Sintropher EU Transport Project

Sintropher (Sustainable Integrated Transport Options for Peripheral European Regions) is a transnational cooperation project bringing together seven regions in five countries in North West Europe. The aim is to develop sustainable, cost-effective solutions to improve connectivity for poorly-connected regions in North West Europe (NWE). The project has examined tram-train systems, and has also looked at other innovative systems such as single-track tramways, as well as high-quality transport interchanges that link systems to national or transnational rail or air hubs.

It has involved fourteen (from 2014 onwards, sixteen) partner agencies – public transport operators, local authorities, regional transport bodies, and universities – with University College London (UCL) as the lead partner.

The €26.8 million budget has been part-financed by the EU INTERREG IVB programme with €7.9 million European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Partners have undertaken feasibility evaluations; pilot investments and demonstration projects; overviews of EU good practice; and a series of transnational workshops, two major conferences in Brussels and London, and a final seminar in Brussels in 2015.

sintropher_summary_web_final.pdf

sintropher_summary_web_final.pdf

There is also a set of more detailed published reports on the website (no longer active) covering various dimensions of partners’ work: technical feasibility, economic feasibility and regional development impacts, organisational  issues, appraisal procedures used by different counties for investment in regional tram systems, the potential to capitalise on such systems to promote city and regional development, guidelines for high-quality interchange between regional tram systems and regional rail and air hubs, and marketing to both users and stakeholders.