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Doc. 9011

29 March 2001

Transport technologies and European integration

Report

Committee on Science and Technology

Rapporteur: Mr Şükrü Yürür, Turkey, European Democratic Group

Summary

      One of the prerequisites of European integration is a communications system that is much better developed than today. Communications, in the broad sense, comprise road communication, railway communication, air communication as well as electronic communication.

The report raises a number of practical issues linked to the interaction of the different modes of communication. It insists on road, railway and air transport technologies, with an emphasis on the need to turn the European transport industry into an overall logistical system.

      The way to achieve this goal is the development of an intermodal system and this calls for a certain reorientation and reconstruction of each transport mode. The intermodality principle should be regarded as a basis for further integration processes in this field.

      The crisis in 2000 in European road transport caused by the increase in petrol prices also demonstrates the importance of aiming at an intermodal system. This crisis could have been of much less importance if alternatives to road transport had been readily available.

      The report strongly supports the European Union programme (Trans-European Transport Networks), which promotes a better integrated European transport system, and in which framework plans have been developed for high speed trains, road building, development of inland waterways, as well as for upgrading conventional railways, airport infrastructure and seaports. These developments should be extended on the pan-European level.

I. Draft resolution

1. The Assembly considers that the transport sector is of particular importance for European co-operation and integration. A good coverage and penetration into all regions of modern transport and communications systems will benefit local and regional development and will in particular favour the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in a decentralised Europe. This will stimulate growth and will create new jobs on the entire continent.

2. The Assembly recalls the main principles laid down in the “Declaration Towards a European Wide Transport Policy; a Common Set of Principles”, adopted by the Third Pan-European Transport Conference, held between 23 and 25 June 1997 in Helsinki, as well as the work of the 14th International Symposium on Theory and Practice in Transport Economics, organised by the European Conference of Ministers of Transport in Innsbruck (Austria) between 21 and 23 October 1997 and the work of the European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning, held in Hannover on 7 and 8 September 2000. It also recalls the conclusions of the Seminar on Transport Technology and Integration of Europe, organised jointly with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Co-operation on 7 and 8 October 1998 in Antalya (Turkey).

3. Transport is a field in which important steps for integration at European level are still to be taken. A common pan-European transport policy is not yet a reality and the transport market is developing more or less spontaneously, causing a strong competition between transport modes and transport enterprises.

4. The European Union is currently advancing with the implementation of the Trans-European Transport Networks, scheduled to be completed by 2010. Plans have been developed for high speed trains, road building, development of inland waterways, as well as for upgrading conventional railways, airport infrastructure and seaports. The Assembly recognises the importance of this process and underlines the vital need for developing it as part of a congruent continental policy meant to facilitate pan-European integration.

5. Due to specific economic and technical characteristics, each transport mode has a different potential to adjust its activity to the main requirements of customers, such as flexibility, reliability, speed, punctuality, safety, access to information and monitoring of consignment movement, all being covered by the “just-in-time” approach. In this context, road transport (freight and passenger) has enormous advantages. Moreover, road transport carries no burden of infrastructure financing and development.

6. While in Western Europe road congestion and pressure on the environment are steadily increasing, in central and east European countries – and in particular in Russia – the role of road transport is underdeveloped. The solution to be adopted by central and east European countries should however not to copy the Western-type of transport development which led to today’s problems, but to develop – together with Western countries – an intermodal approach.

7. Aware that one of the main challenges for a common European policy for transport developments consists in turning the traditional transport sector into a modern distribution system, which, in turn, would serve the integration process, the Assembly calls on the governments of the member states of the Council of Europe, as well as on the European Union and the European Conference of Ministers of Transport:

i. to conduct technology assessments with a view to formulating new integrated European transport policies, integrating physical and virtual mobility as well as intermodal transport systems;

ii. to study scientific and technological options for improved or new transport infrastructures and for the optimal use of transport systems;

iii. to stimulate strongly research and development in the field of transport, for the benefit of a modern and competitive European transport industry;

iv. to give particular attention to environmental impact and safety in transport technology choices and to promote “clean” transport technologies, with direct benefits also for those employed in the transport industry;

v. to ensure that no part of Europe will be left outside the overall transport approach chosen, in order to permit all countries and regions to contribute to, and benefit from, harmonious overall growth and development.

vi. to promote the intermodal (door-to-door) delivery approach, as the only efficient alternative to unimodal road haulage in Western Europe. This would lead to a better utilisation of the capacities of the other modes and contribute to the decrease of the growing traffic congestion, accident rates and air and noise pollution caused by road transport;

vii. to develop, in central and east European states, the container system, which can to some extent offer an alternative to the comprehensive development of the road network;

viii. to develop combined road-rail traffic (which, besides the containers themselves, includes swap-bodies, lorries and trailers on flat cars (piggyback), double-stack container-block trains, etc.). Using its entire potential may contribute to the solving of urgent problems, as for example on the Trans-Alpine routes;

ix. to develop combined maritime transport, which includes container ships and terminals, as well as ro-ro (roll-on-roll-off) vessels. The solving of the problem presented by the increase of the overcapacity of terminals and of inter-port competition is directly linked to the development of megaports, which function as hubs in co-ordination with secondary centres through spokes or feeder services;

x. to ensure, as far as the technological development of the road transport system is concerned, a reduction in fuel consumption and of negative environmental impacts, and enhanced safety and riding comfort. For the short- and medium-term, modifications of engines, use of alternative fuels – natural gas in particular – and appropriate structural changes to the vehicles themselves should be encouraged. As a long-term possibility, the fuel cells principle should be considered, where energy chemically contained in the fuel is directly converted to the electricity used to propel the car. Safety and riding comfort can be enhanced, for example, by establishing automatic electro-mechanical regulations for headlight angles so as to reduce the incidence of blinding motorists in oncoming cars;

xi. to use the entire potential of the railways to improve their performance, by introducing, for example, double-decker cars to augment capacity on selected routes with a view to ensuring flexibility of the traffic on the conventional tracks and supporting the introduction of tilting trains, which enable higher speeds on curved tracks;

xii. to amend in the long run the high speed trains programme now being carried out by evaluating its pan-European potential and the different available technologies and also by including Transrapid (Maglev) trains projects (currently the most advanced version of magnetic levitation technology, which appears to have a number of advantages in alternative modes of transport);

xiii. to speed up the development of modern airship projects, able to contribute to solving the main problems to which the air traffic in Europe is now confronted: enormous growth of traffic, shortage of air space, insufficient facilities at international airports, non separation of regional and long–haul traffic, very high share of tourists in the traffic flow (65%), and growth in pollutant emission (the air traffic share among transport modes being already 13%);

