ERRIN has published an opinion on the revision of the TEN-T guidelines “Strengthening urban nodes and innovation to enhance the capacity, sustainability, and competitiveness of the European transport system”. The opinion has been developed by the ERRIN Transport Working Group members and focuses on the urban nodes as well as the research and innovation dimension of the TEN-T Guidelines.

The opinion emphasises the importance of urban nodes, the Green Deal, and the EU’s COVID-19 recovery in TEN-T policy. It outlines ERRIN’s vision of the future of TEN-T policy, namely that urban nodes should be more explicitly defined to allow them to be more effective in European transport corridors, regional development and social cohesion. It also calls for the criteria of urban nodes to be expanded upon to include the presence of transformation, industrial and research and innovation nodes. By strengthening innovation within urban nodes, the TEN-T network will become more seamless, sustainable and efficient. This could be supported by improved multi-level governance, an increased emphasis on inter-modality and giving urban nodes equal priority as others in the regulations, which would in turn improve international accessibility for urban regions.

Read the full opinion in the attached document.