This paper describes a policy-pushed innovation process aiming at a system innovation that started as a research project at the Ministry of Transport, evolved towards a multi-party co-operation of public-public and public-private partnerships and recently was taken over by actors who are able to implement a first pilot of a new transport system. At the same time the research component re-emerged at a European level, where an international consortium starts to evaluate the pilot, together with comparable pilots in other cities. That project, EDICT is due to start later this year. Section 2 of this paper discusses the problem area for the new transport system. It deals with the accessibility problem of urban centres. Section 3 describes the initial and second phase of the innovation process. The third phase, which started this year, is only superficially described. Section 4 discusses the problems that occurred in this project and the way the different project leaders coped with the problems. Special attention is given to the approach of opportunity scouting, the search for possible new actors and other opportunities to realise the next step in the process. It gives some examples of contingent strategies that appeared to be effective. Section 5 finally gives the lessons learned and some simple principles that appeared to be applicable in this policy-pushed innovation process.
Abstract