AG4 - 7th Action Group Meeting

On 15 and 16 March the 7th Action Group 4 Meeting took place in Innsbruck. The Vice President and Councillor for Mobility of Tyrol Mrs. Ingrid Felipe and Mr. Robert Müller, Head of the Infrastructure Department of Tyrol welcomed the participants and highlighted the importance of the topics of the AG4 for Tyrol. Mrs. Felipe explained that traffic was an important issue during the recent elections in Tyrol and underlined the importance of cooperation for the Alpine Region. This year, special attention will be given to EUSALP as Tyrol holds the Presidency of the macro-regional strategy.

The host of the 3rd Mobility Conference Trentino informed members that this year’s edition will take place on 20 June in Trento. The focus topic will be “Secondary Networks”.

Furthermore a new approach for a common methodology for a systematic assessment of individual projects within AG4 was presented and discussed. It was agreed that a task force is to be formed, consisting of selected AG4 members. The development of the methodology shall be accompanied by an independent moderator.

The ARPAF project “CrossBorder” which is a joint project between AG4 and AG5 focusing on analysing cross-border commuter mobility in the Alpine Region. With a total budget of € 680.000, the project partners will require input by AG4 members on identifying hotspots of cross-border commuter traffic and data collection for the analysis of existing networks.

The second day was opened by presentations of AG4 members. The Interreg project SmartLOGI about smart and sustainable cross-border transport was presented by project partner Friuli Venezia Giulia. The project area is between Italy and Austria with the intention to enhance cross border multimodal freight transport. Tyrol informed members about the dosing system which is a temporary measure to ensure traffic fluidity and safety on the Inn valley motorway. On selected days, HGV are stopped at the Bavarian-Tyrolian border to allow a maximum of 300 HGV per hour to enter Tyrol.

Public acceptance represents an important issue for AG4. Thus AG4 already developed and presented a “Conflict Map”. In next steps the map will be complemented with additional conflicts sent by regions and the map will be digitalised. Additionally a press review for the evaluation of public perception per conflict should be added. The organisation of a dialogue event was also proposed.

Members agreed to commission an external study giving an overview of existing pricing components for road and rail freight transport in the Alpine Region. The study that shall be concluded by autumn 2018 should lead to recommendations for further developing modal shift policies.

The meeting concluded with a discussion on the updated AG4 Work Plan for the submission to the EUSALP Executive Board. The 8th meeting of the EUSALP AG4 will take place on 19 June 2018 in Trento.