copernicus, as many as 48,000 work positions will be opened.

"By 2035, EO-based business and services will be worth 131 billion euros. Since Croatia represents 1 percent of the EU, we can draw a parallel and say that in Croatia alone, this segment of digital business should amount to 1.3 billion euros, which is now the volume of the total IT business in Croatia,'' Bačić said.

"We're well aware that information today is extremely important, but information that is spatially defined is of particular importance and concerns the geodetic profession. Geoinformatics is taking on an increasingly important role and combines classical geodesy and information technology, and geodetic and information technology companies are increasingly growing.

The interest of our profession is the faster development of geoinformatics. Here I see the potential and the prosperity for the economy and for the general population. We're happy to be involved in this project and we gladly responded to it. Collaboration with academic institutions is of utmost importance, so, we can see the importance of this project,'' said Željko Perić, president of the HUP Association of Geodetic Geoinformatics.

According to Boris Dril, President of the HUP Association for Information and Communication, this program is an excellent fit to the national coalition for digital skills and jobs, with the aim of developing an information and communication economy in Croatia. "It's not a scientific project in a lab that is only relevant to a narrower circle of people, but a research product to be applied to real life and show its value," Drilo stated.

To briefly recall, Copernicus was initially created to develop earth-based information services, satellite and in-situ data analysis, and the various services it provides helps to correctly address some of the most difficult environmental challenges we face today, such as food safety, sea levels rising, natural disasters, urbanisation, glaciers melting, and the comprehensive topic of climate change.

This Zagreb conference was taken from Estonia's shining example, which used its data to check if farmers were actually following the basic conditions for the use of agricultural subsidies. In this way, Copernicus helped to reduce the misuse of subsidies, and the savings yielded from that side of things alone amounted to about 500,000 euros a year.

It was also used for the mapping of groundwater floods in Ireland. Thanks to Copernicus, flood data can now be collected at a level that was previously considered inaccessible and thus provided timely information to the relevant bodies. Sentinel satellites used in the program can also be useful in discovering hidden cultural heritage sites for which we've searched for decades, as well point to hidden archaeological artefacts.

"Unlimited ways of applying this fascinating data that can strongly affect the future of the earth will soon be able to be contributed to by Croatian developers, entrepreneurs, and professionals of various profiles, as well as students and students through Copernicus Hackathon, a 24-hour contest where teams will create applications for data use,'' said Copernicus Hackathon's organiser, Zvonimir Nevistić, from the Zagreb Geodetic Faculty.

The aforementioned contest will be held on October the 23rd and 24th this year, with the aim of creating content that can significantly improve the quality of life, the economy, or the environmental protection in the chosen area of ​​application.

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June the 3rd, 2019 - For many years, Zagreb was all but bypassed by tourists who knew of Croatia only for its sunshine and sea. While the glorious Adriatic coast is still very much the main lure for the majority of tourists who visit Croatia every year, particularly in summer, continental Croatia, which includes the Croatian capital, has seen a massive increase in tourism over recent years.

Croatia is far, far more than just the sea. Declared the best advent destination in all of Europe for three years running, beautiful and quirky Zagreb is now very much on the tourism radar. An increasing number of tourists from all over the world now flock to the capital, particularly when it's at its most magical - in winter. 

From skiing on Sljeme during winter to hiking up it during the spring, Croatia's capital has it all. Bars, cafes, restaurants, parks, museums and chances for outdoor recreation are just a small part of what makes the Croatian capital so interesting to tourists from far and wide. Often labelled a ''cheaper Vienna'', funky Zagreb, full of character, is still wrongly overlooked by many. 

The Zagreb as we know it today, bustling and full of the sounds of blue trams making their way through the city's streets like urban snakes would pass through a concrete jungle, is and isn't a far cry from the way the Croatian capital once looked.

While the sights and sounds may have changed somewhat, there are some things that have remained the same despite the passage of time. One of the obvious changes is of course less graffiti about Dinamo scrawled on the walls of some of the city's more dilapidated facades, and another is a lack of brutal and soulless yet somehow still bizarrely beautiful socialist-era buildings which now dominate Zagreb's skyline along with ultra modern high-rise hotels, banks, and office buildings.

