CNT TRANSPORT / EUROPE

Bulletin of the Observatory on Transport Policies and Strategies in Europe

Conseil National des Transports

Issue No.7 Traduction éffectuée par June BURNHAM, Middlesex University, London December 2002 The network of experts It is nowadays clearly essential to take account of the European dimension in any transport debate. The move-ment of people and goods, like infrastructure and service networks, is now organised on several scales, inter-meshed, from local to global. Within this framework the European Union, en route to enlargement, is an eco-nomic, geographic, but also political and organisational tier that is increasingly significant. It is symptomatic that the French government wanted France to be envisaged within a European context in the forecasting exercise it entrusted to the regional policy agency, DATAR, in preparation for a forthcoming Parliamentary debate on transport policy. The role of the Observatory on Transport Policies and Strategies in Europe is to see the European transport di-mension. Composed of independent experts, chosen as individuals, the priorities for its work are defined by the permanent section of the National Transport Council. The network of experts is thus the key resource of the Observatory and its contributions feed into the Transport/ Europe bulletin. It is composed of: - Michel Beuthe, Catholic University Faculties of Mons (Belgium) - Antoine Beyer, Louis Pasteur University, Strasbourg (France) - Sergio Bologna, Progestrasporti, Milan (Italy) - June Burnham, Middlesex University, London (United Kingdom) - Bertil Carstam, consultant, Saltsjö-Duvenäs (Swe-den) - Tristan Chevroulet, Federal Polytechnic of Lausanne (Switzerland) - Rafael Gimenez i Capdevila, Institute of Territorial Studies, Barcelona (Spain) - Catharina Horn, Technical University of Dresden (Germany) - Séraphin Kapros, University of the Aegean Sea, Chios (Greece) - Dieter Läpple, Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg (Germany) - Fernando Nunes da Silva, Technical University of Lisbon (Portugal) - Ronald Pohoryles, ICCR, Vienna (Austria) - Philippe Tardieu, NEA, Rijswijk (Netherlands)

CONTENTS

Page

The network of experts

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Key events

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Statistical analyses: Surface goods transport in Central and East Europe

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The Dossiers of the Observatory

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Key events As in other years, the experts decided, on behalf of the network, which were the most significant recent transport events in the country that should be reported, to provide an overall European view. Austria The publication of the General Transport Plan did not meet unanimous approval because its constituent parts lacked coherence, and the minister resigned. The new minister is responsible for a vast array of infrastructure: transport and water, as well as science and research. He favours the rapid implementation of the generalised toll for lorries which has been debated for 10 years. A possible reform of the railway has been mentioned. Once directly linked to the ministry, it is now a public interest company, managed in the usual way by sharing out top posts between the Left and Right political parties. The search for a new chief executive has not proved easy. On infrastructure, it is thought that the TGV is not suit-able for the Austrian territory, but cooperation has been organised with the German DB and the Swiss CFF on a high-speed train, which will probably be a tilting train. The question of transit is still a central issue in Austrian transport policy. It used to be regulated through the sys-tem of "eco-points", accepted under a provisional agree-ment with the European Union. The expiry date having

Michel Savy Director of OTPSE

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been reached, an extension has been agreed but with no final date being definitely fixed. This question is linked to the more political one of the Union's enlargement to countries in central Europe close to Austria, to which the extreme right-wing party in the government coalition is hostile and is trying to hinder. Transport policy in general can become caught up in symbolic games a little outside its domain (for example, the debate over whether bilin-gual road signs are justified in regions inhabited by the Slovenian minority). Belgium

