Welcome

Site: Mobility Academy
Course: Integration of urban nodes in the TEN-T corridors
Book: Welcome
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Friday, 29 March 2024, 2:28 PM

Description

Introduction to the Urban Nodes study and to the on-line course

1. Course overview

Welcome to the Urban Nodes course on how to improve the efficiency of the transport system in an urban node of the TEN-T core network!

This course consists of 4 units. It offers an overview of the urban node concept and its benefits, describes the ever-growing importance of urban nodes in the TEN-T context, looks at the methods to assess the most cost-efficient transport measures and presents four case studies and their evaluation experience. 

We have tried to keep the course concrete and hands-on; each unit has a homework task that guides you through the assessment process in your local context. This will involve examining and researching your own local context or looking at examples from other places to see how they might apply to your context.

You will have the opportunity to exchange knowledge with course participants from other urban nodes and to share ideas with them through the course forum. We (Susanne Böhler-Baedeker and Ana-Maria Baston, the course moderators) will join the discussion on the forum regularly, offering comments, questions and feedback.

2. Who is the course for?

This course focuses on helping cities with an urban node role to become more familiarised with the processes involved in transport planning in the TEN-T context. Our aim is to present you the European policy context that is the framework for mobility planning and investments, while illustrating how a smart selection of transport (packages of) measures contribute to achieving a better connectivity between different transport modes, as well as between long-distance and urban/peri-urban/regional traffic. 

You do not need to have a strong background in urban mobility planning to participate in this course. We'll try to point you to some useful resources to increase your knowledge and to make you aware of some examples that may be helpful to your context. You'll also learn from your fellow participants via the discussion forum.


3. What is an urban node?

According to the definition listed in the TEN-T Guidelines (Regulation (EU) No. 1315/2013) an urban node means an urban area where the transport infrastructure of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) is connected with other parts of that infrastructure and with the infrastructure for regional and local traffic.

Urban nodes have become an integral part of the TEN-T development. A number of 88 urban nodes have been identified in the TEN-T Guidelines on the basis of a set of socio-economic criteria. They play key roles as socio-economic and technological centres in the structure of the TEN-T network. 

4. About the 'Urban Nodes' study

This study should help to further develop the urban dimension of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). The TEN-T policy has for many years been an initiative to develop key European infrastructure and services from the overall European network perspective. The new TEN-T policy initiated through the 2013 TEN-T regulation, and facilitated by the Connecting Europe Facility, needs to further develop its ‚urban nodes‘ element, including issues such as:

  • connecting infrastructure development better with sustainable policy development needs;
  • integrating the concept of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans and specific urban policies (e.g. freight) with the specific TEN-T perspective of the nodal function and the perspec-tive of cities as the ‚last urban mile‘;
  • providing factual evidence of how local policies meeting local needs can be designed to con-tribute also significantly to the EU and national level goals of increased TEN-T efficiency.
The overall goal of the study is to identify cost-effective measures to improve the efficiency of the transport system in urban nodes of the TEN-T core network in order to draft recommendations on how to improve and replicate those identified measures within most of the 88 European urban nodes.


This study will support urban nodes to identify effective policies and measures to fulfil their nodal function in the TEN-T, as well as creating awareness among national and EU decision makers for the complexity and impacts of urban decision making and of the opportunities of a policy-driven, multi-stakeholder process for the effective development of the TEN-T. The recommendations will answer the question of how to further improve the identified cost-effective measures in the four core nodes and how to replicate those to other nodes.