Overall aim of RoCK is to improve connectivity within and between regions of knowledge, by development of railway connections into high quality efficient and user-friendly interoperable systems. Within the RoCK-project, connectivity will be improved by making use of existing connections and by developing and implementing smart solutions to improve their quality.

The RoCK partnership includes cities (representatives of knowledge regions), transport companies and development organisations. In addition to the RoCK project partners, a large number of strategically important organisations is involved in the project and has signed a letter of support (see Annexes). This includes local and regional governments, chambers of commerce, development organisations, regional cooperatives and transport bodies / transport organisations (including DB and NS). The RoCK partners want to boost mobility and knowledge-exchange between their regions by improving the quality of railway connections. They have identified several small-scale investments and actions that will have a large impact on connectivity.

RoCK will deal with technical barriers for quality improvement. and with barriers resulting from the different institutional contexts. International accessibility of the network for the end-users is addressed as well. To achieve RoCK’s aims, cooperation between stakeholders is a must. Within RoCK, stakeholders (including operators) will jointly work on concrete (cross-border) improvement-projects. Next to this, RoCK involves targeted communication actions, aimed at the creation of new alliances, building on the experiences and network of the Interreg IIIB ‘HST-community’ (SEEDA-led projects).