A European transport-technology strategy
As Polis wrote on 03 April, EP Members consider that innovation is essential in order to create a smarter, safer and more intelligent transport system for the public, meet the environmental challenges facing the transport sector and achieve a low-carbon economy. With the adopted resolution, the EP insisted that the Commission and the Council recognise the importance of the Horizon 2020 initiative and finance it adequately.
In addition, members of the EP stressed that Union policies should be technologically neutral with regard to alternative technologies for transport. Harmonisation efforts should not be an obstacle to the development of innovative or alternative solutions in the field of transport.
In particular, the resolution calls for more efficiency in the innovation chain and more economic incentives to overcome barriers to deployment and market uptake. It requires stronger support for the R&I activities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and greater simplification of the administrative procedures for research and innovation funding.
The EP considers that R&I in the area of sustainable mobility should focus on interregional connections and cross-border missing links (interconnections), interoperability between systems and inter- and co-modality. The Parliament also identified a few areas where more research is necessary:
- technologies in the fields of mobility demand and behavioural change aimed at better control of transport flows in order to improve safety for all road users, in particular the most vulnerable ones;
- cleaner power for transport and mobility technologies, in particular more efficient concepts and better vehicle design;
- innovative solutions for reduction of noise from all transport modes;
- multimodal transport through integrated and electronic information and ticketing schemes;
- greater development of information, payment and reservation systems, and more specifically for disabled people and persons with reduced mobility (PRMs).
Finally, the resolution called upon investing in Intelligent Transport System (ITS) research.
The Resolution can be found here.
The Communication from the Commission can be accessed here.