Following the collapse of Sabena, a new airline com-pany, SN Brussels, was set up with capital from the Brussels region, the Walloon region, Brussels airport, the bank Fortis, etc., and has picked up intra-European traf-fic. The average rate of seat occupancy is increasing and has reached 50%. The company is now restoring its his-toric African links. On road haulage, Parliament has just adopted a law giv-ing joint responsibility to the person placing the order and to the haulier, in cases of illegal employment, non-respect for safety regulations, etc. Controversy continues over railway management. The administrative board approved last year's accounts, but the General Assembly might not follow suit. The trades unions were excluded from the board, but admitted to a "Strategic Council" on which the Director-General sits. A suitable person is still being sought for the post of Ad-ministrator-General.… Among the problems pending, the source of the funds that financed ABX's external growth is not clear, while the funding of the TGV investment has still not been finalised. Turning ABX into a subsidiary is envisaged, in order to open its capital to shareholders later on. At the moment it is just an internal division of SNCB, like Inter Ferryboat. The investment plan for 2010 has been approved by the government. It includes a second rail access to the port of Antwerp, the Brussels RER, a rail line along the left bank to Antwerp, the Steel Rhine, the dualling of the special-ised line for freight between Brussels and Luxembourg (with the participation of the three regions). The funding of the TGV is separate. Finally, the regionalisation of SNCB, one of the last great federal institutions, has come back into public debate. Spain In 2002, transport acquired some new taxes:

- a hydrocarbon tax, in several stages, which was al-ready programmed (to fund health expenditure) - a security tax on rail passenger transport

The airport security tax was increased by 10%.

Various political and social actors are becoming more aware of problems linked to mobility. For example, two-wheelers provide a significant share of journeys but are unsafe. Insurance premiums have tripled in three years, leading to demonstrations by motorcyclists. Deciding between conflicting objectives is often difficult: in order to stimulate job mobility, new regulations oblige unem-ployed people to accept any job offers made them within 30km of their home, or within two hours journey time on public transport. Catalunya is preparing a draft law that converges with the European Commission White Paper concerning the methods of planning the various transport modes, and is examining, in consultation with all the actors, mobility linked to economic development and urban spread. The experiments in traffic constraints carried out during the Barcelona summit have opened up debate. The three-day closure of the Diagonale - the grand avenue in the centre of the city - and the ring road led to a 25% in-crease in rail traffic. On new transport infrastructure, Barcelona has approved a ten-year plan, amounting to 2.5 bn euros, to develop public urban transport (metro extension, links to the air-port). In Madrid, the direct connection between the air-port and the city centre has just been put into service. Finally, a move towards concentration is under way among the motorway contracting firms, which will probably end up with the constitution of a national quasi-monopoly responsible for 80% of business in the sector. This group, ACESA, controlled by the "Caixa" and the public works firm, Dragados, is expanding now in other countries: Italy and Portugal, and then perhaps France (with the part-privatisation of ASF). It is also getting involved in telecommunications, and probably in logis-tics platforms and airport management. France The year 2001 was characterised in economic terms by a slowdown in goods transport, especially in rail freight, which, contrary to government aims, went down (by 9% in one year). On the other hand, rail passenger transport is expanding. It is too soon to identify all the directions the new gov-ernment will take on transport. Decentralisation (the new Prime Minister was previously the President of a Region) will be a general theme of the coming years and will af-fect the transport domain as well. The regions would probably have more freedom to ma-noeuvre versus the State and the SNCF and issue bids for

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regional rail passenger services. In addition, one could expect an attempt to liberalise the railways in line with proposals previously made by the new minister of trans-port, the definition of a "minimum service" during strikes, the privatisation of Air France, and the opening up to private investors of public bodies such as Aéroports de Paris. The plan for the 3rd Paris basin airport has already been abandoned, which makes it likely the limit of 55 million passengers a year fixed for Roissy will be lifted, and traf-fic will be spread across other parts of the airport net-work, especially Lyon. Air France seems to be in a good position in comparison with other large European air-lines. The "low cost" airlines are experiencing rapid growth but are restricted by the lack of slots in Paris air-ports. They are complaining about discrimination. Are allocation procedures going to be revised? The recent law on "Solidarity and urban renewal" trans-fers additional responsibilities to regions and funding for transport matters. The early experiments with regionalis-ing regional rail passenger transport, now extended to all the regions, has shown positive results, the increase in supply enabling a significant increase in journeys. Finally, 40% of the capital of the Autoroutes du Sud de la France has been introduced onto the stock market. The launch offer was oversubscribed 19 times! Greece The "Railways, airports and urban transport" part of the 3rd Community Framework Programme envisages an expenditure of 3 billion euros by 2008. On infrastructure, 70% of the sum comes from European funds and 30% from national funds. Managing the cohesion funds well will pose problems for the public administration, such as in creating an efficient accounting system. The preparation of the next Olympic Games has turned Athens into a vast building site. It includes the reappear-ance of the tramway, with a 40 km line, a metro exten-sion, the construction of an RER (with a debate on the designation of the future contractor). Fares and tickets will be integrated across the modes. The government is looking for a strategic investor to en-ter the capital of Olympic Airways, which could rely on a very large network, logistic bases and a significant prop-erty portfolio (Singapore Airlines has been mentioned.). The public service to the islands must be maintained. A debate has started on the long-term prospects for Athens airport, since several locations claim to rival it for the role of hub of the Balkans and interface between Europe and Asia: Malpensa, Istambul and Salonika. The risk of over-investment and over-capacity should not be under-

