Easy, efficient, safe and secure transportation is a core factor for European growth, collaboration and employment and therefor an item in the Europe 2020 strategy. Land transportation has two main challenges concerning security: avoiding interrupts of transport itself to assure the flow of freight and passengers to guarantee supply of the population and avoiding that transportation modes themselves become a mean for attacks. The future research agenda for security in land transport which CARONTE will provide, focuses on core relevant gaps caused by emerging risks and will avoid doubling in research. For this CARONTE will provide answers to the question of what type of security related projects should be planned in the future, considering the current state of the art and existing research projects. It will cover all threats (including cyber-crime) and security aspects for all land transportation modes, respecting fundamental human rights and privacy. The step by step method includes analyzing the state of the art and emerging risks, identification of gaps, analyses and assessments of potential solutions and the research agenda.
The CARONTE consortium consists of universities and research institutes, providing well experiences (research and consultancy) in transportation, logistics, infrastructure management and security. The partners are aware of practical needs and frames in land transport, and security as well as ethic, social and privacy aspects. As the partners come from neutral organizations, remaining neutrality concerning the project findings is guaranteed. Results which may mainly cover private interests are prohibited. This leads to a balanced and efficient research agenda. To ensure practical use and acceptance of the final recommendations, end-users (transportation companies, infrastructure managers, terminal operators, customs etc.) and the suppliers of security and transportation equipment will be integrated through a High Level Advisory Board.