Cologne (German: Köln) is, in terms of population, the fourth largest city in Germany and the largest city of the German state (Land) of North Rhine-Westphalia. In June 2005, Cologne's population was 975,907.
It is located in the region Rhineland approx. 50 km southern of the Ruhr Area and 70 km eastern of the Dutch and Belgian border. It covers about 405 square kilometres and is with that the 16th largest city in the European Union.
Its location at the intersection of the river Rhine with one of the major trade routes between eastern and western Europe was the foundation of Cologne's commercial importance. Also today Cologne is one of the most important German inland ports, and considered the economic, cultural, and historic capital of the region.
Furthermore Cologne is, with his three colleges and one university with more than 70,000 students, a very important centre for research and innovation.
STUVA is an independent, non-profit research institution. It was founded in 1960 and today has approximately 220 corporative members. The fields of activities include fundamental research and special analyses, focusing mainly on the areas of underground construction, transport planning, telematics and barrier free public transport. Owing to their wide-ranging experience and knowledge gained from many years of research work, STUVA is also consulted for many object-related analyses and expert reports at home and abroad.
At our headquarters in Cologne there are three experimental halls covering a total area of approx. 2000 square metres with various test facilities. Our research and experimental results are made available to the public in various ways:
Every two years in autumn the STUVA conference takes place with various main topics from the fields of tunnelling and underground construction. The conferences are each attended by approximately 1300 tunnelling experts from 15 to 20 different countries. At an accompanying special exhibition, construction companies, consultants, machine suppliers and component manufacturers present their products and services to a specialist public.
The specialist fields for research and consultation are:
Nowadays mobility is no more a luxury. For most of us it's a necessity and a prerequisite to take part in the public life: to reach the job or school, to meet friends or family, to go shopping, to do sports or other leisure-time activities. Many are dependent on the public transport.
Because of this it is absolutely necessary to make the use of the public transport possible and attractive for everyone. This includes also all groups of 'mobility-restricted' people (disabled people, but also elderly and infirm people, children, expectant mothers, people with prams or laden down with heavy or unwieldy baggage etc.).
In the context of our 'connected cities'-partnership particularly we would like to show suitable solutions to eliminate barriers in the public transport and hope for an exchange of experiences within the network.
The goal we strive for it is a barrier-free and safe public transport for everyone in every country.
