safety, with negligible rates of accidents compared with automobiles, which would be the other option. With this in mind, the aim of the Union is to reach 30,000 kilometers of long-distance high-speed rail-way by 2030, triple that of today. All of these benefits are in contrast with its lackluster usage today: it only transports 13% of cargo and 7% of passengers “in a heteroge-neous network, full of weak points,” explains the expert. “That’s why it’s so crucial for Europe to give a boost to a solid, competitive net-work as a viable alternative to cars and planes.” The challenge also lies in treating people and goods in the same way. “In terms of Research and Development, safety or visibility, the projection for long-distance transporting of merchandise by rail is much slower today,” they warn. Technology is on the side of these new national and international networks. For example, the ERTMS system “has computerized safe- LEGACY AND INNOVATION FOR THE NETWORK OF NETWORKS ACCIONA can provide more than a century of experience in design, construction, and maintenance of infrastruc-ture, from tunnels or viaducts to thousands of kilome-ters of high-speed lines, and projects from Norway and Saudi Arabia to Australia, Brazil or Canada. Along with this legacy, we can add technological evolu-tion from the R+D Center in Madrid, which develops new platforms, vibration control systems, track conservation equipment, technology that improves heavy machinery performance and composite for lighter structures, with-out the corrosion problems of traditional materials. Trains and metros only emit 0.5% of total emissions in the Transport sector.