Transport Research and Innovation Portal

13 Sep 2012: 

CORPUS – Enhancing the Connectivity between Research and Policy-making in Sustainable Consumption – a European project funded under FP7, has published its research agenda after extensive consideration. The overall goal of the research agenda is to develop and suggest a path of present and future research needs in order to help achieve sustainable mobility in Europe.In effect, about 100 people across Europe contributed to the formulation of the agenda, which presents hot topics in research for each of the following five themes:

• Inter-modality
• Planning
• New types of mobility and mobility management
• Behavioural aspects of sustainable mobility
• Internalisation of externalities

For more information, please refer to the CORPUS Research Agenda.

13 Sep 2012: 

The DELIVER project, part of the European Green Cars Initiative, serves to explore and identify conceptual design options for fully electric light commercial vehicles in urban areas. The active project, funded by the European Commission, has recently released key design concepts, to facilitate the roadmap for 2020 and beyond. The new reports are available for download on the DELIVER project website.

13 Sep 2012: 

A new opportunity for public involvement is available from Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE). Take part in shaping European Energy policy by answering the Interactive Policy Making (IPM) online questionnaire. This public consultation will help shape the research directions and support in the energy field in Horizon 2020.

Click to see more information and related documents.

13 Sep 2012: 

The European Commission has launched a new smartphone app to give travellers further rights and updated information, as part of the Commission’s 'Your passenger rights at hand' campaign. The app covers air and rail transport and will be extended to bus and marine travel in 2013.

You may download the app or find more information here. Smart phone users can also access the app through this QR code:

13 Sep 2012: 

The last calls under FP7 have been published on the European Commission Participant Portal. They cover various transport research topics including infrastructures, smart cities, air transport, sustainable surface transport, and more.

You can access all open calls online.

13 Sep 2012: 

On 16 - 17 July, Vice-President Kallas met with transport and telecommunications ministers in Nicosia to discuss how to make intelligent transport systems a reality.

Vice-President Siim Kallas commented:

'We need to develop European multimodal journey planners and other ITS applications in Europe. To make the best use of all existing transport modes and infrastructure, we need to ensure the availability, accessibility and exchange of all relevant information, such as schedules, capacity, and paths. The Commission will put forward ideas to support the private sector in developing multimodal transport planning and information services across Europe. This will allow new services like route planners or smart reservation and payment to spread for both passengers and freight, going beyond national borders and offering alternative transport modes.'

By focusing on 'open data', across transport systems, the EC hopes to help alleviate congestion, which is expected to increase along with the inevitable rise in freight and passenger transport by 2020.

More information on the meeting can be found online.

13 Sep 2012: 

On 10 July, the European Commission announced the launch of an innovation partnership for smart cities and communities. By partnering with cities and combining resources for research from the energy, transport, and ICT sectors, the Commission aims to facilitate the development of smart innovative technologies.

Vice-President Siim Kallas, responsible for transport, noted:

'Transport is the lifeblood of every city for people and business. But Europe's cities suffer most from road accidents, congestion, poor air quality and noise. We need to drive forwards the research and innovation that can bring us to our goals of CO2-free cities, phasing out conventionally fuelled cars from city centres, to smart charging of electric vehicles and smokeless silent buses.'

For more information, please refer to the press release.