The 40th and 41st annual reports of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) [1]
Doc. 7515
12 April 1996
OPINION [2]
Rapporteur: Mr STAES, Belgium, Group of the European People's Party
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. With the current growth in road traffic, and the action so far to eliminate road-traffic congestion, Europe cannot solve its transport problems. In the areas with the greatest traffic density, the second millennium will have barely started before traffic is totally paralysed (ten years hence, at the very outside). This is extremely bad news economically, and the range of measures to reduce traffic pollution are going to leave this particular problem untouched.
1.2 Transport and mobility require integrated government policy taking in all the fields concerned (the environment, regional planning, urban development and the economy as a whole).
1.3 Instead of separately promoting the road, rail and other transport networks - which in some countries come under different ministries - or having them compete with one another, governments, as a responsible first step, should set up ministries of transport, which have a coherent picture of transport and mobility issues and whose transport policy can take regional-planning policy into account.
2. PRIVATE TRANSPORT
2.1 Private transport is a part of the problem the main solution to which is an effective public-transport network giving absolute priority to national and regional transport.
The private motor car will continue to be used, and even if clean technology is employed the numbers of private motor vehicles will still be a problem. The total number of journeys needs stabilising and reducing, and private-motor-vehicle access to the public highway will have to be restricted, particularly in town centres and centres of urban-development zones. Various means can be used: raising petrol prices, setting up pedestrian zones with restricted or no vehicle access, giving absolute priority to public transport, strictly regulated compulsory parking, or taxing private-vehicle-use as an amenity in town (while making special arrangements for local residents).
2.2 As a matter of town-planning policy, residential areas should be sited close to railway stations or well served by public transport. The same applies to employment zones.
2.3 In general, town planning policy should seek to improve quality of life in towns by giving priority as far as possible to the pedestrian, the cyclist, the local resident and public transport. Measures such as not granting planning permission to building or renovation projects unless garaging is provided do not fit in with that approach.
2.4 Only coherent policy choices that view mobility in these terms will reduce the number of private vehicles to an acceptable level while preserving everyone's right to mobility. Only then will a policy of cleaner motor-car performance start making sense.
2.5 Such policy entails clear choices in certain practical matters and strict measures to encourage behaviour compatible with a healthy environment, whether urban or rural, public health and thrifty use of primary resources.
2.6 Protecting open spaces and the quality of urban areas, measures to avert heavy expenditure on urban renovation, construction and upkeep of major infrastructure, certain types of long-term medical treatment, and air pollution and its effects on buildings generally and historic monuments in particular are all huge costs to society, whether socially, culturally, financially or environmentally.
All the energy, materials, work, time and money involved could benefit society much more if invested in improving the residential environment.
3. FREIGHT TRANSPORT
3.1 A great deal of road traffic congestion is caused by freight transport, a significant proportion of which is unnecessary and must therefore be reduced. A further proportion is unavoidable but some of it at least could be handled differently. More consistent application of the "polluter pays" principle might cut out large-scale freight-traffic flows between countries (for example, transport of potatoes from the growing country for processing in another country where water costs are slightly lower).
3.2 There is a general pattern of over-consumption of goods and produce and it has to be recognised that the limits of what is reasonable have been exceeded. There is no social right to be able to eat, say, whatever fruit or vegetable from the other side of the world at all times of year. Transport problems require that regionally available produce or products take precedence, and this should not be interpreted as a policy of national or regional economic protectionism even though it would indeed boost regional employment.
3.3. A large proportion of the costs attributable to transport, especially road transport, and currently met by society should be met by the transport sector responsible, in accordance with the "polluter pays" principle. The costs are medical care, often long-term;
building and maintaining often huge infrastructure facilities; air pollution and the damage it does to health, woodland, buildings and historic monuments. Motor vehicle and transport taxes fall far short of meeting these costs, though the situation varies a lot from country to country: in some countries, for instance, railways have to pay both for the building and maintaining of infrastructure, whereas in other countries the state pays.
3.4 It is important to point out that, for example, lorry dimensions dictate the width and gradient of roads, the radius of bends, and the height and load-bearing capacity of bridges.
3.5 Accidents involving lorries cause much more damage to people, vehicles and infrastructure than do accidents involving motor cars, partly because of the inordinate number of overladen lorries on the road and lorries that exceed speed limits.
3.6 The health and overall wellbeing of people living or working close to roads are affected by pollutant emission, noise, vibration and optical stress.
3.7 The European Union's single market and the lifting of border controls have also resulted in round-the-clock lorry traffic and correspondingly more disturbed nights for roadside residents.
3.8 In road transport, governments and their inspectorates tolerate offences in areas such as overloading, overtime, compliance with rest requirements, transport of dangerous substances and social dumping (drivers' wages).
3.9 It is therefore necessary to:
- restore a balance between the various modes of transport in terms of prices and liability;
- tackle disregard of the law in road transport;
- stabilise and even reduce the proportion (ever growing, particularly in the food and raw-materials sectors) of freight carried by road.
3.10 Where road transport is essential, particularly in the case of high-quality goods, use can be made of combined transport. As a first step, its market share needs increasing from 15% to 20%. In a region like the Alps, combined transport is the obvious solution, but it should be encouraged throughout Europe. In areas where winter conditions are a decisive factor, there may be well scope for combining coastal shipping with rail transport.
3.11 In the case of navigable waterways, existing links can probably be assumed to be adequate. New and spectacular projects are not a priority. Improvement of existing links is a more appropriate approach. Existing geographical problems are better tackled by combined transport.
3.12 As far as creation of new links is concerned, the priority is rail transport. There is a reasonable case for investing a minimum of 40% of the transport budget in rail, not less than 20% in combined transport and no more than 25% in road transport, an approach the European Parliament endorsed at second reading on 13 December 1995.
3.13 In development and modernisation of major regions, such as central and eastern Europe, the approach in development of transport networks should be to apply these percentages rather than place the emphasis on developing the road network. Despite any number of promises and declarations of intent, and in spite of votes in parliaments and European Commission programmes, European governments continue to invest mainly in development of the road network. A radical change of approach is urgently needed. It is not sufficiently realised that more and more people are moving away from their own areas because of the various kinds of pollution caused by transport.
3.14 Freight transport by air is developing at the quite unreasonable rate of 20% a year, in particular in the food sector. Is it acceptable, for instance, to use up two to three litres of kerosene, on which little tax is paid, in order to transport a kilo of fresh asparagus (ie two to three times the weight of the asparagus in fuel) in mid-winter simply because the consumer will not wait for the local asparagus season?
3.15 Lastly, the tendency to relocate distribution depots and freight transfer centres in between towns in order to facilitate road transport has a ruinous effect on green spaces and open countryside and is unacceptable in planning terms. Here is yet another example of congestion caused by road transport of goods triggering spiralling costs at the expense of open countryside and resulting in totally unnecessary transport infrastructure.
Reporting committee: Committee on Economic Affairs and Development (Doc. 7506).
Committee for opinion: Committee on the Environment, Regional Planning and Local Authorities.
Reference to committee: Doc. 7211 and Reference No. 1991 of 30 January 1995; Doc. 7452 and Reference No. 2053 of 22 January 1996.
Opinion approved by the committee on 3 April 1996.
[2] by the Committee on the Environment, Regional Planning and Local Authorities