xiv. to fight the main problem of communications development in the transport field, which is that the quite sophisticated technology is mostly limited to modal-based systems, with a view to creating an intermodal freight logistics system interoperable at European level, by covering the following issues: standardisation requirements, choice of means of transmission and the establishment of a financing system on an intermodal basis;

xv. to incorporate new information and communication technologies (ICT) in transport systems in such a way that they contribute to an integration of the different means of transport of a region. The information supplied on the use of different transport means together with data on favourable possibilities of changing from one transport mode to another are expected to enhance transport efficiency and lower costs;

xvi. to ensure that new ICT-based transport systems include effective instruments for the control of the traffic flow;

xvii. to pay special attention to the prospective development of the transport system of the CIS states, for which integration chances will become a reality only if the extremely backward elements of the transport system are given high priority status: road transport, road network (especially the local roads), rail transport, rail network, intermodal (container) traffic system (including the development of rail-/road interchange facilities), air transport (especially cargo) and the development of international airports;

xviii. to work towards a situation of fair competition among transport modes by amending relevant taxation and encouraging the total internalisation of all transport-related costs.

II.       Explanatory memorandum by Mr Şükrü Yürür

Table of contents

      Paragraphs

I. Introduction       1-18

II. New conditions of integrated transport system development        19-21

III. Fundamental changes in transport system towards intermodality       22-36

IV. Major drawbacks of transport development       37-40

V. The technical and technological innovations in the road transport       41-51

VI. Prospective railways development       52-56

VII. Combined road-rail transport       57-58

VIII. Combined maritime transport       59-61

IX. Air traffic problems       62-64

X. Prospective communication system development       65-72

XI. Central and east European transport issues       73-92

XII. Concluding remarks       93-100

Appendices:

      1. Conclusions of the Seminar on Transport Technology

       and Integration of Europe (Antalya, 7-8 October 1998)

      2. Statistical data

***

Foreword

      This report has been drawn up by the Secretariat on instructions of the Rapporteur, on the basis of a memorandum by Dr Sergey Borisovitch Schlichter (Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences), and information from Mr Jack Short, Deputy Secretary General of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT), Wim A.G. Blonk (Director, DG VII Transport of the European Commission), Dr Günter Halbritter and Torsten Fleischer (Institute for Technology Assessment and System Analysis of Karlsruhe, Germany). The Rapporteur would like to thank all of them for their most valuable contribution.

I.       Introduction

1. The transport sector is of particular importance for European co-operation and integration. A European network of roads, railways and waterways will, in addition to air-routes, telecommunications systems, and energy distribution networks, ensure the transport of goods, services, people and information from one part of Europe to another and between Europe and other continents. This will stimulate growth throughout Europe and will create new jobs. A good coverage and penetration into all regions of the transport and communications systems will largely benefit local and regional development and will in particular favour the development of small and medium-size enterprises in a decentralised Europe.

2. The European Union has fully recognised this and is actively promoting several transeuropean networks following the inclusion of support for transeuropean networks adopted as a priority in the Maastricht Treaty. 26 transeuropean transport networks have been identified for an indicative total cost of 82 thousand million EUROs and an additional 13 thousand million EUROs should be invested in energy distribution networks. Some of these projects are well under way.

3. The transport sector itself is an important economic sector in all European countries. European companies are well represented in the global transport market, both for the delivery of transport equipment and vehicles and with regard to transport services. Shipping, shipbuilding and the organisation of ports are traditional strong sectors of European technology. And so are railways and train technology, not least high-speed trains. European air transport technology has been continuously developing and has in several sectors reached a leading role on the world market. The building of canals for the development of inland waterways and a modernisation of this transport sector is another challenge for Europe. The development of European urban transport systems has a long tradition and a prominent world position. The increasing use of information and communication technology has in some cases considerably increased traffic fluidity and decreased pollution. Technological developments are fundamental for keeping European companies competitive in the transport market and for the development of future transport networks and systems.

4. The increasing awareness of environmental constraints on transport systems called for new technological development. Transport’s role in relation to climatic change and public health are important factors for transport technology assessment. In fact, road vehicles, trains, ships and aircraft account for more than 30% of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in OECD member countries. Combined transports using intermodal systems for freight traffic (road-rail, or road-rail-waterway) are particularly important for easing road congestion and reducing vehicle emissions. The cost of road congestion in the European Union alone amounts to 120 billion EUROs per annum.

5. Transport (physical mobility) and the use of new communications technologies (virtual mobility) have already resulted in new transport-communication patterns. The use of fax has changed the paper transport needs, the use of teleconferencing technology and teleworking will change personal transport needs. Earth observation technologies combined with the use of information and communication technology will also contribute to better transport monitoring (selection of best roads, increasing efficiency of port loading operations, etc).

6. One of the strategic goals of the EU is to reconcile the increased transport demand with the need to reduce its impact on the physical, social and human environment.

7. The transport research budget under the Fourth EU Framework Research Programme (FP4) was 263 EUROs, or 2 per cent of the overall R&D budget. Of this amount 20 per cent was allocated to the strategic research and 80 per cent to network organisation. For FP5 which started in 1999, the Directorate on Transport of the European Commission is trying to concentrate more on three main objectives: promoting sustainability (in terms of higher competitiveness and lower CO2 emissions), increasing efficiency and quality, and improving transport safety and security.

8. Three examples among the near 300 R&D projects conducted under the auspices of the Directorate may serve as examples to illustrate the EU policy. The first one aims to simplify and unite the train signalling systems in the EU member countries (at present 17 different and mutually incompatible systems are in operation). The second concerns transporting oil and gas from the north of Russia: a successful experiment (ARCDEV) has been run in 1998, testing numerous new technologies and proving that sea transportation in ice-breaker tankers could be feasible and viable. The third project relates to developing a new automated air traffic control system to increase both the safety and intensity of air transport. All of these projects have also attracted attention from outside the EU, which is open to co-operation in this research with scientists from other European countries, notably Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia.

9. The application of new technologies has three advantages for central and east European countries: firstly, they can gain time by directly applying the very latest technology; secondly, they can draw up investment plans with the backing of the European Union; thirdly, they are well placed to strike a balance between new technologies and the basic measures that must be taken prior to applying new technologies.

10. The European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) is an intergovernmental organisation with 39 full member countries and constitutes a forum in which Ministers responsible for transport, and more specifically the inland transport sector, co-operate on policy. Within this forum, Ministers discuss topical issues and agree upon approaches aimed at improving the utilisation and ensuring the rational development of European transport systems of international importance.

