On 19 June 2018 the 8th Action Group 4 meeting took place in Trento. The host Mauro Gilmozzi, Councillor of the autonomous Province of Trento for Infrastructure and Environment, welcomed all participants. He underlined the importance of cooperation for the Alpine Region.
The Action Group Leader informed the members about the EUSALP Annual Forum on 20-21 November 2018. The overall topic of this year`s Forum is Shaping.future.together. – for the next generation. The AG4 plans a game like a “virtual journey through the Alps” in which students get the chance to experience the problems of cross-border mobility in the Alpine Region. The AG4 will also organise a joint workshop with AG5 about solutions for cross-border commuter mobility at local level and ICT enabling factors, building on the ARPAF project “CrossBorder”.
The ideas, visions and proposals of young people living in the Alpine Region are an important input in shaping the mobility of the future. Furthermore, the youth is an important stakeholder to bring forward ideas and needs to design future mobility concepts for the Alpine Region. On those grounds the AG4 agreed to accept the CIPRA Youth Council as Member in Advisory Role to the AG4.
AG4 has tendered a study giving an overview of existing pricing components (Activity B2) that influence the competitiveness between road and rail freight transport. The study will provide an overview on the broader pricing framework with recommendations to promote modal shift from road to rail. The invitation to tender is ongoing and results of the study will be available in November 2018.
The long-term tendency of cargo flows from and to East Asia that links with Europe shift from North Sea to Mediterranean ports because of the economic and ecological pressure. Furthermore a lack of empty containers may occur at terminals due to unbalanced quantities of import and export in the different Alpine Regions. For these reasons it was agreed to tender a preparatory study to investigate and optimise multi-modal logistic chains (Activity C2) from and to the Alpine Region.
For the activity interconnecting public transport information and ticketing (Activity D2) the project STRIPE with the aim to develop an alpine wide cross border travel information system was presented at the 3rd Interreg ASP call in autumn 2017. The project was not selected. A major aspect of the criticisms was the unbalanced representation of members in the project partner consortium, mostly representing partners from the eastern part of the Alpine Region. The AG4 decided to develop a new project proposal which will be presented at the 4th ASP call in autumn 2018. New partners and observers are welcome to join the project consortium.
The task force for the development of a common methodology for a systematic assessment of individual projects (Activity C1-C2-D1) has started their work. Results from the first conference call were presented. The tender for an independent moderator to accompany the work and to bring in new methods of discussion has been sent out to selected experts. The task force will continue its work together with the moderator after the summer break.
In the frame of AG4 Work Plan activity on interconnecting public transport operation (Activity D1) the Leaders of AG4 and AG5 have launched the ARPAF project “CrossBorder” focusing on the analysis of cross-border commuter mobility in the Alpine Region. A study has been commissioned to Prof. Chilla from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He gave an update about the study which focuses on data collection in the different cross-border regions. Members have been asked to contribute to the data collection to identify commuter flows between Alpine countries. The analysis will identify the main hotspots of cross-border commuting in the areas where this phenomenon is most acute in terms of lack of infrastructure.
The Interreg Alpine Space project “e-Moticon” (“e-MObility Transnational strategy for an Interoperable COmmunity and Networking in the Alpine Space”) presented by the project coordinator Cristina Cavicchioli. The project addresses the problem of low use of electromobility and will offer concrete implementation measures and outputs in the Alpine Space. The outputs of e-Moticon will be a white paper on innovative electric charging stations across the Alpine Space as well as a toolbox that anticipates the electric charging stations network requirements including tests in three common pilot actions.
In the afternoon two workshops on secondary networks and modal shift and on secondary networks and accessibility were held in parallel in preparation of the 3rd EUSALP AG4 Mobility Conference on the following day. Technical experts presented the different sub-topics from the discussion paper outlining the importance of secondary networks for the Alpine Region. The key results of the workshops were consequently presented at the 3rd Mobility Conference.
The 9th AG4 meeting will take place on 6-7 November 2018 in Brussels.
Piazza Dante 15, Trento