estimated. Greek passenger transport shipping companies are al-ready very active in Northern Europe and the Adriatic, and are hoping for the liberalisation of their own national market. Finally, we should note the setting up of a Greek Trans-port Observatory. Italy Berlusconi gave a prominent place to infrastructure in the undertakings he gave during the parliamentary election campaign a year ago (The departing centre-left govern-ment, which drew up a General Transport Plan, took no notice of this argument.). The question remains at the centre of the political news, the Minister for Public Works and Transport (the two ministries having been brought together) being himself in this business, which could raise issues of conflict of in-terest. A law to reform the tender regime is being dis-cussed (the "objective law"). It would put in place an Inter-ministerial Committee for Economic Programming, with power to make environmental assessments and give final approval to projects (the previous provisions having led to blockages). It envisages a new type of contract, in which operating receipts would remunerate the investor, but in which the "general contractor" would retire from operations once the work was finished, the reverse of current tendencies in project financing. Finally, and above all, this procedure would take place without a call for tenders, contrary to European recommendations. Simultaneously, the Treasury Minister has set up a Com-pany for State Property, and an Infrastructure Company guaranteed by the former. This provision enables "off-budget" funding, escaping Maastricht criteria and creat-ing a body that can be given a public works contract out-side the public sphere and its management rules. Recently the Union has obliged Italy to recover a tax bonus awarded earlier, and incorrectly in its view, to road hauliers. Faced with subsequent complaints, the govern-ment is trying to get round this requirement. The Netherlands The recent elections disturbed the Dutch political land-scape, with the arrival of a new populist party which par-ticipated in a coalition centre-right government. This party proposed abandoning the construction of the Betuwe Line but its partners think the point of no-return has already been reached. More generally, the transport planning document (White

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Paper) of the previous government had been rejected by Parliament even before the elections. Apart from works already started, projects in the pipeline no longer have any legal standing. Similarly, the principle of a differen-tiated road toll had been definitively rejected, and is not part of the political ideas of the new government. A framework law is being prepared, which aims to use new technologies to manage road congestion better (the phrase used is "intelligent concrete"). It is still too soon to know the new team's position on the European White Paper. The previous government did not share its ideas on modal split (refusing to see it as a prob-lem in itself) nor that of de-coupling (the difficulties do not come from road haulage but from the use of private cars). It also opposed a revision of the Trans-European Networks (TENs), on which the Dutch share is very small with respect to the quota contributed by the country to the Community budget. The privatisation issue is on hold. That of Amsterdam airport, originally rejected, could come back onto the agenda. The pre-privatisation of the railways has trans-lated into a reduction of services and maintenance. A municipal referendum has finally rejected a change of status of the municipal public transport company. Portugal In the municipal elections and the early parliamentary elections caused by the resignation of the previous gov-ernment, the liberal party (PSD) won and now exercises power in most large towns and in government. The Min-ister for Transport comes from the Lisbon Metro and already knows the sector. The priority in favour of urban public transport running in its own track or lane has been confirmed, with a light rail on the South bank of the Tage (with a 30-year concession), the Porto metro and the light rail for Coimbra (re-using an existing track). The Minister for Public Works has called into question the principle of "shadow tolls" for motorways, which would have led to enormous costs for the State when the budgetary deficit already borders 3% of GDP despite a 2% increase in VAT. The projects under threat are the 3rd crossing of the Tage and the new airport for Lisbon. Nevertheless, the TGV project has been re-launched, but as a 2-line proposal (serving Porto and Lisbon) and not the "T" shape previously envisaged. The TAP airline has gone back into balance and is look-ing for partners (Iberia?). There are ideas for making Badajoz an airport hub looking towards Latin America (but for Iberia the hub linking with Latin America should be Madrid!). Generally, airline alliances are a sensitive issue in many countries in Europe, because they affect the choice of hubs (for example, the alliance between

