Thursday, June 18th, 2026
During the TRA 2026 Press Conference held on 18 May 2026 in Budapest, representatives from across Europe’s transport research and innovation ecosystem introduced their views on the future of sustainable, resilient and competitive transport and mobility in Europe The Press-Conference brought the European Commission, transport technology platforms, research alliances and industry stakeholders to address major themes shaping the sector, including decarbonisation, circularity, digitalisation, resilience and deployment of innovation.
The importance of transport research and innovation within Europe’s competitiveness agenda was highlighted, as well as the need to accelerate the transition from promising concepts to real operational innovation scale up and deployment. The transformation of mobility systems through zero-emission transport, automation, shared mobility services and more resilient infrastructure and logistics networks was stressed. Circular economy approaches, industrial transformation and the role of artificial intelligence and digitalisation in future transport systems were recurring themes throughout the session as re-shapers of the business and societal ecosystems.
Representing ALICE, Fernando Liesa focused on one of the key challenges facing Europe today: how to successfully bridge the gap between research, innovation and large-scale market deployment and impact generation. Called in the Innovation Gap in the European Competitiveness compass and the analysis of Mario Draghi’s report on the future of European competitiveness, Fernando shared how ALICE is embracing and proposing to solve this challenge in the field of Freight Transport and Logistics.
Fernando Liesa explained that traditional linear innovation models are no longer sufficient in a rapidly evolving business, societal and geopolitical environment. Technologies develop quickly in a couple of years, while current framing R&I programmes and projects have cycles of 5 to 10 years. These cycles and rigid projects create barriers for true impact as projects can not embrace the emerging technologies and concepts in an agile way.
Additionally, the operational deployment often requires multiple stakeholders to adapt simultaneously, and projects are solely focussed on the advance in the technology and not to address and materialize the pathways towards impact. According to ALICE, innovation must therefore start from real operational and market innovations needs rather than technology alone. Both, Innovation demand pull and technological development push need to meet in the playground of R&I projects to ensure early alignment and focus on solving real problems and addressing market opportunities instead of focussing on developing isolated solutions.
Through the ALICE4IMPACT approach, ALICE promotes innovation pathways that connect logistics operators, shippers, policymakers, innovators and users from the earliest stages of research and innovation projects.
Fernando Liesa stressed that successful deployment depends not only on technology readiness, but also on operational, regulatory and business readiness tested in real-world environments and conditions to address all type of hurdles for deployment. This approach aims to overcome the innovation “valley of death” where many promising projects fail to reach the market.
To illustrate how European research projects can successfully transition into deployment, Fernando Liesa presented several examples from ALICE’s portfolio of projects and innovation success stories.
One example was MIXMOVE, a digital logistics orchestration platform that originated from the EU-funded iCargo project. The platform connects shippers, carriers and logistics providers, enabling coordinated transport decisions instead of isolated optimisation by individual actors. By integrating real industry needs directly into the research process, MIXMOVE evolved into a scalable business solution with measurable operational impact.
Fernando Liesa also highlighted the Smart Freight Centre and the development of the GLEC Framework through projects such as COFRET and LEARN. These initiatives helped establish globally recognised methodologies for freight emissions accounting and reporting. The framework later contributed to ISO 14083 and supported European regulatory initiatives including CountEmissions EU. According to ALICE, this demonstrates how research projects can generate impact far beyond individual technologies by shaping standards, regulation and market ecosystems.
Another example presented during the session was ZEFES, a project focused on accelerating the deployment of zero-emission long-haul freight transport.
Fernando Liesa explained that ZEFES goes beyond testing vehicle technologies in isolation. Instead, the project integrates advanced zero-emission solutions directly into real logistics operations across corridors in multiple use cases involving manufacturers, logistics companies and transport operators. Demonstrations address practical operational challenges such as infrastructure availability, operational costs and regulatory barriers in real-world environments.
According to ALICE, this combination of technology push and demand pull is essential for scaling innovation across European freight transport systems and ensuring that research investments translate into operational and industrial impact.
A common message throughout the TRA 2026 Press Conference was that Europe already possesses strong research and innovation capabilities. The next challenge is ensuring that innovations are deployed, scaled and integrated into real transport and logistics operations.
ALICE emphasised that collaboration between industry, policymakers, researchers and logistics stakeholders will be critical to accelerate deployment and strengthen Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and sustainability in freight transport and logistics.