Transport: New portal on Trans-European Network with dynamic maps

Brussels, 29-11-2012 — /europawire.eu/ — The European Commission is launching today a public portal allowing citizens and businesses to access up to date information on the advancement of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) through satellite-based dynamic maps, facts, figures and various audio-visual and interactive elements. In practice, it will allow users to see the live development of the TEN-T network in the region of their interest.

Vice-President Kallas, the Commissioner responsible for Transport welcomes the new portal: “The Trans-European Transport networks are the key infrastructure links to ensure our goods can flow and people can travel smoothly through Europe. This new tool allows everyone to see how he can benefit from the connections financed with the help of the EU budget.”

A unique tool

The TENtec Information System is supporting a fact-based policy-making of the Commission’s proposals on the TEN-T Guidelines and the Connecting Europe Facility. Both proposals will provide an optimised European transport infrastructure for the free movement of people and goods in the future and improve the competitiveness of the EU. The TEN-T Guidelines define the TEN-T network, existing and planned until 2030/50, whereas the proposed Connecting Europe Facility determines the financial instruments and the EC’s budget available in the coming financial cycle 2014-2020 to implement the network. The Public Portal provides direct access to further information on these subjects.

The Public Portal uses up-to-date geographic, technical and financial data as a basis for its summaries to inform citizens and businesses of key-developments on the TEN-T network.

This public outreach is a useful instrument providing a more timely and comprehensive overview on the TEN-T and aims to raise citizens’ awareness of its benefits and objectives, i.e. a clean, safe and efficient travel throughout Europe. Zooming in, for instance, on a TEN-T section in a given region or even local area was a feature requested by many stakeholders which is now available and accessible to all. It is open to all persons from the EU and beyond. Moreover, TENtec enables the Commission to automatically compile information and create timely reports.

How it works

The TENtec Information System is an IT development which is user -driven

Among its most important features, TENtec:

• Stores and manages technical and financial data for the analysis, management and political decision making of the TEN-T programme.
• Acts as a bridge to Members States ministries and other key-stakeholders (European Investment Bank and some European neighboring countries).
• Provides support for modeling future policy and budgetary scenarios, interfacing with GIS, monitoring and reporting the electronic submission of applications and online conduction of surveys. GIS refers to the Geographical Information System, which is used in TENtec for programming and displaying the maps.
• Manages the necessary workflows to issue Commission decisions, the complete selection cycle for new projects including proposal submission and reception, and the required web interfaces (Private- and Public Portal as well as general web services to connect external data sources).

The data originally collected and displayed to support TEN-T, is now being used for other transport policies and projects, such as European neighbourhood policy, Eurostat, environmental and regional policies. Through this multi-usage of data, maps and tools, policy-making beyond TEN-T is improved and overall costs are reduced. Firstly, policy-making on up-to-date and more reliable facts lead to improved planning and implementation of the transport network and secondly, multi-usage of data reduces data collection costs because the collection price is paid only once. The provision of the Public Portal is a further step in this direction.

More information

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/infrastructure/tentec/tentec-portal