11. At present, the ECMT’s role consists primarily in helping to create a pan-European integrated transport system, economically and technically efficient, meeting the highest possible safety and environmental standards and taking full account of the social dimension, and helping to build a bridge between the European Union and the rest of the continent at a political level.

12. The ECMT aims to increase the role of the private sector, while, at the same time, defining the boundaries between the public and private sectors. It envisages developing the application of new transport technologies, for example by establishing standards for car computers.

13. Public authorities in all European states should establish a legal framework to make it possible to achieve the objectives set by the ECMT – among others facilitate standardisation, identify the basic services that should be provided free of charge and promote pilot and demonstration projects. They should also guarantee the quality of information concerning transport.

14. Policy-making does not always take advantage of the possibilities offered by technology. For example, it is technically possible, by means of satellites, to limit the speed of cars, but no political action had been taken in this direction.

15. The Committee on Science and Technology organised, in co-operation with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black See Economic Co-operation (PABSEC) a seminar on transport technology and integration of Europe, in Antalya (Turkey), on 7 and 8 October 1998. The seminar underlined that a common pan-European transport policy is vital as a contribution to the new European architecture. It stressed that the security of energy supply and distribution plays a strategic role in all member countries, and pointed out the particular significance of oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia to Europe. It also suggested the further development and use of intermodal transport for increased efficiency and reduction of present pollution levels (Annex 1: the conclusions of the seminar).

16. The European Union’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), the Pan-European Corridors and Areas and the TINA network (Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment) in the associate countries provide a framework for Europe’s transport infrastructure .

17. European transport is showing an increasingly modal split imbalance as well as signs of inefficiency. The gap between the changing economic development requirements and the ability of the different transport modes to cope with them is broadening. The new transport policy should aim at increasing the flexibility of transport systems as a whole, at establishing an overall transport system, functioning as an integrated logistical and distribution body. Only such an approach can provide a well-balanced and efficient use of the available transport capacity (the infrastructure, rolling stock, terminals and transport hubs, handling equipment, loading units, modal-based services and regulations) at different territorial levels and in different European regions and countries.

18. The new integrated European transport policy should turn the transport modes from their conventional task of serving the economy (this supposing an independent development of each transport mode and a strong competition among them) towards a propulsive industry, securing not only economic growth, but also a new type of development characterised by structural changes brought to the economy as a whole. Such an approach supposes the consideration of the mode-independent requirements.

II.       New conditions of integrated transport system development

19. This extremely difficult and important task has required not only the modernisation of particular transport modes (as has been done earlier), but also a crucial reorientation of the transport system as a whole, with the purpose of turning it into an integrated distribution system, providing a principally different quality level of transport services under the “just-in-time” principle.

20. These changes became possible partly due to crucial alterations of cargo composition towards higher value of the unit cargo, lower unit mass and greater variety (hi tech products). Transport users’ requirements have changed considerably as a result. On the other hand, the transport share of the consumer prices has been shrinking due to increased production costs, and, consequently, higher insurance. Hence, the occurrence of the main transport phenomenon: low sensitivity of consumer product prices to changing transport costs. Today, transport costs make up far less than 5-7% of the average production value in different economic sectors, even when taking into account the indirectly included transport costs. This situation is drastically different from the pre-war and immediate post-war period, when the carried cargo consisted mainly of mass and bulky goods and the transportation share of the production value reached 40-50%. So, the cost factor in the transport services has lost its decisive role for the consumer.

21. As was mentioned above, all these alterations occurred as a result of the economy’s and all of society’s transition towards the post-industrial era, which can be defined as follows:

• globalisation of the economy;

• lowering of resource-intensive production;

• alteration of the sectorial structure of the economy towards the tertiary sector;

• modifying the industrial sector towards the manufacturing of hi tech products and services;

• increasing openness of national economies and considerable growth of international trade;

• growth of population mobility and tourism;

• geo-political changes in the past decade and broadening eastwards of West-European type of integration;

• growth of ecological awareness.

III.       Fundamental changes in transport systems towards intermodality

22. These shifts have unavoidably called for dramatic alterations in the traffic pattern and the transport system structure. This has primarily involved:

Changes in modal split

23. It is a well-known fact that the chief actors in this game are railways and road transport. The mode-dependent service requirements and a business-as-usual approach have prevailed in the transport sector for a long time, and it has caused a strong inter-modal competition and a spontaneous division of labour. This, in turn, has led to heavy underutilisation of railways and water-borne transport capacities, whereas the road goods transport’s market share has increased from 50% in the 1970s to 72% at present. The rail transport share has consequently shrunk from about 32% to less than 15%. This tendency is likely to continue if present trends persist.

24. An analysis of transport patterns shows that, due to their specific economic and technical character, each transport mode has a different potential to adjust its activity to the principally new requirements of customers, such as flexibility, reliability, speed, punctuality, safety, access to information, improvement of tracking and tracing, cost-effectiveness, etc. All these requirements are covered by the just-in-time principle, which has generally led to a substitution of inventories.

25. The total demand for transport services has in general been higher than economic growth. Forces driving this process include changes in the spatial organisation of economic activities (e.g. the development and the completion of the Internal Market, intensification of West-East trade links), a reduction in real transport prices and changes in logistics systems. This process is being accompanied by a marked shift (mentioned above) away from modes of transport that are relatively energy-efficient and, therefore, ecologically friendly, towards road transport. An important underlying cause of this modal shift is customers’ new requirements: their dissatisfaction with quality and flexibility of these other modes.

26. Apart from these objective factors a big role is being played by subjective ones. Thus, European railway operators, mostly state owned and accustomed to their monopolistic position on the transport market established during the pre-WWII decades, were unable to respond to the new transport market following WWII, and were reduced to silently observe the drastic changes in the transport market patterns. Moves towards modernisation of railways have, in general, been modest (except for some High-Speed Train (HST) projects), state subsidies being capable of meeting exclusively the network servicing needs. Almost every railway enterprise has been unprofitable.

27. At the same time, road transport, due to its specific virtue (door-to-door delivery) was developing rapidly. Its share of freight traffic during the last three decades increased in the EU region from 35% to 72%, and of passenger traffic (private cars) – from 49% to 79%. Besides the already mentioned enormous economic advantages, road transport was actually relieved (unlike the railways) of the burden of infrastructure financing. Thus, the post-WWII modal split change was taking place more or less spontaneously, responding to market forces. The different transport modes were placed in different competitive conditions.

The standardisation of cargo

28. This approach was introduced about three decades ago in an effort to speed up cargo trans-shipment and the new transport process as a whole. It relied on the economy of scale principle by dealing with costly and smaller consignments being transported in growing amount.

