Cross-border cooperation between European railway clusters
Context: i-Trans, a competitiveness cluster on land transport, with roots in Northern France, was selected by the French authorities in 2005 as one of the 17 top competitiveness clusters with world ambition. This label was renewed in 2008 after a governmental audit. Based on experience, globalisation of the markets, and in line with the communication of the European Commission “Towards world class clusters”, i-Trans intends to lead a process of cross-border cooperation between European railway clusters.
The aim is to bundle businesses, research teams and education institutions in order to set up and implement collaborative innovation projects that can, in part, benefit from public funding.
Facts and figures: more than 100 businesses, 20 research organisations and 2000 students are active members of i-Trans. 55 innovation projects have been launched over the last 3 years. The cluster covers railways, co-modality and logistics as well as road, water and intelligent transport systems; railways remain the main focus with about 2/3 of the projects.
A new strategic roadmap has been worked out for the timeframe 2009-2011 with a new ambition to:
- Become the first European cluster for railway and guided systems;
- Contribute to the integration of the car into sustainable co-modal systems.
Based on market and technological trends and having in mind the legal and economical European frame, 3 major innovation themes have been identified to which i-Trans has committed itself:
- Environmental integration (reduction of emissions, energy consumption, noise, vibrations, carbon footprint, recyclability, etc.);
- Improvement of quality and safety;
- Improved competitiveness through more flexibility and cost effectiveness.
These themes have been split in more than 30 chapters and a detailed mapping of competencies within the cluster is under way; a survey of the activities of European railway clusters has already been undertaken.
