The strong increase of total transalpine traffic and its further growth is a heavy strain for Alpine regions. Effective measures are necessary for enabling a sustainable development. iMONiTRAF!s objectives are to develop common strategies for transalpine traffic and to put them into action. A long-lasting political network shall be established, which serves as common voice of the Alpine regions and which is recognised on regional, national and EU level. It pushes innovative measures for more sustainable regional development. iMONiTRAF! will develop a broad political network to find common strategies. Evaluation instruments are developed, regional indicators are interpreted to assess effects of Alpine traffic. Innovative measures for modal shift improvements are assessed. Three Transport Forums discuss common strategies and develop political statements. To support implementation, a decision-making aid is edited and a web-GIS system to visualise past trends and effects of measures is built.

During the Kick-off meeting in Bolzano in September 2009, the project partners had the chance to exchange their expectations towards the project and to fine-tune objectives and first activities. Based on this initial exchange, the project consortium has set-up and put into function all necessary management and administrative structures as well as some major publicity tools (website, corporate design, logo).
The political networking activities have started with a survey among stakeholders to obtain their views and ideas for future iMONITRAF! activities. The Best Practice Guide is about to be finalised as first main output. The Best Practice Guide will build the basis for a future Alpine strategy regarding common measures and will be discussed with political representatives on the first Transport Forum in May 2010. The consortium is also on track to deliver first monitoring results and interpretations which support the development of a future common strategy and measures.

All work packages have taken up first activities and have started a close interaction. The work package on political networking has nearly finished work on the iMONITRAF! survey which will provide feedback from stakeholders. The preparation of an internal workshop on “political mobilization means” as basis for further networking is underway. All project partners have been involved in developing the Best Practice Guide with a description of existing Best Practices, an analysis on transfer of Best Practices and the identification of first elements for an iMONITRAF! strategy. Also, the development of the common monitoring system is under way with the first data collection and interpretation of results.
First information and publicity activities have included a press conference during the kick-off meeting as well as the development of information tools (website, flyer, press releases) and the visual identify for iMONITRAF! with the logo and templates for reports and presentations.

The Best Practice Guide, the survey and first monitoring results will be finalised as basis for the first Transport Forum in May 2010. This Transport Forum will be the first milestone of iMONITRAF and will institutionalise the political network. It will start the political discussion on common measures to obtain a mandate from the political representatives for further work.