29. The use of standard size cargo has led to the development of special traffic facilities and loading units in accordance with the new requirements of transport services and their users. Harmonisation of standards for sizes, weights and other parameters across modes has facilitated the mode-to-mode transfers for a rising proportion of goods to be transported. New loading units and flexible trans-shipment technology allow for modular capacity planning and utilisation. This gave a powerful boost to the creation of an overall container system, including the establishment of container “land-bridges”. Despite higher per-tonne-km tariffs, the total transport and overall costs of cargo incurred were lower due to quicker turn-around times that allow for a significant reduction in inventories and working capital, that would otherwise have been tied up in goods awaiting delivery.

30. Developed initially as a means of speeding up dockside cargo transfers onto ships and reducing the amount of time vessels spend in port, the container has now become a dominant feature of all major transport modes apart from pipelines. The establishment of a comprehensive container system could be considered as a step in the long-term evolution of the transport system characterised by a sequence of replacements in which faster and (this is crucial) higher-quality transport modes and technologies substitute traditional ones. The more the container system is developing, the less the specific features of particular transport modes are manifested. The smooth interaction provided by containers between different transportation modes is being shaped by the quest to increase speed, flexibility and quality in transportation turnover.

31. Such a development has primarily provided for a restructuring of each transport mode: introducing new vehicles and rolling stock, telecommunications, operation and service systems and new handling equipment in specially built terminals. The main goal of this process has been to reach a standardisation of the transport chain in order to boost its economic efficiency. But container delivery within one specific mode of transport has failed to implement the task of increasing the efficiency of the system as a whole.

Intermodal transport.

32. The door-to-door delivery approach, which reflects the new transport service requirements, tends to transfer importance from each single mode developing towards a mode-independent approach (intermodal). The promotion of intermodality is a tool enabling a system approach to modern transport. This principle is regarded now as a core of alteration of the transport system as a whole. The intermodality goals are:

• to realise the standardisation benefits;

• to utilise the cargo unification requirements;

• to use the advantages of each transport mode and mainly shorten or optimise the length of haulage;

• to utilise the spare capacities in non-road transport modes.

33. However, there are some obstacles, which are preventing the optimal use of an intermodal system. These include the lack of a coherent network of modes and interconnections, the lack of technical interoperability between and within modes, a variety of regulations and standards for transport means, and data interchange procedures. There are as yet uneven levels of performance and service quality between modes, different levels of liability and a lack of information about intermodal services. As a result, mode-independent door-to-door carriage has up to now been underdeveloped.

34. The concept of intermodality does not aim at or relate to a specific modal split, but rather addresses the integration of any modes (in most cases road transport is participating) at three levels:

1) infrastructure and transport vehicles ;

2) operations and the use of infrastructure, especially terminals;

3) services and regulations (from a modal-based to a mode-independent approach).

35. As mentioned above, in the framework of intermodality, each transport mode is being put in a different (non-uniform) competitive position due to some objective as well as subjective circumstances. These differences have been materialising at various levels: of sphere capacity, of operational costs, of flexibility, of energy- and resource-intensity, of safety and security, of internalising external costs, of the effect on the environment and of riding comfort. And above all – the different level of transport service quality, which is especially sensitive to customer demand. This explains the role of road transport within the modern transport system.

36. Now it is quite clear that intermodality is the only way of improving the potential of rail and waterborne transport by offering effective alternatives to unimodal road traffic. It has proved impossible to remove its participation in the intermodal system; instead it has to be limited to a certain level reflecting the specific features of the road transport. Intermodality is, therefore, the most important part of an overall strategy for developing sustainable mobility.

IV. Major drawbacks of transport development

37. The speedy development of road transport is fraught with some serious drawbacks: congestion, increasing accident rate, noise and a rise in carbon dioxide emissions. There has been a marked shift away from the relatively energy-efficient modes towards road and air transport.

38. Due to a progressive shift towards road transport, the growth in energy demands and consequently in carbon dioxide emissions has been higher that the growth-rates of production and consumption. Transport energy demand is currently supplied almost entirely from fossil fuels, mainly oil. Carbon dioxide emissions from non-transport sectors appear to have been decoupled from fuel (switching to electricity generation), structural change and improved energy efficiency. Only in the transport sector did emission growth outstrip economic growth. In the EU the share of transport carbon dioxide emissions in the overall volume of emissions increased from 19% in 1985 to 26% in 1995, and road transport’s share amounted to 85% of total transport emissions.

39. The estimated specific emissions of carbon dioxide (per unit of traffic) amounted in freight traffic by road to 190 grams, by rail – to 30, in passenger traffic – to 125 (cars) and to 65 respectively. Since road transport is relatively energy-intensive, economic development has increased energy use per tonne of freight shipped and passenger–km performed. Besides, the relation between t-km and mileage in road freight traffic does not seem to have changed much: 30% of the trucks are running empty and the loading ratio does not exceed 50%. Passenger road transport, especially by private cars, is even more under-utilised.

40. All these circumstances suggest that the positive growth of the prospective transport system to a large extent depend on the future technological development of road transport. But the so-called “diffusion of innovation” has its own, often unpredictable, ways. An analysis of the Kondratyev waves of the world economy shows that technological and scientific progress does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with economic development, sometimes outstripping it, sometimes lagging behind, and in some cases even leading to deadlock. Technical innovations have the highest effect if they respond to actual demand. In these cases such innovations can spark new demand. However, that is where the phenomenon of inertia of the transport sector comes in (especially in the case of infrastructure) caused by its capital-intensity and low intra-sectoral efficiency.

V.       The technical and technological innovations in road transport

41. The thrust of joint activities of the European countries in the next century will, therefore, be directed towards further development of modern transportation means and traffic systems with respect to reduction of fuel consumption, environmental impact, enhanced safety and riding comfort. But these conditions will unavoidably lead to certain technically conflicting situations.

42. As for the safety factor of road vehicles, the joint efforts will have to be directed towards developing a new Electronic Stability Programme (ESP), which consists of:

• an Anti-lock Braking System (ABS);

• a system for automatic regulation of braking forces distribution;

• a system for the regulation of driving wheel skidding;

• a system for avoiding vehicle swerving.

43. With buses and lorries, disc brake mechanisms will have to be used, which are more reliable in operation and easier to maintain as compared to conventional drum braking mechanisms.

44. It is a well established fact that about a third of all traffic accidents happen at night, therefore, the method of lighting the road by vehicle lights should be aimed at reducing the incidence of blinding motorists in oncoming cars. There is a need to establish automatic electro-mechanical regulations for the headlights angle, giving advantage to dynamic regulation: an electronic regulation device, which is, on the one hand, connected with an appropriate sensor on the front and on the rear axle, and on the other hand, with electric motors on the headlights.