Take a trip back in time to Zagreb circa 1929-1930 with ZG express and FilmImages:

ZG express

FilmImages

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More than excellent news for the Croatian job market and the domestic economy as a whole as as many as 600 jobs are set to be opened in Zagreb County thanks to a huge investment.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 29th of May, 2019, parts for the aviation giants Boeing and Airbus will be produced in the Republic of Croatia. The parts will be incorporated into the world's most famous aircraft and their engines, including names like Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, and Rolls-Royce. The news was announced on Wednesday by Večernji list, citing that the Austrian aeronautical company FACC is beginning to construct a production plant for the interior parts of planes in the business zone of Jakovlje in Zagreb County, close to the Croatian capital of Zagreb.

The investment is worth a massive 33 million euros and will open up 600 jobs. The land has already been purchased, the necessary permissions and the permit have been granted and the construction has begun. The plant should be completed by the end of 2020 and production at the plant will commence in 2021.

This great news has also been confirmed by the head of the aforementioned Austrian company Robert Machtlinger, who stated that FACC wants to grow and be quicker than the market and intends to work on strengthening the expertise of its employees. "Zagreb is offering us this because it has a highly qualified workforce," he added.

The company chose between different locations in Central and Eastern Europe and ultimately decided on Zagreb. The sale contract has already been signed, and the Austrian company has become the owner of the land in the Jakovlje business area, totalling 130 thousand square metres.

Vecernji list also revealed that a meeting will take place on Wednesday in Banski Dvori where the President of FACC AGI's management board and the president of AVIC Cabin Systems Co. Limited from China, a company which owns 55.5 percent of the Austrian company, will talk to Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Economy Minister Darko Horvat and State Secretary Zdenk Lucić about the project implementation and everything that goes into the planning and licensing phase.

The plan is that construction work on the plant will be completed by December 2020, and production will begin no later than April 2021, according to Dnevnik.

As a daughter company of the Chinese state-owned company Aviation Industry Corporation of China, one of the ten largest Chinese companies, FACC, based in Austria, is part of the global market and cooperates with world leaders in the aviation industry such as Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Rolls-Royce. FACC is otherwise a company with more than 3,400 employees from 38 countries which work in thirteen locations worldwide, Vecernji list writes.

They added that un the financial year 2018/2019, they earned 781.6 million euros in revenue, an increase of 4.5 percent compared to the previous financial year, and also the best result in the company's thirty-year history.

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Zagreb has many beautiful parks, with the most heavily frequented being the likes of Maksimir and Bundek to name just a couple of them, but there is one other park which is much lesser known than either of the previously mentioned; Grad mladih, located in the eastern zone of Dubrava which longtime Zagreb mayor Milan Bandić has his eye on.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/VLM writes on the 28th of May, 2019, despite being far less known than let's say, Zrinjevac, Grad mladih is still considered by many to be (or at least have been) a pearl of the City of Zagreb, and after the completion of the announced works, the claims are that it will be more beautiful than the likes of Maksimir, Bundek and Tuškanac put together.

A bold claim indeed, but confidently asserted by Zagreb's Milan Bandić during a visit to the aforementioned Zagreb park, where the first machines set to undetake the work arrived yesterday. They began working on the setting up of a 2.5 kilometre long, 2.2 million kuna fence. Works on the complete revival of the former park, affectionately referred to as ''Pioneer'' will take place in four different phases.

After the fence is in place, a video monitor will be set up, followed by all of the necessary communal infrastructure. The water supply network and hydrant network as well as a proper drainage system will be reconstructed.

Out of a total of 43 facilities located in this Zagreb park, seventeen are empty. This year, at least according to the announcements, twelve of them, for which all of the necessary project documentation is still being prepared, will be repaired and thus restored.

As far as the building there is concerned, more than five thousand square metres will be renovated, which includes the renovation of accommodation facilities, as well as the reception, the halls, the galleries, and the restaurants. In about four years, when these works worth a massive 40 million euros should be completed, this Zagreb park will also receive a hall, new playgrounds and a swimming pool, the construction was initially planned back in 1948 when ''Pioneer Town'' was built.

