MULTIMODAL TRANSPORT IN THE ADRIATIC – IONIAN REGION: A TRANSNATIONAL APPROACH AND STRATEGY FOR IMPROVEMENT DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ERA

One of the main objectives of the project "Integrating multimodal connections in the Adriatic-Ionian region" (ADRIPASS) is to deal with the commonly recognized lack of efficient maritime -- hinterland connections, which are mainly caused by the existence of various bottlenecks at borders. This is achieved by identifying and analysing these -- physical and non-physical -- bottlenecks along the Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) corridor sections in the Adriatic -- Ionian (ADRION) region, with specific attention paid to those corridors that have been indicatively extended to the Western Balkans (WB) region, where the issue of border crossings is quite relevant. The Covid-19 pandemic outbreak affects the entire globe, including Europe, in many and different ways. In the fight against the spread of Covid-19, national governments of the European Union (EU) introduced temporary restrictions to border traffic of various degrees, ranging from border controls to outright closure. In this framework, ADRIPASS took duly into account the experience gained during the period of Covid-19 in the Transnational Strategy for the improvement of multimodal transport and accessibility in the ADRION region, developed as the final output of the project. The current paper presents in a summarized way the activities, results and outputs, including the defined Strategy and specific proposals related to transport facilitation for the period to follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal for Traffic & Transport Engineering is the property of Scientific Research Journals Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)