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European Union: European Union Transportation Profile 2012

2012/03/09

 Transport Sector Profile

A thriving telecommunications sector stimulates the development of information and communication technologies. This allows improved dissemination of knowledge within the European Union and promotes contact between the European citizens. The TTE Council is therefore committed to development and dissemination of new information and communication technologies, opening up national markets, establishment of a pan-European integrated network, development of the information society and elimination of disparities in national legislation. It is also focused on ensuring affordability, protection of personal data, security of mobile networks and the fight against illegal activities.

 
In 2009, 35 000 people died in road accidents across the EU – 36% less than in 2001, when the commission first set its target of cutting the annual death rate by 50%. Young people and motorcyclists are among those most at risk.
Speeding, driving after drinking alcohol and not wearing a seatbelt are some of the leading causes of road deaths. But unsafe vehicles and poorly maintained roads also pose unnecessary risks. The new EU programme addresses all these issues.
 
Over the next 10 years:
• new rules will come into force requiring more vehicles to be equipped with automatic warning systems, including for speeding or leaving a lane.
• EU funding will only go to road-building projects that comply with EU road safety laws.
• the EU will work with national authorities to devise a common education and training strategy for road users.
• more effort will be made to make motorcyclists safer. Recent years have seen a drop in road deaths for all modes of transport except this category. Every year, some 17% of fatalities involve motorbike or moped riders even though they make up just 2% of road users.
According to a recent EU-wide survey, Europeans think more should be done to reduce accidents. Most people surveyed thought government action should focus on improving roads and enforcing traffic laws.
Only four countries – Latvia, Spain, Estonia and Portugal - have managed to reduce their annual road death toll by 50% compared with 2001. The number of fatalities has increased in Romania and Malta.
The UK, the Netherlands and Sweden had the lowest death tolls in 2009. Greece and Romania had the highest.
 

Exploring other options

 
Patrick Vankerckhoven, Head of the Marco Polo Unit at the EACI, explains the environmental and financial benefits of taking road freight to water and rail routes
 
Marco Polo is the EU funding programme devoted to sustainable freight transport. Its key objective is to reduce congestion on Europe's roads by encouraging the use of alternative transport modes with spare capacity, such as rail, sea and inland waterway. The programme helps companies – SMEs in particular – to launch new transport services that, in many cases, would not have seen the light of day without a Marco Polo start-up grant. Freight transport is at the heart of our economy and it ensures that goods are readily available on the shelf when we need them. A seamless and efficient transport system is the backbone of our supply chain, from production to consumption.The transport industry in Europe is steadily on the rise: by 2050, freight transport activity is projected to increase by around 80% compared to its 2005 levels.
However, this extraordinary growth has a downside. According to the European Environment Agency1, transport is already responsible for about a quarter of all EU greenhouse gas emissions. Road transport accounts for over 71.3% of all emissions, whereas 12.8% are generated by aviation, 13.5% by maritime transport, 1.8% by inland navigation and only 0.7% by rail. While most other sectors have been reducing CO2 emissions, the share of emissions produced by transport has increased by around 34% between 1990 and 2008.
 
But air pollution is just one part of the problem. The number of lorries circulating on Europe's roads also means increased traffic, accidents and inefficiencies. Researchers have calculated that in cities like London, Cologne or Brussels, road congestion is so severe that drivers spend more than 50 hours a year stuck in traffic jams.2It has been estimated that congestion costs Europe no less than 1% of its annual GDP.
Traditionally, the road has been preferred over other modes of transport because, compared to rail and inland waterways, it can ensure a more flexible door-to-door service. Consequently, road transport remains the obvious, easy choice for most carriers. It represents a third of all intra-EU long distance freight transport, while rail and inland waterways jointly contribute less than one-fifth of the total.
The EU can nonetheless rely on a dense and diversified transport network consisting of 89,000km of coastline, 212,500km of railway lines and 41,000km of navigable inland waterways. This vast potential remains still largely untapped, especially in medium to long distances.
Named after the famous Venetian explorer, the Marco Polo programme aims to move goods that are traditionally carried over long European distances by lorry to more sustainable means of transport, primarily railways, short sea-shipping routes and inland waterways.
 
It is hoped that by releasing Europe's roads from at least some of its freight – the original target is an annual volume of 16 billion tonne-kilometres, which is the equivalent of more than 700,000 lorries a year travelling between Paris and Berlin – not only will CO2 emissions be cut but road safety will also improve, as less traffic means fewer accidents. The European economy as a whole stands to gain from a more efficient use of our transport infrastructure and its main corridors and axes.
If the benefits for the environment and society are quite clear, for transport and logistic operators this remains a tall order. Becoming more environmentally friendly comes at a cost, and freight hauliers are often reluctant to renew their fleets. The current economic downturn adds more strain to the carrier's margins and any new investment risks to put the most eco-friendly companies at a disadvantage vis-à-vis their competitors.
Conversely, such hardship affects the logistic decision-makers of all businesses using external transport services. Faced with the choice of different transport modes, the logistic manager might as well go for whatever is cheapest, regardless of any environmental consideration.
 
The purpose of the Marco Polo grant is precisely to offset the costs of innovation for those transporters, logistic operators, shippers, manufacturers and clients who have made the brave attempt to 'go green'.
Concretely, Marco Polo offers support to trans-European projects in five key areas: projects that shift goods from road to alternative modes of transport; projects that use Europe's motorways of the sea in combination with other modes; catalyst actions that come up with an innovative approach to overcome structural transport barriers; traffic avoidance projects that reduce the need for the transport of goods by road via improved logistics and packaging; and common learning actions promoting the use of sustainable modes of transport among the business community.
 
Since its inception in 2003, the programme has awarded 164 grants to trans-European projects involving 624 companies, half of which are SMEs. Between 2003 and 2009, the estimated value produced by Marco Polo in environmental, social and economic terms totalled €1.4bn against an EU contribution of €145m. In other words, every €1 of Marco Polo funding has generated on average €10 in benefits for Europe as a whole. By way of example, the DZRS project introduced a new rail shuttle to replace the transport of goods by road between the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium and the Duisburg multimodal terminal in Germany. With an EU contribution of €500,000, this project managed to free Belgian, Dutch and German roads of an equivalent of 37,000 lorries over a three year period.  Although the programme is there to help companies, it is by no means a 'soft' funding scheme. Marco Polo beneficiaries undergo a strict selection process: their financial data are scrutinised and their business plans are checked against strict technical criteria, so only the most solid and credible projects ultimately receive funding.

Moreover, a Marco Polo grant is directly linked to performance and in all those instances where a project did not live up to its promise, the initial funding was entirely or partly recovered – hopefully, some reassuring news for the EU taxpayer.

With a total budget of €450m and a lifespan that stretches until 2013, the Marco Polo mission is not fully accomplished yet.
 
The 'Transport 2050 roadmap' recently adopted by the European Commission suggests that 30% of road freight over 300km should shift to other modes such as rail or waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50% by 2050. Clearly, there is a case for a programme like Marco Polo after 2013. While the name may change and the shape of the programme remains uncertain, one thing is clear: Marco Polo's successor will have a strong base from which to grow.
 
1-European Commission, Roadmap to a Single European Transport Area: Facts and Figures, http://ec.europa.eu/transport/strategies/facts-and-figures/putting-susta...
2-INRIX, European National Traffic Scorecard 2010, http://www.inrix.com/scorecard
Airports - with paved runways Total: 
1
Airports - with unpaved runways Total: 
1
Transportation - note: