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European Transport Impacts
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• Spatial Impacts: Spatial development impacts of TENs
• Environmental Impacts: Quality, Safety and Sustainability

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The UTS Study final goal was to advance the Union´s most appropriate Strategies to achieve the objective of TETN Development Guidelines and the paramount political goals related to them. The UTS study has been conceived as a policy-oriented approach, rather than as academic exercise only. It aims to present relevant territorial information to transport decision-makers, helping them to optimise the process of placing the TETN planned infrastructures on the territory and the potential spatial development impacts linked to TENs.

E.U. paramount territorial goals related to Trans-European Transport policies can be summarized in the improvement of the Competitiveness, Cohesion and Sustainability of the whole European Union´s territory. Therefore, the UTS study has been focused on exploring the following overall questions:

• Will TENs be efficient in solving trans-national bottlenecks to European overall competitiveness?

• Will TENs contribute to reduce the development gap between peripheral and central European areas, providing more cohesion to the European space?

• Will TENs improve European sustainability by inducing environmentally more friendly mobility patterns?

Competitiveness Impact: Advantages for medium size central cities

TENs will produce around a total 20% total increase of the population accessible for daily round trips from all European cities representing NUTS III zones. The more integrated in dense urban networks, the more a given city can take advantage of the Trans-European Transport Networks proposed for 2010. Major relative accessibility gains are produced in small and medium central cities well connected to new High-speed railways (in average, small central cities within large urban regions, or freestanding cities connected to Eurocorridors, will increase their markets for daily round trips from 30-40 million to about 60-80 million people or more).

In average, the biggest central and peripheral cities will have lower relative accessibility gains that central medium cities (usually 10%-15%). A few peripheral cities can have significant increases, but only when they are linked to motorways with big cities, or located along rail main corridors and properly connected to them.

TENs will likely consolidate the current gap between most central and peripheral cities, increasing it lightly. Major competitiveness changes will occur in intermediate hierarchical levels, when properly connected to eurocorridors. Key questions to improve the potential competitiveness of these cities are the interoperability between different rail national systems, and the connections between rail and central airports. The achievement of these network-like advantages would be important for major peripheral cities as well, that could be able to benefit from the existence of good central transport networks largely expanding its daily markets areas.

On the other hand, the average accessibility costs for freight by road ranges from 1 to 4, the best locations being in the Rhenan area and the worst in Greece and Scandinavia. This 1 to 4 factor reflects essentially the impact of the level of geographic centrality (or peripherality) of the areas.

As the cost of transportation represents usually less than 5% of the total cost of a product, and that the difference of the quality of the network amount to at most 15 to 25% of the transportation cost, depending on the size of the market considered the impact of the highway infrastructures endowment on a zone is small in relation to other costs. Therefore, for most economic activities short-term competitiveness opportunities are much more related to passenger transport than to freight transport.

An increasingly important point for the functioning of networks in Europe is the congestion on the TERN. Congestion is not a continuous problem, but appears in picks, while during other periods the infrastructure is underused. Furthermore, the congestion on one segment not only depends on the traffic on this segment but also on the traffic in other segments. Some analysis performed in the framework of the on-going SAM project in France show that for medium range trips (300 km) between the Belgian ports and Paris, in areas with very dense traffic, the maximum gap between the total transit time during the most congested period and the period with the lower congestion is around 15%, but differ according to the location of the final destination around Paris. So the most important impact of congestion is linked to the final urban destination, which will differ from one user to another.

A few areas were congestion can have an effect for road transit traffic have been identified. The first one is Paris-Ile-de-France, which generates very dense local traffic flows, and does not possess an efficient by-pass itinerary far enough from the city to avoid local traffic (such as in London, Berlin or Rome). Other areas are the Ruhr areas, and several parts of Benelux where the urban fabric is diffused, and where highways have both local and interegional high intensities of traffic. In other parts of Germany, one can find highways with heavy traffics, but usually the speed for the trucks is not too slow. In conclusion, there is a need for clarifying long-distance motorway by-passes in densely urbanized urban areas.

The role of the network physical configuration must be also taken into account. One reason for the low ranking of south-western France and northern Spain is the fact that many French highways lead to Paris which has a high cost to cross (low speed) and which implies not using the shortest route.

Cohesion Impact: More potential for relations with cohesion interest

TETN will induce new relations with cohesion and territorial integration interest (peripheral and/or trans-national): From around 50%, TETN new projects will facilitate that about 60% of future relations below 3 hours had trans-national character or involved at least a peripheral origin or destination. Connections between peripheral cities will be easier due to the large motorway investments in Greece, Spain, Scandinavia and in rural areas in the interior of France. In these countries, total relative accessibility increases are lightly higher than in more central countries.

A key transport question is how to take advantage of the short-term excess of capacity of most new peripheral infrastructures. Motorway toll alternative policies, and HST interoperability with conventional rail, as well as connection to regional transport networks, should be carefully analysed in a context where traffic must be pulled up to optimize both transport investments and enhance economic development.

At the same time, more opportunities for peripheral cities will appear when central airports are linked to HST stations or when new HST lines are connected to other conventional lines. Below 3:00 hours, TETN will increase by 10% all multimodal relations. Above 3.00 hours, air relations are predominant and most of them have a cohesion interest. Therefore, above this threshold, air services strategies (Third Level) have the greatest interest from a European Cohesion view.

Connections to metropolitan and regional transport systems and to HST lines are key questions to be solved. Missing multimodal and multiple-scale air connections, as well as air traffic have a much more stronger impact on Trans-European Cohesion that most road and rail missing links.

Main factors for cost differentiation (after the geographical centrality aspect) are the presence of tolls and the price of sea crossings. These effects mainly affect the southern parts of Europe, Scandinavia, Greece and the islands. Tolls largely explain the choice by lorry drivers of routes that avoid areas with high toll costs. In particular, they try to avoid France and prefer to drive along its northern and eastern border (in Belgium or in Germany), when it does not increase too much the distance of the trip, and if congestion is not to high.

For large markets (EU), the most peripheral areas have often a rather better relative index than more central areas with the same type of infrastructure endowment. This is due to the fact that, coming from very far, drivers can better optimise their route by really choosing the most direct highway route when the network is dense enough, as it is in central European regions. The share of normal road is thus reduced, and the route is more direct than for shorter trips where the smallest detour costs more in percentage of total cost. This fact leads to the conclusion that peripheral long-distance trips by road profit the most from the dense highway network of the center, in terms of accessibility to the total European market.

The road network has a relatively homogenous impact on long distance freight haulage, and interregional traffic, new infrastructures won't have much effect in term of transport costs. On the opposite, very efficient combined transport services can bring a strong increase in the accessibility of a given region. Good multimodal routes, combining medium distance road haulage (less than one-day) in the periphery and train haulage in the center of the continent, might become the best way to increase cohesion between central areas and peripheries.

Sustainability Impact: Potential modal shift to rail in the Center of Europe

TETN global impacts will be focused on the increase of rail comparative advantages against road and air. Rail will be the faster transport mode for 45% of potential relations below three hours (in 1995 it is the fastest for 19%) in terms of total number of people reached by using the mode.

TETN will have a different impact in central and peripheral areas. In peripheral areas road and air supply will still provide most of the accessibility gains. Therefore, environmental benefits will be related only to the potential transfer of externalities from a few congested urban links to external by-passes. Major sustainability challenges related to central capital cities will be generated by the expansion of metropolitan and urban areas (in some cases becoming trans-national and requiring an appropriate integration between local and Trans-European transport planning).

The success of CT occurs only where physical or administrative strict constraints for road haulage exists. The Trans-alpine market has developed thanks to the very stringent road transit policies of Switzerland and Austria. German traffic is linked to heavy congestion on the main axes. Eastern cross-border rolling road has developed to overcome the long waiting queues at the eastern borders of the EU and to avoid transit through Austria. Looking at this, one can wonder if the aim to promote CT can be achieved in Europe without a voluntary policy to shift the modal equilibrium. The analysis of domestic markets entails however some hope.

The first area where CT has proved its competitiveness is the transport between main economic centers in Germany, separated a distance over 250 km. There, an effective overnight service has been developed for relations affecting massive flows.

Another important area of opportunity for CT success are transcontinental flows. The concentration of intercontinental flows on a few European ports ensure a massification of container flows toward and from the continent. The main ports of the northern range (from Le Havre to Lubeck, but mainly Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg and Bremen) have a function for serving the whole continent, while other ports of national importance (especially on the Mediterranean cost) have a smaller hinterland. Therefore, those ports constitute a natural pole for the development of CT. Short-sea shipping can become a very attractive alternative to road only if adequate legislation and road pricing policies are adopted.

If one wants to achieve significant sustainability results through modal shift towards Combined Transport, investments on new tracks won't be sufficient. The actual pattern of Combined Transport in Europe shows the need for a voluntary policy enabling this mode to compete with road (mostly through internalising external effects such as safety or pollution). This policy must be enforced (the models show that an increase by 30% of daily road driving time, or speed means a severe reduction on Combined Transport competitiveness). Focus must also be put on the quality of the service (transit time, efficiency of terminals, guarantee of punctuality) and adequate organisation enabling flows massification.

Share of emissions (man made) originating from transport: CO2 : 26% NOx : 63%. Transport CO2 emissions are expected to remain stable or even grow in the future, even if important improvements in the efficiency of vehicules are achieved.

Less polluting cars and lorries, and telematic applications will improve the overall perfomance (externalities, capacity usage) of road transport and will complete in areas presently reserved to electric railways (long tunnels).

SO2 emissions habe been in decline since the beginning fo the 1980s and will continue to fall substantially in the future. NOx emissions will also be reduced up to the year 2010, although less drastically than SO2 emissions. However, even these reduced SO2 and NOx emissions are expected to cause enviromental problems in many areas of the Community on national, regional and urban levels by exceeding critical acidification loads.

The number of killed people in the road is also decreasing as an average of 2 - 3% per year. In 1991, 56.022 people had a fatal accident in the road (source: European Comission), whereas in 1998, 42.553 people die, the forecast for 2010 is that no more that 27.000 people will die. The armonization of road measures (  0,5% alcohol per liter, the use of the seatbelt, velocity rate..) has had also a positive impact.

Rail: ca. 900 persons killed, of which approximately 100 passengers

Every day 4000 kilometers of the Union's motorways are congested at an estimated cost to the 15 Member States of up ECU 120 bilion. Add to that the consequential cost of road traffic, such as accidents and pollution, and the bill for the European taxpayer hits ECU 250 bilion every year- 4% of everything produced by the EU ecnomy.

Emissions of transports- primarily road and air traffic - represent a very high share of overall emissions - represent a very high share of overall emissions: about 90% of all lead emissions, about 50% of all NOx emissions and about 30% of all VOC emissions. In urban areas, traffic causes almost 100% of CO emissions, 60% of HC and NOx emissions, 50% of particulate emissions, and about 10% of SO2 emissions. Transport emits 22% of all CO2 emissions. Of this, 80% arises from road transport, to which the private car alone contributes 55%.

Global warming

As a consequence of global warming, the 90´s were the hottest period of the century (World Meteorological Organization). In 1999 the earth temperature was 0,4º more than the average (15º), the 21st consecutive year with higher temperatures than the normal values. On the other hand, the ozone hole on the Antarctic continuously increased up to occupy an area of 10 million kilometers during more than 93 days.

Scenarios: Towards sustainable mobility?

• New consensus for strong pro-active policies: Meeting Kyoto's agreement
• Increasing Impacts because a limited improvement in the efficiency, in the context of a growing economy
• Impacts are stable because efficiency improvements compensate the growth of activities

Impacts on mobility: cleaner and safer transport?

Because of the projected increases in the volume of cars used, the mileages driven and increases of road freight traffic, the transport sector's share in overall emissions will increase from 22 to 24% of CO2, from 4 to 12% of SO2 and from 58 to 59% of NOx.

The average number of fatalities in road accidents is 115 a day in the EU,or 42000 deaths a year, while a further 1,7 million people sustain injuies serious enough to need hospital treatment.

The diect annual cost for medical treatment, police and emergency services and damage to vehicles and property arising from road accidents are about ECU 15 billion and another ECU 30 billion of potential enconomic output is lost from those who are killed or injured. When divided by the present figure of about 420000 fatalities a year, it produces a rough encomic cost of about ECU 1 million per fatality.

Heavy goods are involved in around 20% of current EU-wide road fatalities.

About 26% of total CO2 emissions in EU come from Transport and are mainly generated by road movement. Half of all transport emissions aare the result of traffic in urban areas. Cars account for about 50% of transport CO2 and road freight for about 35%. Without coordinated action, the Commission warned that CO2 emissions from transport will grow to 40% by 2010. About 60 billion kilometres a year are now travelled by empty trucks at an estimated annual cost of ECU 45 billion.

The Commission has produced a strategy for reducing car emissions by improving fuel economy with the aim of and average CO2 emission value of 120 grames per kilometre by 2010 at the latest for all new cars.. At time when the average emission from European cars is 191 grams per kilometre, this 'Auto-Oil Agreement' would secure reduction to 149g/km by 2008.

Air transport represent 12%  of total transport CO2 emissions, emissions generated by air traffic grew at a rate of 57% between 1985 and 1995.

Over the past 25 years, passenger transport in the 15 Member States has more than doubled. Although bus travel has increased by 40% the proportion of total travel undertaken by bus has declined by a third and is now less than 8% while rail's share is 6%, over the same period car ownership has increased from 179 for every 1000 peoplo to 450 per 1000.

Further elements:

Government Awareness: Most European nations aware of the issues with regard to transport and the environment. Very top down approach with government trying to educate their populace.

Individual Awareness: Scope for non-party organisations (green movements and pro-road lobbies) can have an influence on individuals. Recognition by individuals of health issues such as asthma and carcinogenic particulates.

External impacts of transport represents 2% GPD (4,6% if accidents included). The EC has produced the figure of 4,1% of GPD that includes accidents (1,5%), congestion (2%), air pollution (0,4%) and noise (0,2%) (Total ECU 270 billion or ECU 700 per person).

• UTS (EC/DGVII, Mcrit/INRETS1996)

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