White Paper on Transport

TRANSFORuM contributed to the transformation of the European transport system towards more competitiveness and resource-efficiency. It did so by engaging key stakeholders in carefully moderated forum activities and through other consultation measures in order to identify their views about the challenges, barriers, trends, opportunities and win-win potentials in shaping the future European transport system. 

Project Goals

In 2011 the European Commission issued the 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 contributed 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 engaged key actors in various stakeholder forums in order to determine bottleneck factors, the need for policy interventions and to identify options for synergistic co-operation among them. “Stakeholders” are actors who are directly involved in the implementation of innovative policies and measures. This included representatives of networks and initiatives which are already strongly involved in shaping European transport policy as well as “emerging” actors.

TRANSFORuM was run by a consortium of well‐connected but independent and experienced policy advisers and researchers from across Europe, who offer 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 are all widely acknowledged experts in their field and pursued a carefully orchestrated division of labour, structured into four thematic groups and seven cross-cutting work packages.

Results

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

  • Roadmaps 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. They provide:
    • An 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 with a long-term perspective (2030‐2050). It replicates the structure of the roadmaps but has 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.

If you have any comments or questions on TRANSFORuM you can still get in touch.

Project Co-ordinator Project Duration Grant Agreement No.
Rupprecht Consult February 2013 – January 2015 321565
Forschung & Beratung GmbH    
Dr. Ralf Brand    

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 (ATE), 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