In 2001 a White Paper entitled European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide was launched by the Commission, which proposed 60 measures for restructuring the EU’s transport policy, with the intent of creating a more sustainable and less polluting and congested system.
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The White paper included several suggestions for addressing these and other problems, including the decoupling of economic growth from transport growth to make transport more dynamic and less dependent on market factors. Too, the paper suggested a shift away from road transport by revitalising rail and water travel, tweaking the taxation system to reflect the actual cost of transport in terms of environmental damage, network congestion and accidents, and making the European transit system safer and more efficient in general.
The White Paper on Transport has resulted in several policy initiatives, including:
- A European Road Safety Action Programme enacting measures to create safer and more dynamic vehicles, improving overall road safety and with the goal of halving the number of road fatalities by 2010.
- Launching of the Marco Polo program to shift freight transport from congested European roads to rail and waterway transport, including guidelines for creating Trans-European Networks of the sea.
- Revision of Eurovignette directive for charging shipping vehicles to reflect the real cost of road shipment.
- Improving the TEN’s for integration of the new member-states into the transportation network.
- Encouraging the liberalisation and harmonisation of Europe’s railway systems.
In June 2006 the Commission issued a Mid-Term Review of the White Paper on Transport, with several, notable observations:
- The context of transport policy changed because of the accession of the EU-10 in 2004, the acceleration of the global economy and competition, the rise in oil prices, the enactment of the Kyoto Protocol and the advent of global terrorism.
- The decoupling of transport networks from economic factors was not mentioned in the review, and the phrase intermodality was suppressed in favour of a modal shift, to reflect the shift away from integration of different forms of transport to interconnectivity and, consequently, the hegemony of each transit-sector.
- Energy efficiency is stressed as a key strategy to improving transit.
- Intelligent Transport Systems that will improve the flow of transit.
- The need to launch a Green Paper on Urban Transit to tackle the same transit issues within cities.
- In identifying the real cost of transit, the Commission will include infrastructure expansion.
Reviews of the Commission’s current plans are mixed, predictably according to how policy changes will reflect the development of one sector over another and, perhaps more relevant, the funding each sector will receive, with groups working in road development intent increasing road construction and groups working in the rail industry intent on further developing Europe’s rail system.
Source: European Commission
