SINTRAS Dinner Debate: “Towards a Single and Innovative European Transport System” – 27 September 2016, European Parliament

To support the Commission in working towards a single and innovative European transport system, a SINTRAS study identify the barriers which impede the use of innovation and new technology to build a truly optimised single European transport system and propose actions which will help to tackle these barriers and thus accelerate progress towards such an optimised system.

The European Commission set out a new European transport strategy in its 2011 White Paper. This White Paper stressed the role of innovation and new technology in strengthening European transport. It also pointed out that the development and adoption of new technology is hampered by barriers due, at least in part, to the fragmented nature of Europe’s transport system. There is a need to understand in more detail the nature and causes of these barriers and thus be able to identify actions to overcome them.

A Consortium led by the Joint Institute for Innovation Policy, and including TPF and Rupprecht Consult has been tasked to carry out this study, called SINTRAS.

The study team has collected the views and opinions of the stakeholders in Europe, across modalities, and across different themes and the focus areas of the study:

  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

After the stocktaking, the stakeholder involvement activities and the analysis of the information collected, the study is now moving towards defining a roadmap and action plan (for each of the five focus areas). This action plan will be complementary to and feed into the Strategic Transport Research and Innovation Agenda (STRIA).

The dinner debate in the European Parliament is organised in order to have a debate on the political climate to tackle the different barriers and move towards a single and innovative European transport system.

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