45. Fuel consumption level depends on many factors, but a major factor is engine efficiency. There is a limit to improvements that can be made to the internal combustion engine. Therefore, the technological answer to the problem of fuel efficiency, and, consequently, to carbon dioxide emissions, lies in the development of alternative propulsion technologies. But even with the traditional engine, motor vehicle manufacturers in Europe plan to reduce fuel consumption within a decade by one-third, through modifications to the engines and appropriate structural solutions on the vehicles themselves. Greater use of Diesel engines for the propulsion of passenger vehicles can affect the ecological situation, because they are emitting little CO2 but they produce important quantities of other pollutants, including fine particles.

46. The volume of harmful components emitted by traffic is not related exclusively to direct emission from the vehicle (due to incomplete fuel combustion and fuel evaporation from the vehicle tank as well as to turning off a warm engine), but it is also indirectly related to the production of electricity, fuels and lubricants.

47. Certain savings in fuel consumption can be achieved by improving the current aerodynamic design of the vehicle body, by reducing the rolling friction of the pneumatics, with a certain reduction in the rolling friction factor.

48. There are big opportunities for fuel savings through a reduction in vehicle mass (by a quarter within the next decade) due to replacement of steel by lighter materials: welded panels, steel sandwich panels consisting of two steel sheets, adhesive bonded together by polypropylene material, metal foams produced by special treatment of metal powders (these foams are used to produce sandwich plates for certain parts of the vehicle body and are 36 times lighter than a full steel sheet of the same thickness), aluminium and artificial materials.

49. As for the new type of engine, greater use of electric propulsion cars in urban traffic would significantly improve the ecological situation. But first it is necessary to remove the main drawbacks of such cars: short range of movement without recharging the battery and relatively poor performance. Longer-term solutions are fuel cells, where energy, chemically contained in the fuel, is directly converted to electricity, which can be used to propel the car. The total energy efficiency of the process of producing, delivering and using the fuel in a methanol-fed fuel-cell vehicle is 27%, compared to a mere 17% in petrol engine vehicles. The efficiency of the fuel-cell engine itself amounts to 60%, compared to 40% of the Diesel engine.

50. The fuel cell engines have lower operating temperatures, very flexible service behaviour and great amount of stored energy; also they do not have the liquid aggressive electrolyte. They work by combining hydrogen with oxygen extracted from air. The result is energy in the form of electrons which are used to power an electric motor, while the waste is water. But by using methanol (most common initial substance) a chemical reactor (reformer) is needed to release the hydrogen. Besides, the calorific value of liquefied hydrogen is four times lower than that of petrol. Therefore, the main concern is cost reduction, system simplification and improved lifetime and reliability. Currently, the unit cost ($ per kwt) to manufacture a fuel cell engine amounts to 4000 compared to 40 for an internal combustion engine. In the next 5-10 years, cost reduction to a comparable level is expected to be achieved through higher volumes of manufacture – up to 250 thousand engines a year.

51. The potential of new fuels to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and operational costs depends on a number of factors: their production costs, production capacity, the availability of adequate distribution infrastructures and storage. The main alternatives to conventional fuels without any special modification to the Otto and Diesel engines might be considered to be the following: liquefied gas, rape-seed oil (bio-fuel), which by esterification into methyl ester obtains some characteristics very similar to conventional Diesel fuel, with a somewhat lower carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emission, and natural gas. The latter produces emission levels less than a quarter of those produced by conventional fuels. The main drawback in using natural gas is increased emission of methane. Therefore, natural gas-fed vehicles (about 1 million in the world at present) have to be fitted with special methane-oriented catalysts to filter the exhaust gas emissions, since conventional catalysts do not give satisfactory results.

VI.       Prospective railways development

52. The trends in the development of an integrated transportation system are towards providing the highest possible quality of service, lowest cost, lowest possible fuel consumption, lowest possible environmental pollution, easiest servicing of technical assets, highest possible riding comfort and highest traffic safety. As was mentioned above, all these conditions could be met by the extension of the intermodality principle.

53. In this respect, railways will in future represent an increasingly important aspect of passenger and goods transportation, due to their obvious advantages, such as relatively low cost, high safety, low fuel and energy consumption and relatively low impact on the environment.

54. As for passenger traffic, the quality of services will see further improvement, with the shortening of overall travel time playing an increasingly important role. The first stage should therefore see greater flexibility of traffic on conventional tracks (existing lines). This could include the introduction of double-decker vehicles to augment capacity on selected routes, and tilting trains to improve performance on conventional tracks. Tilting trains allow for higher speeds in negotiating curves. In this case, the increase in maximum speed could amount to 25%. Tilting trains are expected to find increasing application since they make it possible to increase the average driving speed on conventional tracks without greater investments into their modification. Conventional railway lines will remain a crucial element of the whole railway network since the user is interested not in a single link but in the whole transportation chain throughout the entire journey from origin to destination.

55. The European Union has already embarked on an ambitious long-term High-Speed Train (HST) programme, which concerns most trafficked lines. These transportation corridors are indeed the only ones that could justify heavy investments. The HST system in Europe is rapidly expanding in France, Spain, the UK, Italy, Sweden and Germany (the ICE network). In this connection, the reorientation of the HST programme towards so called Transrapid (Maglev) technology has been offered as an integration tool. The German Transrapid project – currently the most advanced version of magnetic levitation technology – appears to have a number of advantages over alternative modes, and particularly over HST systems, such as the ICE and TGV. The Transrapid is supposed to incur less unit costs and less environmental damage. The new network will enable trains to run at higher speeds and accelerations and climb steeper gradients. The investments are comparable with those for the HST. However, the Maglev projects should be considered in the context of the economy-of-scale principle. In this case – with due regard for two rather contradictory factors: the shortest distance between points of origin and destination, and the largest possible transport flow. Therefore, even in future decades only some of the busiest routes could become viable for introducing Maglev-trains.

56. Such a project has been studied as a solution to a particular transportation corridor – Hamburg-Berlin which is approaching saturation. The issue is whether it could move on and evolve into a network connecting settlement regions in both the national and continental spaces. As for the Hamburg-Berlin project, it is estimated that the railways share of total passenger flow on this line could double – from 16% to 34%. However the cost of the project has already increased from the originally estimated DM 6 bn to DM 8-9 bn, while the expected traffic flow from a projected 12-14 million passengers has being revised to a mere 6-8 million.