Austrian Airways and Lufthansa has strengthened Mu-nich to the detriment of Vienna). The participation of the Port of Singapore Authority in the port of Sines is being reinforced with provision for a triangular "transhipment" of containers linked to Al-geciras and Antwerp. At Antwerp, with the take-over of the warehousing firm Nord Natie, PSA carries out 80% of container movements and aims to challenge the Rot-terdam monopoly. Under this scheme, Lisbon would be-come a second-rank port. Sines already treats petroleum, coal, gas and containers, and benefits from good rail and motorway links. United Kingdom The Ministry of Transport, for a while combined with that of Environment, has gone back to its usual perime-ter. The "de-privatisation" (!) of Railtrack has been car-ried out, to the surprise of City financiers who thought the firm was still solvent but to the satisfaction of the public authorities and some rail operating companies. But the status of the new structure, Network Rail, has not yet been decided (the problem is how to organise it so that the relevant expenditure, which will be large, does not figure in the national budget, even although the State will guarantee loans of 14 billion euros?). Evaluation of the British system remains difficult, but the positive element is the increase in rail traffic. There is a complex debate about the London Metro, a public enterprise which will be part of the London au-thority after modernisation contracts are signed. The con-tracts with the public works constructors concerned, when examined by the staff of the new Mayor for Greater London, seem difficult to audit. Sweden

Following the adoption of the Law on Infrastructure at the end of 2001, the National Roads Administration and that of Railways, as well as the regions, are in the process of drawing up their infrastructure building plans for 2002-2012, with the aim of seeking approval in autumn 2003. Green Cargo, the Swedish rail company which operates rail freight, hopes these plans will give priority to an increase in capacity and inter-modal platforms. IKEA, the first market operator in international rail freight, has been authorised to operate its own trains be-tween Sweden and the continent, though volumes remain small. In order to improve road safety (the number of deaths did not decrease between 2000 and 2001), significant investment on the road network and technical improve-ments to vehicles were carried out in 2002. Almost 800

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km of three-lane national roads have been redesigned, with the central lane used alternately in each direction, every 3 km, separated by safety barriers. A safety strategy in transport will be drawn up in 2003 by the National Ad-ministrations for each mode, with the objective of "zero accidents", especially for roads. The third landing strip at Stockholm airport was opened last summer. The airport terminal capacity is now 25 million passengers a year. The "low cost" airlines are developing rapidly, both for international traffic (Ry-anair, Goodjet), and domestic (Goodjet). New legislation on shipping employees (whether passen-ger or freight ships) has enabled Swedish ships to remain on the Swedish register, and these new provisions should even encourage ships from other Nordic countries to join this register. Two new research programmes have been launched by the government: one on IVSS (Intelligent Vehicles Safety System); the other on vehicle emissions (qualita-tive and quantitative aspects). Switzerland The St Gotthard road tunnel was reopened two months after an accident that caused the deaths of 11 people. The rail alternative put in place in the meantime was used to only 30% capacity. The alternating flow of traffic intro-duced in the tunnel has led to substantial road blocks and seems to act as a tool in line with the aims of the Alpine initiative for 2009, by restraining road goods traffic. A road licence linked to provision, and not a fixed sum like the earlier vignette, was introduced in 2001, at the same time as vehicles over 28 tonnes were permitted, in bilateral agreements with the European Union. The reve-nue from this toll will be of the order of 500 million eu-ros, while traffic has decreased by 2.3% (in terms of ve-hicle-km) because of increased technical efficiency in transport, and Trans-Alpine traffic has increased by 3% a year instead of 8% previously. A micro-census on personal mobility has shown that 90% of the Swiss population make at least one journey a day, and that the total length of journeys undertaken is on average 18,000 km per person per year, of which a quar-ter is abroad. Journeys in private cars account for 70 km a day, non-motorised transport 7 km a day, leisure ac-counts for 44% of journeys and work 30%, the average time taken is one and a half hours a day. Journeys by plane are 90% private and non-business in character. The company Swiss International Airways has taken over from Crossair, itself a product of the collapse of Swissair.

