Editorial

PREDIT Forum
Environment, safety, city transport: challenges for tomorrow

Predit, the national land transport research programme, launched in 1996 for a five-year period, has associated the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Housing, the Ministry of Research, the Ministry of Country Planning and Environment, the Secretariat for Industry, Ademe and Anvar, towards ambitious goals. Scientists, transport operators, manufacturers and public authorities have worked together on more than 1,200 projects.

The symposium on 12, 13 and 14 June will present the results of the programme: new knowledge, technologies, innovative systems, and products and services for the user.

It gives me pleasure to highlight three fields in which Predit has made progress possible and which still pose challenges for tomorrow:

The environment: Predit has given us a better knowledge of nuisances and has developed technologies to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases, reduce noise of road vehicles and guided vehicles, and improve the urban environment by seeking a better balance between transport modes and developing intermodality.

Safety: The new technologies optimize traffic management, operations and the reliable working of systems.

City transport: One of the main aims of Predit has been to develop urban transport equipment that is affordable to local authorities and environmentally friendly. Gas-powered buses and systems half-way between a bus and a tramway have been experimented and assessed, giving hopes of export opportunities.

This symposium will enable my colleagues and I to announce the priorities of a future programme and the transport policy issues to be addressed by this programme. I am personally expecting a great deal from research in response to the challenges of our society in a field as essential as that of transport and travel.

Jean-Claude Gayssot,
Minister of Public Works, Transport and Housing

Contents

• PREDIT Forum: Environment, safety, city transport and challenges for tomorrow

• Feature PREDIT: 1,300 research and innovation projects dedicated to land transport .
  From 12 to 14 June, the closing forum of the national land transport research and innovation programme (Predit) is to be held in Paris. Three days of meetings, dialogue and information, organized around a scientific symposium and an exhibition. An opportunity to present the results of this interministerial programme launched in 1996 and to announce the prospects for research into transport over the years to come.

• Information Update : News-Events-Training sessions-Publications 

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