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Click here for the original article by VLM on Poslovni Dnevnik

As Suzana Varosanec/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 23rd of May, 2019, investors have recognised the potential, which for the Port of Rijeka, means a step forward to the leading container-logistics centre in the Northern Adriatic.

With new investments, Rijeka is being returned to the former position that it once enjoyed at the tail end of the 1970's, when it was a large and significant port centre. Those have been the type of messages sent to the director of the Rijeka Port Authority, Denis Vukorepa, on the occasion of the completion of the Zagreb Deep Sea Container Terminal (Zagreb DSCT) project in the Port of Rijeka.

There has been a great level of interest from potential concessionaires, including as many as seven of the world's largest operators from Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. Officially, the Chinese, and also the CRBC which is currently building Pelješac Bridge, have made themselves known.

The Minister of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butković, will also visit the terminal at which the works are taking place today. To briefly recall, the most important capital project in the Rijeka Gateway Project II, worth 112.5 million euros, of which 84 million euro is from a World Bank loan, while 28.5 million euros is financed by the state. However, in addition to those amounts, the Rijeka Port Administration has continued to invest 40-50 million euros in its own investments.

When this part is completed, individual talks are expected in June and July when potential concessionaires will present their respective terminal management concepts.

It's certainly not excluded that the interest for the second phase of the construction of the terminal will gain traction, and for which permits have been prepared. The expected term for the signing of a contract currently stands at the end of September.

Traffic in the Rijeka basin in the container area has increased by about ten percent over more recent years, but a more dynamic growth in freight volumes and cargo flow is expected, which is the subject of interest for rail freight operators, and is expected to attract a larger volume of truck traffic.

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Click here for the original article by Suzana Varosanec for Poslovni Dnevnik

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of May, 2019, the Zagreb software company Ingemark and the RoomOrders startup, launched by Croats despite having been registered in America, created the first application (app) for ordering food from hotels to hotel rooms and started to conquer the many challenges of the huge global market. They began with the development of this application at the end of 2017, and back then, as a pilot project, they first tested it out at the Hilton Hotel in Boston.

According to them, they will launch RoomOrders at the Hilton Sydney hotel, and then in Belgrade's Hilton in Serbia by the end of the month. The application's software, in which 2 million euro has so far been invested was started by the Zagreb-based company Ingemark, which has been in existence since as far back as 1990, and as of 2006, it has specialised in software development by order.

Funds for the application's development have also been withdrawn from EU funds. In the list of references are big clients such as Agrokor, Adris, HT... One of the most significant cooperations was, as they say, one in the Middle East where clients developed a platform that distributed multimedia content, and soon their latest project, ZorroTines, a regional music platform, will see the light of day right here on the Croatian market. Right now, it seems that this Zagreb company's RoomOrders app is going to go very far indeed.

As Eugene Brčić Jones, the marketing and sales manager at RoomOrders revealed, last week at the International Hotel Technology Forum in Zagreb, the company negotiated with numerous hotel industry leaders about integrating their products.

"We've intrigued the leading world chains and deepened the existing relationships, about which we're certain will bring us to the position of ''disrupter'' of the in-room dining segment within the hotel industry," Brčić Jones said, adding that he believes that in several years, it will be present in a number of world hotels which boast 4 and 5 stars.

"With the help of the RoomOrders application, guests in hotels can order food to their rooms in a few clicks and not in the ''old fashioned'' way. In addition to it having a faster mode, hotels can embark on this project without any large investments," explained Ingemark's director Jurica Mikulić, adding that the application has managed to receive some excellent initial customer reviews and financial results for the hotel. Hilton in Boston has increased its average order value by as much as thirty percent.

''We offer a simple solution that not only increases revenue, but promotes hotels through user-generated content and facilitates analytics. The greatest benefit is that this solution can be implemented without disturbances to the processes involved, and it provides almost instantaneous results,'' Brčić Jones added.

