WRITTEN QUESTION E-2809/97 by Mark Watts (PSE) to the Commission (1 September 1997)

Subject: Reduction of need to travel in Europe

What measures does the Commission advocate to reduce the growth in travel demand in Europe?

Joint answer to Written Questions E-2808/97, E-2809/97, E-2810/97, E-2811/97 and E-2812/97 given by Mr Kinnock on behalf of the Commission (8 October 1997)

The substantial and rapid growth in mobility in Europe has undoubted social and economic benefits. In order to try to ensure that those benefits are not offset or even outweighed by the disadvantages caused by increasing demand for movement of people and freight, however, the Commission continually emphasises the importance of a range of policies, all of which are geared to securing sustainability in that mobility.

In those efforts the support and co-operation of the Parliament, the Governments and Parliaments of Member States, transport professionals, voluntary organisations and academic bodies are greatly valued.

The Commission believes that it is important to understand the causes of the rapid growth in mobility in order to asess whether this trend will continue, and to introduce the most effective solutions.

Changes in lifestyle are an important cause of the growth in personal travel with more time and money available for leisure travel. There are also demographic changes such as an increase in the number of active elderly people who, unlike their predecessors, are maintaining higher rates of car ownership and mobility well into old age. It is also clear that factors like commercial development and the range of accessible and affordable transport systems have a very important influence on the volume and patterns of travel and significant implications for the management of demand.

A better use of land use planning can help to bring about a better modal balance in the transport system. Technological development can also assist and in some cases, information technology could be used as a substitute for journeys. In addition, movement towards a system in which the price of transport reflected its full costs (including the costs to society of pollution, congestion and accidents) and charges were differentiated accordingly would assist in efforts to achieve economic efficiency and sustainability in transport.

The Commission is actively promoting such initiatives. As the rising demand for travel has been mainly met by the increased use of cars and trucks, the freedom of movement has contributed in many urban areas to a loss of mobility due to congestion. To counter these trends the Commission is in favour of an integrated approach which includes a strategy for increasing the use of public transport for passenger and rail, short sea and inland waterways for freight.

With the 'The citizens' network' ((Doc. COM(95) 601 final. )) green paper the Commission has promoted a policy on public passenger transport, which puts the mobility and accessibility needs of citizens in the centre of transport provision and to their credit several local authorities and operators are developing ways of applying those concepts. In the same perspective, the guidelines on the trans-European transport network favour those links which interconnect with local systems and which promote environmentally friendly transport.

Where the growth of air travel is concerned, the Commission is seeking to promote intermodality so that the most appropriate mode of transport is used in each segment of a passenger or freight journey. It is, for example, fostering the development of the connection of large airports to rail networks, including high speed rail which offers a means of enabling rail to compete more effectively with short and medium haul air services.

In the context of the existing legal framework and the eligibility criteria of cohesion instruments, priority in selecting projects to be co-financed is given to projects that contain integrative, intermodal features while at the same time fulfilling the employment and development objectives of regional and structural policies.

In all activities, the Commission is conscious that improvements in the quality and use of infrastructure and in logistics organisation can produce significant cost savings, reductions in environmental pressures, and extra employment. In the use of resources and in policy and legal initiatives we therefore work consistently for those advances.