VII.       Combined road-rail transport

57. Combined road-rail transport is especially important to solve the problem of the overcrowded roads and highways and it is essential for better utilisation of railway capacity, for reducing the transport impact on the environment, for the fuel consumption and for enhancing the level of traffic safety. In this connection a definition of combined transport has been developed by the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT), which means – Intermodal transport, where the major part of the European journey is by rail and any initial and final legs carried by road transport are as short as possible. Besides the containers themselves this technology includes swap-bodies, good road vehicles and trailers – on – flat –car (piggyback), double stack container block trains etc. The most common European combined system is the container one (whereas in the US – the piggyback). In 1996-1997 the amount of containers in 1000 (the containerised goods, in mln.t) carried by railways reached in Austria 646 (9.2), in France 716 (9.0), in Germany 2175 ( 22.1), in Ireland 83(0.9), in Portugal 40 (0.4), in Switzerland 380 (2.7). The combined transport share in the railway traffic is growing at average quite speedy – in the last decade – from 4% to 13%, but only in Austria – 25%, Switzerland –14%, in France – 15%. It can be seen that the potential of such traffic is far from being exhausted. Similarly a much more broad combined system of private car flatcar should be considered.

58. Especially urgent is the situation on the Alps transit routs where the annual traffic volume is growing very fast (by 350% between 1972 and 1998) and amounts to 138 mil t and the rail-road correlation is alarming: 37 to 63. Only at the Swiss routes – Simplon and Gothard the railways traffic prevails whereas the French and Austrian routes show the railways share at 29% only. The main measures to change this situation are: a strict ban on night movements of the lorries, weight limitation (up to 28 t), drastic lowering of the empty movements of the lorries (now –23%) and introducing the Road-Pricing (a special due in accordance with haulage length). Collected money should then be used to reinforce the railways for broader introduction of piggyback traffic.

VIII.       Combined maritime transport

59. The global experience shows that containerisation as well as intermodality as a whole and other developments in maritime transport, such as electronic data interchange and considerable alteration in the cargo structure have greatly reduced and changed the demand for port services in Europe. The excessive duplication and overcapacity are growing and interport competition is getting more severe. In Western Europe during the last three decades the only large port being built was Dunkerque. The German maritime trade requirements are being covered by foreign port capacity to more than 50%. All these facts should be taken into account when considering the future of central and east European ports development in the frame of European integration.

60. Maritime transportation of general cargo has been revolutionised by overall replacement of break-bulk ships by container and roll-on-roll-off (ro-ro) vessels. But the port themselves can no longer be secure that even cargoes generated by their host cities will be bounded across their quays. So, seaports are becoming marginal in the routing of container flows. Shipping lines are now the major actors in the non-bulk commodity trade, and they possess a more varied choice of ports of call than ever before.

61.The lines demand ever larger terminals, with ever deeper channels, equipped with ever more expensive and sophisticated handling equipment while the economic benefit for the particular ports are uncertain. The vast majority of European ports, not to remain behind, have developed container handling terminals and berths over the last 25 years. However the containerisation has often been hampered by free area shortage, cargo mass piling for containerisation (annual traffic to justify the container shipping amount to not less than 400-500 th.t) and finally by the need for a well organised feeder service system. Therefore the overall tendency, due to concentration of economic activity, shows the acceleration of the growth of Megaports which function as hubs or loading centres of international transport. They co-ordinate secondary centres through spokes or feeder services. Such a system allows a lowering of the per container-unit cost by 200-300$ compared with direct delivery. Overall introduction of such two-stage system needs of course some co-ordination efforts at the inter-governmental level.

IX.       Air traffic problems

62. The airlines find themselves at present in a severe position. The enormous growth of air traffic made the shortage in air space and insufficient facilities on international airports more obvious. The creation and planning of modern infrastructures has improved the capacities, it could however not compensate for negative developments regarding transport organisation and transport policies.

63. In the US where the intensity of traffic (pass.-km per head) is six times higher than in Europe, different airports cater for regional and long haul traffic, in Europe this is not the case – such division exists only in a few cases. The other feature is the stable development of living standards and level of consumption in Europe which causes the share growth of the tourists and holidaymakers in the overall airborne traffic flow which reached already 63-65%. On the other side the emission growth by air transport is the highest (5.9% p.a.) among transport modes, its share in the total transport emission amounts to 12-13%).

64. Such peculiarities stimulated a certain innovation searching – development of modern Airship models. Using inert helium instead of hydrogen and taking advantage of space-age technology and materials and modern avionics, the new airships are aiming at new transport markets in bulk freight carriage and a certain sector of tourist travel. The cargo version of the airship – Cargo-lifter has a lifting capacity of 160 t. Acting as a flying “crane” it could transport such items as generators, turbines, components of oil refiners directly and in one piece. The market for such a heavy lifting is enormously large and growing very fast. Since 1997 the new technology Zeppeline project is being developed to carry 80-100 passengers. The Dutch Rigid Airship Design project is supposed to have a payload of 30t and would be able to carry 240 passengers. These new technical features will be able to attract a certain sector of tourist and bulk cargo traffic.

X.       Prospective communication system development

65. To facilitate the management and control of the transport chain from door to door and to increase its efficiency, the information and communication system should cover several modes as a united entity. The systems will provide the users with time information on possibilities for intermodal transport and on the status of their consignments. They will enable an optimal co-ordination between operators in the transport chain. Tracking and tracing of cargoes carried across modes in Europe will need the adoption of standard procedures for Automatic Equipment Identification (AEI) and for reading barcodes.

66. The use of existing information infrastructures fixed or mobile as short range communications, satellites or GPS to determine and communicate the position of consignments considerably enhance the tracking and tracing of cargo. But this quite sophisticated technology is mostly limited to modal-based systems. To create an intermodal freight logistics system which would be interoperable at European level the following issues should be covered – standardisation requirements (message formats and type of information transmitted), the choice of transmission means (frequencies, infrastructure), and the systems financing on an intermodal basis. Up to now documents and procedures differ between modes and operators. The starting transition from paper-based documents to electronic messages provides an opportunity for creating a uniform system for electronic transport documents and procedures.

67. Special attention is now paid to satellite navigation which is becoming central to all forms of transport and many other activities. These systems will play a crucial role in creating the integrated European transport system. It means that Europe should develop a new satellite navigation constellation, combined with appropriate terrestrial infrastructure – Galileo.

68. The combined transport-related communication and Galileo navigation data could be directly beneficial to rail, assisting in train movement control and collision avoidance. It will be part of an intelligent infrastructure, helping to ensure safety, streamline traffic operations, reduce congestion and environmental damage, and, of particular importance – support multi-modal development.

69. Therefore we support the approach recommended by the European Commission – to develop a Galileo system which is global in coverage from the outlet and independent from the US GSP, but fully interoperable with it. It would be open to participation by other partners, in particular by Russia, which is able to offer partnership in developing a new international civil system from the basis of the present GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System).