The capital of the new company came from the Confed-eration, the cantons, firms and banks. The issue of inter-national alliances is now on the agenda. A link to One World, whose central hub is in London, would seem, for example, more likely to preserve the regional role of Zu-rich.

* The news items described by each expert enabled several issues to emerge that are apparently very diverse but si-multaneously on the agenda in many places, notably:

- new forms of managing public property and public activities which are inspired by the private sector (in Italy, Spain and Belgium in particular), and add flexibility to the political authority's control of in-vestment (calls for tender) or management (conces-sions, direct service organisations, conventions). - conversely, following the failure of the privatisa-tion of Railtrack, the European model seems to have established a clearer division between infrastructure, massively in the hands of the State, and services, which have been liberalised - competition between maritime ports, in the same spirit, is evolving, with an increasing power of ware-housing and international logistics companies, which are capable of designing inter-port networks under their control and modifying the power relationships between different locations. This question will be-come more important with the foreseeable increase in intra-European maritime traffic. - Trans-Alpine crossings via various corridors, which are simultaneously complementary and com-petitive, sharing the traffic, remain a key theme to which several issues are linked: problem of tolls, eco-points (Austria), multi-modal transport (and the sizeable subsidies which are needed for rail motor-ways - the "rolling road" - which does nevertheless seem to find favour with political leaders), etc.

*

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Statistical analyses

Surface goods transport in Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) and the Baltic States

Note: The ECMT defines as CEEC the 11 countries: Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia. It adds the 3 Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. The analyses below deal only with the following 10 countries, because of the limited data available: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia.

Trends in surface transport in the EU and CEEC, 1970 to 2000

0200400600800

100012001400160018002000

1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

Total CEECTotal EU

billion t-kmTrends in surface goods transport in the EU and CEEC, 1970 to 2000

Source: ECMT Between 1970 and 2000 the total volume of domestic* surface goods transport of the 10 "CEEC" grew by 7% while that of the 15 countries currently in the EU dou-bled (111%).

It can be seen that the growth in traffic in the CEEC was interrupted from the beginning of the 1980s, well before "the fall of the Berlin wall" and the transition towards a market economy.

Trends in the CEEC

Source: ECMT

0

50

100

150

200

250

1970197519801985199019952000

Trends by country in goods transport1970 to 2000billion t-km

In the diagram, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which separated in 1992, are kept together to show trends since 1970. In 2000 Poland on its own represents almost 40% of total traffic in the 10 countries and its traffic has started to grow again since 1995. The fall in traffic is par-ticularly marked in Romania, where it is still continuing. * Domestic transport covers: national transport (origin and destination within the country), the national part of inter-national traffic (imports and exports) and the national component of transit traffic

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Modal split in the EU and CEEC, 1970 to 2000 EU In %

(t-km)

Road Rail Wa-ter-way

Pipe-line

Total

1970 50 29 13 8 100 1975 57 23 11 9 100 1980 60 21 10 8 100 1985 65 20 9 6 100 1990 70 17 8 6 100 1995 72 15 8 6 100 2000 73 14 7 5 100 Source: ECMT

CEEC In %

(t-km)

Road Rail Wa-ter-way

Pipe-line

Total

1970 15 77 3 5 100 1975 20 73 2 5 100 1980 23 68 2 7 100 1985 22 69 2 7 100 1990 27 63 3 7 100 1995 42 47 2 8 100 2000 50 39 2 10 100 Source: ECMT

As already noted in Bulletin No.1 (March 2000), the division of traffic (measured in tonne-km) between the different modes in the EU is changing towards a prefer-ence for roads, at the expense of rail as well as of wa-terways and pipelines.

