Project Details

Project goal

SINTRAS was a service contract for the European Commission (DG MOVE, C2) and pursued two main objectives:

1. To identify the barriers which impede the use of innovation and new technology to build a truly optimised single European transport system;
2. To propose actions which will help to tackle these barriers and thus accelerate progress towards such an optimised system.

The research process was based on desk research but also – and importantly – on various stakeholder involvement techniques, most notably interviews, online Surveys and five Focus Groups all across Europe (Warsaw, London, Berlin, Madrid, Helsinki). Rupprecht Consult was in Charge of organising all these stakeholder interaction activities. (This Approach was similar to the one deployed during the <link http: www.transforum-project.eu resources library.html _blank>TRANSFORuM project, which Rupprecht Consult coordinated between 2013 and 2015.)

Results

SINTRAS addressed the following five thematic areas:

1. Connected driving and automation of transport, and use of automated optimisation of traffic flows
2. Transformation of infrastructure to address connectivity, resilience, new fuels and energy efficiency
3. Smart mobility services (including provision and use of data, and urban mobility), freight and logistics
4. Standardisation and interoperability
5. Alternative fuels other than electrification

We at Rupprecht Consult were responsible for the thematic areas number 1 and 3, connected and automated transport and smart mobility services. For each thematic area, the SINTRAS team developed a thorough “state of play” report (Task 1), gathered evidence to understand barriers (Task 2) and developed a detailed Action Plan (Task 3) which included cost-benefit analyses of proposed actions, roadmaps, action plans and progress indicators.

The SINTRAS team also produced 23 thorough country-specific studies to understand the different national status quos, challenges, actor landscape and technological as well as political priorities. Rupprecht Consult was responsible to conduct these country studies for Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria (the latter three with significant contributions from local partners in the respective countries).

Project partners

• Joint Institute for Innovation Policy (JIIP) aisbl, Brussels, Belgium
• Tecnalia, Derio, Spain
• VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Espoo, Finland
• Technology Partners Foundation, Warsaw, Poland
• Rupprecht Consult GmbH, Cologne, Germany