Project Details

Project goal

In 2011 the European Commission issued the <link http: ec.europa.eu transport themes strategies _blank white paper>White Paper “Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area - Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system” which spells out ten goals to be achieved by 2050. The TRANSFORuM project aimed to contribute to this transformation process, in particular to the implementation of the following four key goals of the Transport White Paper:

• Clean Urban Transport and CO2‐free city logistics (goal 1)
• Shift of road freight to rail and waterborne transport (goal 3)
• Complete and maintain the European high‐speed rail network (goal 4)
• European multimodal information, management and payment system (goal 8)

TRANSFORuM intended to do this by engaging key actors in a stakeholder forum in order to determine bottleneck factors, the need for policy interventions and to identify options for synergistic co-operation among them. “Stakeholders” were actors who are directly involved in the implementation of innovative policies and measures, including representatives of networks and initiatives which are already strongly involved in shaping European transport policy.

TRANSFORuM was run by a consortium of well‐connected yet independent and experienced policy advisers and researchers from across Europe, who offered a “fresh approach” to this task. The project’s overarching concept was based on proven consultation techniques revolving around a synergistic combination of ten moderated workshops, qualitative in-depth interviews and a set of online discussion tools. The consortium’s eleven partners were all widely acknowledged experts in their field and pursued a carefully orchestrated division of labour, structured into four related thematic groups and seven cross-cutting work packages.

Results

The project’s key outputs were a dovetailed set of the following documents, all of which were based on stakeholder input and written with a clear focus on practical and political relevance:

• Roadmaps (on all four thematic areas) show feasible pathways for reaching short‐ to mid‐term goals (to 2030). Their target  audience includes companies, technology platforms, research and innovation communities, public sector organisations and the European Commission itself as an important catalyst for action. The roadmaps provide:
  • analysis of the status quo
  • descriptions of measures to be taken
  • timetables with milestones
  • indicators of progress/success
  • actors to be involved
  • required resources and financing schemes
  • remaining open issues to be solved in further activities
• Recommendations to translate the technical and thematic information of the roadmaps into concrete steps to be taken by policy makers, industry leaders, NGOs and other decision makers.
• A detailed strategic outlook into with a long-term perspective (roughly 2030‐2050). It replicates the structure of the roadmap but will have a “vision” character, illustrating a possible European transport system of 2050.

TRANSFORuM had built-in mechanisms to disseminate these results to a wide audience through attractively produced, freely and conveniently accessible documents, online platforms, internal and external mailing lists, personal contacts, social media, live presentations etc.

Project partners

• Rupprecht Consult GmbH, Cologne, Germany
• VTI - Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, Linköping, Sweden
• University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland
• CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LET - Transport Economics Laboratory, Lyon, France
• Université Lumière Lyon 2, Lyon, France
• AustriaTech, Federal Agency for Technological Measures Ltd., Vienna, Austria
• Technical University of Denmark, Department of Transport - DTU, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
• University of Oxford, Transport Studies Unit, Oxford, United Kingdom
• CDV - Centrum dopravního výzkumu, v.v.i., Transport Research Centre, Brno, Czech Republic
• KTH - Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm, Sweden
• Karlsruher Institut für Technologie - KIT, Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe, Germany
• TOI - Transportøkonomisk institutt, Institute of Transport Economics, Oslo, Norway
• Institut d'études politiques de Lyon - IEP, Sciences Po Lyon, Lyon, France