ALP-NET - Thematic Network on Trans-Alpine Crossing
Overview
Background & policy context:
Transport in the Alpine regions of Central and Western Europe is politically a most sensitive subject. It has been a source of debates and uneasiness in bilateral and multilateral relations among countries and has led to widespread resistance against EU transport policy amongst the population in the affected regions. Not surprisingly, Trans-Alpine transport is a focal point for research both at the European and national levels. In view of important upcoming policy decisions, it is necessary to synthesise, concert and co-ordinate ongoing-work and to discuss open questions. This is the role of ALP-NET.
Objectives:
The overall aim of the ALP-NET thematic network was to outline policy and research recommendations for Trans-Alpine transport. This aim was achieved by analysing existing and ongoing research and providing a platform for networking among relevant actors in the field.
Leading up to the final ALP-NET conference, six experts workshops were organised on all important subjects associated with the issue of Trans-Alpine transport. The purpose of the final conference was to present the ALP-NET policy recommendations to policy makers, researchers and stakeholders and enter into a discussion with those experts on the findings of the project.
Methodology:
ALP-NET deals with four horizontal themes: methods and models, data and statistics and geographic information systems (GIS). To solve problems or to answer research questions, in many cases all these themes or phases are passed through. For example, when the impact of new infrastructure will be analysed, first a method has to be determined how to handle this problem, what work should be done, what results are expected, what models are necessary and most appropriate and what data is needed. So within a method a general framework is constructed of how to handle the problem in the best way. Next, models are used for the implementation of ideas from the method phase to generate specific results. Data and statistics are used as input for these models, but are also output of these models; especially models can generate data that are not available in existing statistics. Finally, GIS can be used to analyse and visualise the final results and to get more insight in the relations between different kinds of data and results. This example shows that the four themes are strongly connected with each other.
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