As a part of LivingRAIL project, three workshop with experts were held in January

Two workshops were held in Bruxelles and one in Madrid during January. In these workshop experts gave their opinios on visions and the ways to achieve them regarding the Railway system evolution, Policies, Spatial Concepts and Urban Design and European Experiences on Rail Transport Market Regulation. Project will continue with the upcoming workshops regarding the Sustainable Europe and the railway systems inside until the year 2050.

Just as a reminder, research project LivingRail will develop practical measures and recommendations in a roadmap – or rather: a railmap – showing possible pathways for implementing them. The RAILmap for realising the vision for rail in 2050 is targeted mainly at policy makers and the railway sector because these stakeholders are key to future developments.

Roadmapping is a pragmatic but powerful instrument for planning and forecasting future developments which emerged from operating in practice. It is formed from technologies or products, and their connections over time and visualises complex operational strategies in a standardised framework.

You can read mora about the project here http://www.livingrail.eu/ and here http://www.szz.hr/en/projects/livingrail-eu-project

In three stakeholder workshops held in January 2014, the LivingRAIL project invited international experts from science and rail companies to discuss promising measures and policies to boost railways market share to the EU White Paper targets within the three and a half decades ahead.

The lesson we learned: No matter which path we chose, there will be no one-fits-all solution. The railways can only turn around the stagnating trend of market shares by a broad mix of productivity, customer orientation, capacity generation and environmental friendliness, seconded by strong policy measures prioritising green mobility.

Concerning the feasibility of the EU White Paper targets, i.e. 50% of all trips and consignments in urban and medium distance inter-urban travel on rail by 2050, the experts deemed the targets as a high level goal. But there was agreement that even if we achieve only parts of it, the sustainability of the European transport sector and the livability of our cities and landscapes will benefit.

You can read the full report in English about these workshops here: http://www.livingrail.eu/images/pdf/LivingRAIL_Workshops-Jan-2014_Report.pdf

You can also find information on upcoming workshops here: http://www.livingrail.eu/events

LivingRAIL/A. Klečina

Photos: A. Klečina