The author of the application, Haris Dizdarević, explained that the creation of RoomOrders was triggered by the current rather obsolete ways of ordering and the obvious need for faster selection and the changing of the menu that guests want in the room.

"We realised we should digitise the offer and thus expand it. The simple idea has become a complex but a successful project," said Dizdarević, explaining that the positive signal was the fact that hotel guests continue to use the application after the first time of using it, and for several days in a row. Although they acknowledge that the Croatian market is not really a priority, they're still negotiating with several Croatian hotels in Dubrovnik and with Maistra, Blue Lagoon (Plava Laguna) and Liburna, and that soon, the application will be launched in Sheraton, part of the huge global Marriott hotel chain.

Otherwise, RoomOrders was introduced DoubleTree by Hilton in Zagreb a few months ago, but then it was a modified version of the app.

"With the new application or system, the guest can, as soon as he is given the room after booking, in advance, even when travelling, immediately choose a range of dishes and orders so that it's ready and waiting in the room upon their arrival. The guest doesn't need to order it from the hotel room, they can do it in advance and choose from a simple and flexible application where all the photos, descriptions and the prices of the food and drinks in the hotel's offer are,'' they explain from hotel Sheraton where this new type of offer and service will be on offer by the end of May, which will, as they say, bring about improvements.

"The application also enables sharing of guest experience on the platform, real-time appraisal of food and services so that the hotel can almost react at the same time to all guests' comments and adapt to the current wishes and preferences of the guest," they added from Sheraton.

"We're sure that at some point there will be some competitors in this segment on the market, but we believe that we're strong and already ahead of them all. We're focusing on the development of this product which we want to make perfect. Along with marketing, the analytic component is the most important, to be more concrete, the analysis of the reactions, comments and the number of orders, so, the entire internal process. We hope to conclude this year with good results and continue to expand successfully,'' Brčić Jones concluded.

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Click here for the original article by Lucija Spiljak for Poslovni Dnevnik

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 17th of May, 2019, the regional student competition, held at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, marked the completion of the SIM (P) ATIC PLC + Challenge 2019 project.

This project, initiated by the student association EESTEC and supported by the faculties of electrical engineering in Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia, as well as by no less than Siemens, provides the region's young future engineers with a more detailed insight into the issues that engineers usually encounter in industrial automation in order to better prepare for such work out there in the real world.

Three winning teams, one from each country, as well as the overall regional winner were selected. The winning team from Croatia consists of Karlo Hercigonja, Ivan Ratković and Nikola Benazić from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, from Slovenia, the winners were Urban Aravs, Jernej Štremfelj and Tina Vindiš from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Ljubljana, and from Serbia, the team consists of Uroš Rakonjac, Petar Kovačević and Dejan Bogdanović from the University of Electrical Engineering in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. The regional winner of the competition is the team from Zagreb, Croatia.

Namely, the SIM (P) ATIC PLC + Challenge 2019 competition started back at the beginning of April with theoretical part of the workshop, where university lecturers from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering from Zagreb, Belgrade and Ljubljana held lectures otherwise not covered by the curriculum. In the next phase, the student teams solved the task by which the best two teams in the country qualified for the regional final in Zagreb. Within this competition finale, the finalists presented their respective solutions of the additional part of the task. Each team had ten minutes available to them for their presentations and five minutes to answer the questions from panel members.

Significant knowledge in the field of industrial automation was also demonstrated by other teams, all judged by a panel consisting of three experts from each country.

Each member of the panel evaluated teams from neighbouring countries in the categories of the quality of the created program and their presentation skills. The Croatian members of the panel were prof. dr. sc. Igor Erceg (FER), mr. Sc. Tomislav Pavić (A & C Automation Adria) and B.Sc. Marko Bunić (Siemens), while from Slovenia and Serbia, there were two university professors and one Siemens representative.

"This competition is an excellent example of synergy between faculties, students and economics. Siemens wants to support projects that encourage the development of professional and practical knowledge of future engineers from this area because we're also strategically focused on the areas of automation and digitisation, which were the cornerstone of this competition,'' said Medeja Lončar of Siemens at the award ceremony.

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