The Northern Dimension is covering a large geographical area including parts of the European Arctic. As well as in the rest of the world, also in these remote and scarcely populated areas, new technology and green solutions are of great importance.
The NDPTL Secretariat presented and took part of 2 panel discussions in Murmansk on the 13th and 14th of November 2019.
The first day, among others, Smart Roads of the northern latitude was on the agenda. During the session the following topics was a part of the discussions:
• Electrification of transport including infrastructure to facilitate this.
• Gas as a fuel for a greener transport industry – LPG 1 and Hydrogen
• Digital solutions for management and maintenance purposes for roads.
• Self-driving cars and semi-autonomous solutions such as Truck Platooning and roll out of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).
• Data collection and applications for traffic management and optimisation including solutions for smarter, safer and greener transport.
The second day was devoted to cooperation in the Arctic and the director of the Secretariat took part in the session on environmental issues speaking about decarbonisation of transport.
Some key elements from the discussions:
• Renewable energy such as sun and wind power.
• Power-to-X including synthetic fuels and Hydrogen.
• Fossil vs non fossil fuels
• Electrification of transport including Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV), Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles
(FEV), use of gas as a fuel for cars, trucks and for the shipping industry.
As discussed during both days there are a growing interest and understanding of the benefits to be achieved by actively working on implementation of new technologies in an international context. As a part of a more systematic approach, using designated cross border corridors for testing of new solutions was mentioned as a best practice example. This seen within the concept of Greener, Smarter and Safer transport.