Overview
There are analysed existing and planed european research activities and evaluated new activities exclusively relevant to Switzerland. First draft of thematics are discussed with transport experts and representatives from federal administration. As result the research package is described.
Together with federal administration it’s validated as the possibilities of financial contribution. The concept of the research package management is developed.
Elaboration of a research package "Intermodality of Freight Transport" with topics not executed neither in EU research programmes nor in European countries. Swiss research has to be subsidiary to European research in order to optimise financial contribution. The proposed projects should answer actual questions of freight transport policy and transport companies.
The study team followed the following methodology in completing this project:
• To prepare a broad-based literature review of freight research completed in Switzerland and in the European Union during the last several years;
• To identify freight research objectives;
• To develop an initial draft of freight transport research subjects relevant for Switzerland;
• To discuss priority and timing of the draft research subjects in a series of expert workshops with the study management commission; and,
• To prepare a detailed description of the selected research topics and a cost estimate for their completion.
Funding
Results
Freight transport imports, exports and through traffic are very important to Switzerland due to the country’s geographic location. This means that questions of internal freight transport, which were intended to be the focus of the research package, proved to be insufficient. Consequently, during the course of the project it became clear that additional research packages need to follow the proposed research package (presented in table 3) in order to cover the research needs.
Following results were produced by the project:
- Analysis of the research, identification of research gaps
- Design description research project
- Workshop with experts
- Organisational preparation packages research and financial support