70. In the frame of the German technology assessment (TA)-project “Options to relieve the transport network and to shift road traffic to environmentally sounder means of transport” performed by the Office of Technology Assessment of the German Parliament (TAB), selected measures were studied which play a major role in the discussion of transport policy and promise to contribute to the goals to be analysed. New methods of transport organisation resulting from the introduction of modern information and communication technologies (ICT) are of particular importance for an efficient traffic policy. Such a policy can not only be based on technical measures, like ICT, but has to comprise also organisational, regulatory and pricing ones. Alternative sets of measures, so called options, were developed and investigated with regard to their feasibility, their effectiveness and their impacts. The first option concentrated on the information aspect of ICT; while a second one also regarded pricing instruments and a final third one concentrated on possibilities for improvement of the attractiveness of public transport. Within the first option different traffic management concepts on the basis of new ICT in selected German cities were compared with regard to achieving the goals to be analysed. In the second option, the efficiency and the impacts of pricing instruments in transport policy were investigated on the basis of model calculations, while in the third option the potential of the willingness to shift road traffic to environmentally sounder means of transport on the example of the new city-train-concept in the German city of Karlsruhe were analysed.

71. It has been concluded that measures for relieving the transport network and shifting road traffic to environmentally sounder transport means by new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in transport systems will only be successful if these new technologies will meet the following requirements:

(1) ICT have to be implemented in such a way that they contribute to an integration of the different transport means of a region. The information supplied on the utilisation of different transport means together with data on favourable possibilities of changing from motorised individual transport to public transport are expected to stimulate the shifting from one transport means to the other.

(2) ICT systems will only have a noticeable effect on the transport situation, if they include effective instruments (administrative regulations and pricing) for the control of traffic flow. Pricing instruments that can be implemented by ICT mainly focus on the charging of fees for the use of roads (road pricing) and parking space. Administrative instruments mainly include prohibitions of access or entry.

(3) Outdoor pollutant concentration may serve as another control parameter for permissible transport flow. This especially applies to the enforcement of transport limitations according to the Federal Emission Control Act in case of critical outdoor pollutant concentration values (23rd Federal Emission Control Regulations, BlmSchV).

72. Further on for a medium and long term success in achieving the intended goals, the above mentioned measures have to be accompanied by regional development planning efforts. It is of crucial importance to study regional obstacles, which may affect the practical implementation of the regional development. Conceiving models for a mobility-compatible regional development is a necessary step to reach this goal.

XI.       Central and East European transport issues

73. The desintegration of the socialist system with its decades of self-isolation brought some real chances for eastward European integration, as well as some chances for the creation of a transportation basis for such expansion. A major reorientation has occurred in both freight and passenger movements with a switch from movement dominated by links with the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, to a more diverse pattern including a greater level of exchange with Western Europe. This has resulted in the overloading of several links with the West.

74. Europe faces now the question if such integration is possible on the basis of a traditional approach to transportation. As it was shown above, it is impossible if the overall structure of the economy is not moving towards crucial changes. For many decades, in Russia for example, the main task of the transport sector was to support the industrialisation process, the opening-up of Northern and Eastern areas, the co-operation of agriculture. Functioning in the isolated framework (now foreign trade goods carriage in Russia accounts for 3% only), the transport system was aimed at moving enormous amount of bulk freight on long distances as part of a larger goal of concentrating and monopolising production sectors and shifting the economy to the east. As to the social functions i.e. passenger transport – here the approach of labour supply for production processes prevailed.

75. The governments of Central and Eastern Europe must decide which transport model they wish to adopt for the future:

- retain the former one with low levels of car ownership and heavy dependence on rail transport,

- adopt the market model with free competition in the provision of road transport, tremendous increase of car ownership, adoption of a lesser role for railway, and increasing intermodality approach,

- adopt a mixed model with a central policy of discouragement of car ownership and usage.

76. The market model adopted in the Western countries resulted in significant problems of road and air transport congestion, increased air pollution, decline in the provision of public passenger transport and higher fuel demand. In spite of this, the above analysis shows that, in practice, Eastern Europe will be constrained to follow a similar development path as the Western European countries.

77. It is obvious that Central and East European governments, being eager to integrate into Western economic structures, will not be able to withstand the tendency to develop the road sector mainly at the cost of rail transport (due to a change in economic structure away from heavy industry) and resist the growth of car ownership. This tendency will result in a market transport sector development and major changes in tourism with rising problems similar to those being faced in Western Europe.

78. The subsidisation of bulk cargo tariffs, as well as the high concentration of transport flows and the predominance of railways in the modal split deprived the transport sector of its propulsive functions. Without competitive environment and in the absence of alternative transport schemes, the Russian and Eastern European transport system essentially served a rigidly fixed development model based upon autarchic principles.

79. The transport sectors of the Central and East European states have much in common:

- During COMECON, the system existed within the constraints of a centrally planned economy with the emphasis on quantity rather than quality and public rather than private ownership. The result was a largely inefficient, but nationalised transport sector;

- Investment has tended to lag behind demand (especially for the road network);

- In particular in Russia, the railway has played a major (even monopolistic) role in passenger and in freight traffic;

- An autarchic approach had been chosen for the economic development, basing it wherever possible on the own resources, with an emphasis on heavy industry, construction and fuel, which led to substantial transport flows;

- A level of technological backwardness exists, in particular in the information technology;

- Public transport has traditionally been heavily subsidised, with very low fares which had little relationship to the costs of transport services provision.

80. Up till now, wasteful and expense-oriented approaches have been prevailing in the Russian transport system. It still retains a very archaic structure of trucks, ships and rail wagon fleets with a weak reaction on changing requirements, an out-of-date modal split and differentiation of haulage zones –about 17% of rail-cargo is transported at distances less than 100 km.

81. The just-in-time logistic cargo delivery system is not yet developed in Russia. Monitoring of right-in-time cargo movement is very weak. As a result, more than half of all cargo deliveries is being performed behind schedule. The average speed delivery is going down, and the forwarding performance in terminals is inadequate. The non-transport revenue part of transport enterprises accounts for 5% only while in the West-European countries their share exceeds 25%. There are still two main bottlenecks in the distribution system – the intermodal terminal transhipment of cargo and information on delivery. The depreciation rate of the railways assets at average amounts to 55%, but of the rolling stocks even higher to 60%. The containerisation rate of consequent goods is not higher than 49%.

82. So, the idea of speeding-up Russian integration in the European economy does not correlate with the development level and structure of the transport system. It is practically invalid for transformation to the market and open economy, for integration into the Western structures.

