The 5th Transport Research Arena, TRA2014, which will take place in Paris, Europe from 14 – 17 April 2014 – is the only European transport research conference catering for all surface modes and their interaction.
The TRA is organised by the main European surface transport bodies dealing with research: CEDR (Conference of European Directors for Road), ERRAC (the European Rail Research Advisory Council) and its counterparts for Road (ERTRAC) and Waterborne transport (WATERBORNE). The research conference is supported by the European Commission which is strongly stimulating and supporting innovation.
Just as with the TRA 2012 in Athens, UIC is involved in the organisation of the 5th TRA, which for this edition is led by the French governmental research organisation IFFSTAR.
This conference brings together representatives of surface transport modes from transport operators, infra-managers, the supply industry, public authorities (national and local) and from research providers.
The main theme chosen for the TRA 2014 could just as well be the slogan for the new UIC led ERRAC FOSTERRAIL project – which in fact will be closely cooperating with the other European Transport Technology Platforms: Transport Solutions: from Research to Deployment - Innovate Mobility, Mobilise Innovation!
The main objective of the TRA is to contribute to innovation in sustainable mobility for Europe, by bringing together all stakeholders of the (surface) transport system. The TRA gives the opportunity to the road, rail and maritime sectors to address their mode specific as well as common challenges and share knowledge in order to deliver together a greener, safer and smarter transport system. In pursuing its objective of sustainable mobility for Europe, the TRA enhances the global competitiveness of the European Union, by promoting the three aspects of the knowledge triangle: Research - Education - Innovation.
TRA2014 covers a wide spectrum of research and innovation activities. These range from basic sciences to application oriented engineering and represent social, technical and economic aspects, as well as policy and standards. The TRA also will address demonstration activities.
TRA2014 also incorporates the Award Ceremony for the best transport research projects carried out by PhD students and young researchers with the goal of stimulating interest among young researchers in transport research (three awards for each mode of transport). In addition there will be an award for the three best senior researchers (one per mode).
A special EU-funded project has been set up in order to organise this competition and widely disseminate information about this important issue. The UIC represents the European rail stakeholders in the team of this project called “TRA Visions”, which had its kick-off meeting on 29 May in Brussels. It closely ties in with UIC activities to stimulate young researchers in rail.
The TRA2014 programme is organised into seven “pillars” built around the European research and innovation. These are: Environment & Energy, Industrial Competitiveness, Logistics & Mobility, Safety & Security, Transport Infrastructures, Transport Policy and Vehicles and Vessels.
The period for the submission of scientific abstracts is now closed and a total of 1106 abstracts have been submitted. The “modal split” of the topics of these abstracts is as follows: Road: 59.7%, Rail: 13.1%, Waterborne: 7.4% and Cross-modal: 19.8%. (NB: the first 3 TRA conferences were organised as “Road only”).
The process of evaluation of these abstracts will be finished by 14 June after which the sessions will be organised on the basis of the highest ranking abstracts which will then be worked into full presentations. Besides these, there will be a vast number of poster presentations on site.
As soon as these steps have been completed, the final programme will be posted online and the registration open at: http://tra2014.sciencesconf.org/
We are expecting high-level representation from all transport industry fields and the EU institutions, and we look forward to this event and especially to welcoming you there.
