Vienna, 03. October 2014 – What are the threats facing Europe’s land transport sector such as terrorism, theft, cyber-attacks or vandalism – and how to assess them? More crucially, how to develop the capabilities and situational awareness needed to guard against these in the future, while ensuring transport efficiency and facilitation?
The newly-begun EU-funded project known as CARONTE (“Creating an Agenda for Research ON Transportation sEcurity”) is now exploring these issues.
“Policymakers need guidance for such questions in order to shape the EU’s Security Research agenda in this critical sector but respecting the importance of efficient and easy flows of passengers and freight for European growth and cohesion,” said Joachim Kochsiek, transport researcher at Fraunhofer, Germany’s leading applied research institute and CARONTE’s coordinator.
“We’re now working to a tight timetable, but the composition of our research group is a strong one, and we’re confident the project will come up with useful guidelines for policymakers and especially end-users who need the capabilities that tailored R&D can produce,” he said, adding that the group’s first internal workshop is already planned for late October in Vienna.
Officially launched in Brussels on 22 September, CARONTE brings together researchers from universities, national technical institutes and specialised networks – all involved in land transport issues. Its research consortium consists of 11 members* from eight EU countries, and will rely on a high-level advisory board of public and private transport operators for guidance. CARONTE’s primary goal is to produce an agenda of recommended transport security research priorities for EU policymakers.
An 18-month project that ends in March 2016, CARONTE is funded from the EU’s previous 2007-2013 general research budget known as the Seventh Framework Programme, which has now been replaced by today’s “Horizon 2020” (2014-2020) research programme.
The project has a total EU research budget of EUR 1.25 Mio.
For additional information, please contact Michael Mürling at:
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
Donau City Strasse 1, 1220 Vienna
michael.muerling(at)ait.ac.at or 0043 664 2351747
or get in touch with CARONTE’s coordinator Joachim Kochsiek at:
Fraunhofer-Institute for Material Flow and Logistics
Joseph-von-Fraunhofer-Strasse 2-4
44227 Dortmund, Germany
joachim.kochsiek(at)iml.fraunhofer.de