Objectives
Transport demand, both for passengers and freight, is growing strongly. Since 1995, passenger km's travelled in the EU27 has grown by 15% over 9 years while freight tonne-km has grown by over 30% over 10 years.
To meet the economic growth targets of the Lisbon Agenda and to facilitate the economic integration of the European Union, European transportation needs to cater for a continuing medium term growth in demand. However, transport growth using the technologies of today is unsustainable in terms of its impact on traffic safety (over 50 000 fatalities in EU per year), climate change, land use, infrastructure life cycle costs and demand for non-renewable resources. New technologies and processes need to be developed which deliver cheap transport which is sustainable:
- with greatly reduced fossil fuel usage
- improved traffic safety
- reduced demand for non-renewable resources and
- reduced demand for new land.
In the past two decades there has been a revolution in electronic sensor and processing technologies. Sensors and the associated multiplexing electronics and software tools are now cheap and reliable which creates potential for new innovative uses in all kinds of ways.
