During the seminar Sustainable Transports (Hållbara transporter) organized by IVL, the Swedish Environmental Research Institute, and Miljörapporten, the French Chamber of Commerce in Sweden arranged a session about “Future transport solutions in France and Sweden”. With a number of more than 250 participants from the Swedish transport industry, the seminar offered a perfect opportunity for companies to dig in to sustainability. The French Chamber of Commerce’s session gave also a great visibility for our member companies and a fresh point of view of sustainable transports for the participants.

During our session four leading companies in the transportation industry presented and discussed the responsibility transport companies must shoulder, the problems with urbanization and ideas of how to solve these issues.

Patrice-Henry Duchêne, Sustainable Development Senior Manager at PSA Peugeot Citroën, presented the sustainable business model of the company emphasizing on the industry’s responsibility in the actions of reducing CO2-emissions. Important roles of the Citroën group lies within eco-design, design adapted to a sustainable approach by using recycled materials etc., environmental management on production sites, an integrated approach applied to the group as a whole.  Mr Duchêne talked about electrified vehicles and presented the evolution of the company’s low carbon vehicles, from petrol to plug-in cars. Citroën exposed their latest hybrid-car (diesel/electric).

Managing Director of Renault Nordic, Philippe Jombart, continued on the same track by describing the challenges of urbanization - shorter distances to drive and increased pollution in the cities that will make transportation companies to take a larger responsibility and to adapt to the development. Electric vehicles are a new focus for Renault, where after-sales service, charging and batteries plays a great role. Philippe Jombart also talked about integrating actors such as municipalities, infrastructure and opinion-makers in order to adapt to the process of moving towards plug-in cars. Renault also exhibited their new plug-in vehicle.

Following speaker was Mircea Georgescu, Product Strategy Manager, Thales, Rail Signalling Solutions who talked about Communications-based train control and operated rail transit and its role in energy efficiency in sustainable urban areas. As we see and increased number of travels by urban train a capacity increase, better synchronization and the use of intelligent technology is needed to push development further. Inspiration to energy efficient projects in Sweden is the Vancouver Sky Train which, apart from improving urban availability in the city also has led to adapted infrastructure and a growing city around the Sky Train.

Finally, Ulf Gustavsson, Manager Product Development Electromobility at Volvo Bus talked about reducing environmental impacts by using alternative fuels, light weight busses and Volvo plug-in hybrid busses. Their vision of fully electric vision will need certain R&D investments but has large potential to extend the range and replace diesel driven busses.

To conclude, four different approaches on sustainable transports were presented but altogether with a great motivation and in coherence with the latest trends on the sustainable transport’s market: most important is the electric vehicle and to integrate municipalities, government and other organizations in the process. Fortunately, the market looks promising; there is a true towards a sustainable living.