ERTRAC celebrated its 20th anniversary with a bang!

ERTRAC, the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council, just celebrated its 20th anniversary! The event, which took place on 5 and 6 July in Brussels at the Palais des Académies, was a unique occasion to get together and celebrate 20 years of extensive European research collaboration in the field.

You heard it right: ERTRAC just turned 20! To celebrate this special milestone, a two-day event was organised, bringing together a varied array of participants and members of the road transport research community.

Focused on road transport, innovative urban mobility, and knowledge transfer, ERTRAC reflected on its 20-year journey by paying tribute to the collective achievements of researchers and the collaborative spirit of its members.

The platform, highly committed to fostering innovation and addressing major European societal challenges, also celebrated some important leadership transitions: Both Josef Affenzeller (ERTRAC Secretary General for more than 20 years) and Professor Zissis Samaras (esteemed Vice-Chairman representing universities) announced the beginning of their very well deserved retirement.

POLIS has and continues to be involved with ERTRAC through close collaboration in several road transport projects, like the recently wrapped up FUTURE-HORIZON and the recently started and very much exciting STREnGth_M. At the ERTRAC Conference, you could find the POLIS Secretariat pretty much all around enjoying the different sessions and events, but mostly clustered at a very specific one: The Urban Mobility session, of course!

Talking Urban Mobility

Moderated by POLIS Secretary General and ERTRAC WG Leader Karen Vancluysen, the session counted on the presence of relevant speakers, including committed POLIS members:

• Keynote: Hans Arby, Vice-Chair of Transport Board, City of Gothenburg.
• Françoise Guaspare, Senior Policy Advisor, Île-de-France Europe, Member of the Mission Board, Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission, ERTRAC Vice-Chair for Cities and Regions. 
• Margit Noll, FFG (Austrian Research Promotion Agency), CEO of the European Partnership Driving Urban Transitions.
• Maria Morfoulaki, CERTH-HIT, Head of the Laboratory ''Sustainable Mobility''.

The session, which took place on July 6, tackled diverse relevant urban mobility topics related to innovation and future cities: from e-mobility to multi-modality, active modes, and sharing mobility services, touching upon the 15 Minutes city concept and peri-urban and rural mobility — nothing was left off the table. 

Curious to know more? Wish you would have attended? You can learn more about ERTRAC and its support actions here. See you next year at the ERTRAC Conference!