EU plans to use traffic reforms to achieve climate protection goals by 2050

By the year 2050 the EU plans to shift more traffic away from congested roads to under-utilized railways and developable waterways. Priority will also be given to improved and faster connections within Europe and more environmentally friendly road vehicles.

This is the traffic of the future foreseen by the so-called “White Paper 2011”, a new strategy paper presented in Brussels by EU Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas. Kallas explained that the white paper was “a roadmap for a competitive transport sector that increases mobility and cuts emissions.” The widely held belief that you needed to cut mobility to fight climate change was “simply not true”. On the contrary, competitive transport systems were vital for Europe’s ability to compete in the world, for economic growth, job creation, and for peoples’ everyday quality of life. Brussels was aiming to create a single European transport area with more environmentally friendly and resource-efficient vehicles. The goals defined till the year 2050 were “very ambitious", explained Kallas.

Transport 2050

The European Commission’s Transport 2050 roadmap contains 40 concrete initiatives for measures within the coming decade. A variety of different goals have been formulated for different types of journey: urban, intercity and long distance. The overall goal is to cut transport CO2 emissions by a total of 60 per cent by the year 2050. With respect to automobiles, Brussels is mainly backing the use of new hybrid and electric technologies.

City-to-city transport: Over medium distances (300 km and more), half the volume of passenger and good traffic is to be shifted from the roads to railways and waterways. By the year 2050, the majority of medium-distance passenger journeys should be made by rail. By the year 2030, 30 per cent of road freight transport over 300 km should be reorganized to other modes of transport such as rail and ship; by 2050 this could even be “more than 50 per cent”. A fully functional EU-wide core network of so-called freight corridors is to be developed by 2030, achieving high quality and capacity by the year 2050. Throughout the EU, this is designed to facilitate an efficient changeover from one mode of transport to others (road-rail-water). By 2050 all the airports in this core network should have rail connections, and all harbours should have “sufficient” links. By 2020, there should be a framework for a European multimodal traffic information, management and metering system for both passenger and freight traffic. Transport charges will be calculated on the basis of the polluter-pays and user-pays principle.

Urban traffic: In urban transport there are plans for a dramatic shift towards more environmentally friendly vehicles and fuels. Objectives: by the year 2030, a fifty per cent reduction in automobiles powered by conventional fuels (all cars with non-hybrid combustion engines), and by 2050 the total elimination of such vehicles from cities. Freight transport should be largely CO2-free in major urban centres by the year 2030. In addition: the number of deaths due to road traffic is to be halved by 2020, and reduced “to almost zero" by the year 2050.

Long-distance travel: The EU assumes that long-distance passenger traffic and intercontinental freight traffic will continue to be mainly by air and water in the future. New engines, cleaner fuels and the use of intelligent transport systems will lead to greater efficiency and reduced emissions. Concrete objectives: the proportion of low-emission CO2 aircraft fuels is to be reduced to 40 per cent by the year 2050. CO2 emissions from oils for marine shipping in the EU is to be reduced by 40 per cent by the year 2050. By the year 2020, the European air traffic control system will be completely modernized and a uniform European air space with a total of 58 nations and a billion inhabitants implemented. Air journeys will become shorter and safer as well as offering greater capacity. Intelligent management systems such as ERTMS, IVS, RIS, SafeSeaNet and LRIT will be introduced for land and maritime transport.

Cost of billions of euros: For this purpose it will be necessary to invest “significant funds”, according to the Commission's white paper. It estimates the cost of developing the EU's traffic network at "more than 1,500 billion euros” between 2010 and 2030 Completing the Transeuropean traffic axes will cost about 550 billion euros by the year 2020. About 215 billion euros of this amount will be needed for the removal of the main bottlenecks. It will be necessary to invest about another 1,000 billion euros in vehicles, equipment and infrastructure for payment systems in order to achieve lower emissions from traffic. In response to questions as to where this money should come from, Commissioner for Transport Kallas commented that government agencies’ financing possibilities were becoming increasingly scarce. It will therefore be necessary to create financial and tax incentives, for alternative fuels, for instance. Increased investment from the private sector will also be necessary. Basically, a sustainable traffic system must be “financially viable", according to Kallas. Media reports are saying that the 27 EU member states will also be obliged to charge tolls for industrial freight traffic by the year 2020. In this context, costs for infrastructure, noise and environmental pollution will also be gradually introduced and charged.

Next steps

The white paper “Transport 2050” is initially just a political strategy paper by the European Commission that does not have any legal force. However, over the coming decade Brussels intends to present legislative initiatives for the 40 concrete measures proposed by the Commission. The final versions will then have to be approved by the Council and the European Parliament.

Vienna completely in line with EU traffic trends

And incidentally, Vienna is completely in line with this development towards an EU-wide, environmentally friendly and resource-efficient traffic. Wiener Linien, the Vienna Transport Authority, recently carried out a survey to determine what passengers thought of its public transport services. The result: 95 per cent gave the Vienna Transport Authority positive ratings, and passenger satisfaction with Vienna’s public transport is on the increase. They also gave good marks for underground train intervals, cleanliness, environmentally friendliness and price-benefit ratio. A total of 900 Viennese were interviewed.