Stakeholders mapping for promoting road-to-rail modal shift of freight transport

This paper reports the work on stakeholder mapping carried out for EUSALP AG4 Activity “Smart clean logistics and combined transport to support modal shift”. The work aimed to prepare stakeholder discussion events on seven topics concerning the shift of freight transport to rail, its support measures, and how to identify and overcome existing barriers or employ new technologies efficiently. The stakeholder mapping was later used for the design of discussion concepts for the events. The paper first outlines which stakeholder mapping techniques may be relevant and illustrates why the Basic Stakeholder Analysis Technique (BAT) and the Net-Map method were chosen. The BAT entails listing the stakeholders, their expectations with reference to the projects under discussion and whether those expectations are likely to be fulfilled or not. The Net Map method depicts the relationships among the stakeholders, their likely stance with respect to projects, and their influence on the projects. The second part of the paper illustrates the applications of the BAT and net-map methods to a selection of the topics (e.g.: pricing instruments for modal shift, support measures for combined transport). More than 20 types of stakeholders were considered (including private transport operators, public bodies, civil society representatives). Given the number of stakeholders and the complexity of their relationships, net maps were detailed by type of relationship across actors, e.g.: services, funding/incentives, political direction, operational information/data. The discussion of the application of the methods includes an explanation of how the methods were adapted and how the complex relationships across stakeholders were visualised.