Towards a European Transport and Mobility Forum

By Beate Müller, Mobility4EU Project Coordinator, VDI/VDE Innovation und Technik GmbH

One of the central aims of the project Mobility4EU is the initiation of a European Transport and Mobility Forum that focusses on user-centered aspects and cross-modality, thereby striving to give a voice to users and to truly connect the stakeholders of the different modes.
Such efficient collaborations between the modes are essential when building an integrated transport system offering cross-modal solutions. At the same time, including the user in the development process from the start is required to foster uptake of implemented solutions.
The European Transport and Mobility Forum will strive to become the key discussion and debate forum providing a voice for users and fostering cross-fertilization of technologies and knowledge-transfer between modes and with stakeholders beyond transport.

This requires bringing together all relevant stakeholders of transport of passengers and freight and of sectors beyond the traditional transport industry (e.g. smart systems, energy, data and services). In a participative framework, they will explore together how to efficiently include the perspective of the user needs of the European citizens, how to create added value by transferring knowledge and how to apply new solutions and usage models. They will learn to innovate together, to follow a user-centered innovation process, to address jointly their common objectives and challenges and build seamless interfaces between transport modes.

Mobility4EU employs a user-centred perspective and a participatory framework involving all relevant actors, from inside and outside the transport sector, covering all transport modes, including stakeholders representing users, including specific groups and communities that are vulnerable to be excluded, technology suppliers, policy makers on national and regional level, transport service providers and research organisations. Thus, the project can provide the core of the stakeholder community to initiate the forum.

Currently, the Mobility4EU consortium is working on detailing feasible implementations paths towards the implementation of the European Transport and Mobility Forum. Continuously, the consortium is seeking new collaborations to beneficially extend the core of the European Transport and Mobility Forum and to support its implementation.