Brussels, 11/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - The conference Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2014, to be held in Paris from 14 to 17 April, will be the opportunity to present “the best projects” recently carried out in the framework of transport research funded by the EU. The European Commission will also take the opportunity to present the new framework programme for research and innovation under Horizon 2020. Just over 8% of the budget for this programme, or around €6.3 billion, is to be earmarked for this sector.
The Commission wishes to present several research projects. These include the project Marathon (with a financial contribution of €2.7 million from the EU), which aims to group together freight trains in order to increase their capacity whilst reducing costs. CityMobil2 (€9.5 million) aims to prepare Europe for the revolution of driverless trains, whilst the project Ofav (€1.7 million) aims for similar, but for cars. Euraxles (€2.9 million) seeks to reduce the risk of accidents by focusing on deficiencies in car axles. Ulysses (€2.3 million) hopes to prove that it is possible to improve the efficiency of the global merchant fleet, by combining a reduction of navigation speeds with the use of complementary technologies (wind energy, engine optimisation). Designing a clean combustion engine is the stated aim of Clean-ICE (€1.9 million). Faster (€2.4 million) features a study into the atmospheric nanoparticles emitted by road vehicles, particularly those with diesel engines, and is a complement to the project Widemob (€2.6 million), to design a light electric vehicle for urban use.
These are just a few examples. As the Commission points out, the EU invested €4.2 billion between 2007 and 2013 in 620 research projects related to transport, involving more than 8,300 participants from 69 different countries. Investments of this kind will continue with the Horizon 2020 framework programme, which features a budgetary line called “Smart, green and integrated transport”.
The TRA14 is jointly organised by the Commission, the European Conference of Roads Directors, three European Technology Platforms for research in the road, rail and waterborne sectors, and the French Ministry for Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transport and Energy. (JK)