83. The main hindrance on this way is the super-monopolistic position of state-owned railways. The priorities in the transport sector based on the railways monopolistic position and on predominance of heavy cargo handling, as well as on undermining passenger delivery services, should be drastically changed. Now there is a unique opportunity to perform a large-scale structural change (including investment redistribution), in particular to reconsider the necessity to build completely new seaports in the Baltic and Black Sea regions.

84. The four extremely backward elements of the transport system should be given a high priority status:

- Road transport (including private passenger transport);

- Road network (main roads and local network as well);

- Intermodal combined (container) system;

- Air transport (especially cargo) and international airports.

85. It is apparent that rail and inland waterway traffic is likely to be substantially reduced while it may be expected that road traffic would significantly increase.

86. As to the road network development, which is the factor hampering the road traffic growth, the worldwide experience shows that the enormously large investments needed could be derived from only one source – from road-users taxation, i.e. from the car owners. For instance, in the US, car-owners share in the overall road expenditures amounts to 85%, and reaches 50 bln.$, or about 300 $ per car p.a. In Russia however the road-users taxation level amounts to 8-10 $ p.a., or about 200 mln.$ in total, and there is no certainty that this sum is really directed to road construction. So, to derive funds for this purpose, at least two tasks should be fulfilled: rise the road-users taxation level up to the commonly accepted one and increase the car fleet on account of domestic production.

87. Russia is experiencing a rapid growth in car ownership (it increased from 55 cars in 1990 to 110 cars per 1000 inhabitants last year) in spite of a general decline in consumption. This shows an enormous potential of the automobile market, which during long decades was heavily underdeveloped.

88. As to the well-known projects of transport corridors, first of all it is necessary to solve the problem of changing the correlation of the main and local (regional) road networks. Russian population and the economy as a whole (to a lesser extent in other Central and East European countries) are heavily suffering from the lack of good roads as well as from the shortage and depreciation of transport facilities. About 60% of the population of Russia are living in extremely unsatisfactory transport conditions, and 30% of the small and middle-size towns and townships do not have any links with the highway system. Without a drastic improvement of the transport connections of remote areas, a real integration would be impossible.

89. International trade and tourism would put great strains on parts of the national transport infrastructure that have been under-utilised in the past: the routes towards Western Europe. It could be argued that Germany would be the leading Western partner and the largest East-West exchange will likely come from Poland, followed by Czech Republic and Hungary. Because of environmental problems, Austria would likely seek to limit the road transit from Eastern Europe, therefore these flows would be routed through the Czech Republic and Germany (the Budapest – Bratislava – Prague corridor). In the North, other corridors would be developed: Berlin – Szczecin, Berlin – Poznan, Berlin – Wroclaw, Dresden – Wroclaw.

90. Germans dominate tourism movements in Europe. Therefore, the likely holiday destinations in Eastern Europe reached by surface modes would put Prague, Budapest and Lake Balaton at the top of the list, followed by more distant Adriatic and Black Sea sea resorts.

91. In the East-European frame, the high priority of establishing the planned traffic corridors or HST lines could be feasible only if a certain part of derived operational revenues (if any) could be transferred to cover the needs of local and regional transport system development.

92. It should be stressed that road transport would be increasingly more important than the railways. The last ones could survive only through further fast development of combined (intermodal) transport facilities, and this may provide the springboard for a medium term development.

XII.       Concluding remarks

93. Economic integration needs a special transport approach quite different from the traditional one. The integration of countries with a high economic development level and more or less uniform structure of their economy is possible to realise only by a specific transportation feature. The transport in this case should become a propulsive sector, securing not only economic growth, but also a principally new type of development and international trade. In its turn such approach warrants consideration of mode-independent requirements.

94. To turn into a united logistical system the transport industry has to develop towards an intermodal system which needs a certain reorientation and reconstruction of each transport mode. Only under these conditions can a new quality level of transport services under the just-in-time principle be provided.

95. But intermodality is hampered today by an enormous development of road transport with its economic advantages. The competitive position of road transport remains very strong and this is being reflected by the present-day modal split. At this stage promotion of the intermodality principle can only be done by optimising the modal split toward better utilisation and efficiency increase of railways and waterborne transport.

96. The situation is quite different now in Russia and in other Eastern European countries because of the extreme underdevelopment of road transport and of the road network. Such a modal split cannot correspond to the integration needs, to the crucial changes of the economic structure. Under such conditions the intermodality approach could be regarded as a substitute to some extent for the road transport development.

97. As to the technological development in transport, the technical provision for intermodality (containers, ro-ro ships, piggyback systems, ferries, etc.) is well known. The problem is to introduce this technology on a broader scale. A number of obstacles, however, prevent the extensive use of intermodal features – the major one being the lack of co-ordination of performance of modes and of their development on the European, national and regional levels.

98. It can be said that the intermodality principle should be regarded as a basis for further integration processes. The main technical innovations within the transport field concerns in the long-run the road transport (reducing fuel consumption level and the impact upon environment, rising the safety), railways (rising the speed by developing new technology and introducing HST and – in the future – the Maglev trains), air transport (realising the Air Ship projects), etc.

99. The European Union is currently advancing with the implementation of Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T), designed to promote a better integrated European transport system. The network is scheduled to be completed by 2010. Plans have been developed for high-speed trains and for combined transport, road building and the development of inter-operable networks for inland waterways, as well as for the upgrading of conventional rail links, airport infrastructure and seaports. Combined transport using inter-modal systems for freight traffic (road-rail or road-rail-waterway) is particularly important for easing road congestion and reducing vehicle emissions.

100. The aim of implementing TEN-T is to make traffic faster, safer and more environmentally friendly. It is vital for continental integration in the future that the processes of implementation of TEN-T takes into account the expansion of the European Union towards the East, in particular through the creation and strong development of transfrontier links with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Annex 1

SEMINAR ON TRANSPORT TECHNOLOGY AND

INTEGRATION OF EUROPE

organised by

Economic, Commercial, Technological and Environmental Affairs Committee

of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, and

the Sub-Committee on Technology Policy and Energy of the

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

in Antalya on 7-8 October 1998

CONCLUSIONS

The Representatives of:

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC), and

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)

Annex 2: Statistical data

I. Table 1. Macroeconomic Indicators of Transport Systems

Table 2. Passenger Traffic Modal Split: European Union (%)

Table 3. Freight Traffic Modal Split: European Union (%)

Table 4. CO2 Emissions by Sectors and Transport Modes:

European Union (mio.t.)

Table 5. Specific CO2 Emissions by Transport Modes:

European Union (gram per pass. km/tkm)

ANNEX3

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Draft resolution unanimously adopted by the committee on 28 September 2000.