The structure of the modal split in the CEEC is radi-cally different from that of west European countries at the beginning of the period, with rail spectacularly dominant. Here too the proportion of road traffic is in-creasing, and had overtaken rail by 2000.

Modal split by country in 2000

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

RoadRailWaterPipeline

Modal split by country in 2000

Source: ECMT The modal split is not at all homogeneous across the CEEC as a whole. In 2000 road goods transport did not (yet?) predominate in all the countries studied. In the

Baltic States and Romania, rail is still in first place. In Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and [the Czech Republic + Slovakia], road is well ahead.

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Trends in transport volume by mode, EU and CEEC, 1970 to 2000

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

1970 1980 1990 2000

TotalCEECTotal EU

Trends in rail goods transport in EU and CEEC 1970-2000

billion t-km

Source: ECMT

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1970 1980 1990 2000

TotalCEECTotal EU

billlion t-km Trends in road goods transport in EU and CEEC 1970-2000

Source: ECMT

After a gradual decline from 1970, rail goods traffic in the EU started a new trend around 1995. While traffic in CEEC was a little larger than in the EU in 1970, it exceeded it substantially in 1980, but then started to fall, a continuing trend. On roads, the EU has experi-enced rapid, sustained growth. In CEEC, a return to growth over the last decade followed stability in the

1980s. Changes in modal split have come from a de-cline of rail rather than a rise in road. It would be a pity if this trend led CEEC towards "total road" precisely when EU policies are trying to reduce it (see the recent Commission White Paper).

Christine Aubriot - Chargée de mission at CNT

For more information: "Trends in the Transport Sector 1970-2001" (OECD-ECMT)

The Dossiers de l'Observatoire

Dossier No. 4 "Transport et environnement: les politiques en Europe" The position in 11 countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom), presented in this dossier suggests a few thoughts: - Awareness of the impact of transport on the environment is gradual and varies between coun-tries, but is always part of a broader trend in which ecology has entered the political sphere. Gradualness and diversity stem from the phenomenon's complexity, but also the social and cul-tural dimensions to how it is perceived. The impact is complex because it combines both local phenomena (sound, pollutants, community fracture) and the global phenomenon of climate change. - Technical regulation has gradually imposed ever more demanding norms, producing substan-tial progress in reducing local pollutants. As the car pool is progressively renewed, urban air quality improves. In contrast, progress has been harder and limited on greenhouse gases. It is very difficult to introduce transport alternatives to roads, which play a dominant role every-where. - Sensitivity to environmental issues first emerged in Northern countries, where the relationship of people to nature forms part of strong cultural and social values. On this point, France looked rather "Southern" for a long period, during which the public powers could carry out substantial infrastructure programmes with little opposition. It is clear that time has gone… - Concern for "sustainable mobility" is universally proclaimed. Are the countries moving in the same direction? Countries of Northern Europe are ahead on assessing pollution levels and inter-nalising external costs. The deliberate choice made by Switzerland on matters such as Alpine crossings and support for alternatives to roads offers a valuable example. In contrast, Mediterra-nean countries still focus on transport supply to "catch up" on infrastructure provision and strengthen their links to the central core of the single market. - For its part, by introducing "Urban travel plans" and drawing up "public service transport schemes", France has sought approaches that link travel, spatial management and economic development. - Finally, the Commission's White Paper should stimulate new ideas and experiments, because the theme of sustainable mobility is at the centre of its concerns and because cer-tain of its proposals, such as the "decoupling" of economic growth and traffic growth, are being actively discussed.

Bulletin Transport/Europe is available in French and English

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can also be downloaded: See the topic "Observatoire des politi-

ques et des stratégies de transport en Europe"

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ISSN 1620-2775

Bulletin Director Michel Savy

Editor: Christine Aubriot Layout: Marie-Claude Martinez

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