MScs in railway transport and logistics: State of the art and perspectives for a new programme

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to discuss results obtained from a structured survey on MScs in railway transport and logistics, which has been conducted within the RiFLE project. RiFLE stands for Rail Freight and Logistics Curriculum Development and was funded by the Erasmus (LLL) programme of the European Commission. The aim of RiFLE was to develop master courses to be delivered in English language by the participating institutions as separate but shared programmes in their universities. The approach was to analyse, enhance and adapt existing courses already offered by the participating institutions within a modern rail freight and logistics environment. Therefore, the goal of the survey was to define the state of the art of the current offer of MSc ‘railway transport and logistics’ related courses across the European and non-European countries. For the collection of data, a questionnaire has been developed. ‘SuperSurvey’ was used to approach intended respondents. SuperSurvey is a user-friendly online platform for collecting information using questionnaires. The target group included professors, lecturers and masters programmes managers in transport and logistics. Existing relevant programmes from European and other universities and institutions for higher education have been collected and analysed. Information collected helped to define a comprehensive framework of transport and logistics curricula, courses and programmes and to understand different levels of learning and structures of higher education such as single modules, bachelor courses, master courses, as well as mobility programmes and patterns.

Keywords: Rail freight and logistics, higher education, innovation, survey, state of the art.