Participation of KOMAG's specialists in the COST 356 Project

The COST 356 Project started on 14^th October 2005, was finished on 15^th January 2010. It was a result of collaboration among a group of scientists from 19 countries and was coordinated by Dr. Robert Joumard from INRETS Institute in Lyon (France).

The COST 356 Project included a development and a dissemination of information about a comprehensive assessment of problems associated with environmentally sustainable transport, by integrating the European knowledge.

A determination of harmonized methods for a creation of indicators that enable to assess projects, plans, policy and technologies concerning transport as well as including these indicators to a decision-making process, were the main Project objectives. Criteria for a selection of indicators and the assessment metod of transportation impact on the environment with use of multi-criteria analysis were the key components in realization of these objectives.

The Report entitled “Indicators of environmental sustainability in transport. An interdisciplinary approach to methods”, which was published in May 2010 and which is available on the INRETS Institute website (http://cost356.inrets.fr/), reflects the results of work of more than 30 specialists.

KOMAG took an active part in the COST 356 Project realization. A KOMAG representative participated in so-called Short Term Scientific Mission. It is a kind of activity, which enables young scientists to strengthen collaboration with other scientific centres. A collaboration with the Agricultural University of Athens was started within the COST programme to carry out investigations on transportat impact on air quality in Athens. The results of this mission were presented in the chapter of the final report of COST 356 Project entitled: “An example of impact assessment: Athens restriction ring”, which analyzes functionality of the restriction ring in Athens.