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LINK - The European Forum on Intermodal Passenger Travel
The LINK project aims at the creation of a European Forum on Intermodal Passenger Travel. The project is funded by the European Commission and has recently been launched (April 2007) within FP6.
It will last 3 years but the intention is to sustain this platform after that time.
An enhanced intermodality in passenger transport is one key to a more efficient and integrated transport system which improves the ease of travelling while at the same time minimising environmental impact. The current trends of growing long-distance traffic by road and air and stagnating rail and local public transport lead to an unsustainable imbalance.
Intermodality - the combination of different transport modes on a single journey - is a challenge, a principle and a vision.
The current status in Europe is heterogeneous; to travel across Europe on a single ticket and provided with door-to-door information is a splendid vision but in reality often very difficult. One major challenge that must be met if we are to achieve this vision is to align cooperation with competition. The study “Towards Passenger Intermodality in the EU”, commissioned by the European Commission ending 2004, proposed amongst others the creation of a Forum to bring together the stakeholders to overcome market and policy fragmentation. The main tasks of this Forum are to provide a platform for exchange, knowledge transfer and the promotion of intermodal solutions.
The LINK Forum is composed by 17 experienced and, concerning the different transport modes, impartial partners from 13 countries in Europe. It aims to become a communication node between authorities, associations, operators and user groups at different levels. It fills a current gap by serving as a focal point of a European network for passenger intermodality. Its impact on the European transport sector will depend on its ability to tie in the most important stakeholders and the link to other support actions. The Passenger Intermodality study which has been carried out by some of the LINK partners in 2004 provides a good starting point with an overview on the state-of-the-art in passenger intermodality across Europe.
A first task for the Forum will be to conduct public consultations amongst stakeholders and experts in this field. For this exercise, the Consortium is seeking the collaboration of organisations that would be interested in one or various topics under study and that would be willing to send us a feedback concerning their interests, opinions, main problems or difficulties, best practices, etc.
Stakeholders will have different opportunities to be involved in the Intermodality Forum:
1.Receiving regular information on the progress and results of the Forum.
2.Participating in the consultation process, sending us feedback to our three survey rounds will enrich the Forum (Initial Consultation: July - September 2007).
3.Active participation as experts in some of the Network activities, for example participating in Working Groups, Workshops or Conferences.
The core of the Forum activities lies in Passenger Intermodality Network activities which include conferences, national workshops and five Working Groups, each with a different intermodal focus:
- 1.door-to-door information and ticketing
- 2.intermodal networks and interchanges
- 3.integration of long distance transport and the “last urban mile”
- 4.planning and implementation
- 5.context conditions
The Working Groups want to bring together different kinds of mostly practical stakeholders: administrations, politicians, operators, researchers, users groups and the industry in order to develop practical strategies for rolling out high quality passenger intermodality.
A Knowledge and Promotion Centre will structure and monitor research as a key for better understanding as well as dissemination, including a best practice database and a virtual library that will soon be available on the project’s website www.linkforum.eu under construction.
The third and last task will outline the strategy for policy support to develop the LINK Forum into a self-sustaining organisation in the long term that will make intermodality an important topic on the political agenda as well as a reality for passengers.
The National Focal Point in Romania is URTP.
Contact person for URTP – Doina Anastase |
