EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 78/694

(2004/C 78 E/0742)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0075/03

by Erik Meijer (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(23 January 2003)

Subject: Regular rail transport in cities becoming unviable due to competition from minibuses offering expensive, unsafe and obscure services

1. Is the Commission aware that in the city with the biggest tram company in the world, St Petersburg in Russia, public transport has been in rapid decline for several years due to inadequate maintenance, the need to spend all the available money on restoring an underground-railway tunnel which has been flooded since 1995, and motor vehicle congestion on tram tracks, which are not reserved to prevent use by other traffic?

2. Is the Commission aware that this situation has been aggravated by the advent, since 1998, of thousands of competing privately operated buses and minibuses which are more expensive but quicker, are now operating on nearly 400 routes in the city and account for an estimated 40 % of public transport, and that the cash-strapped city authorities regard the growing role of these operators as grounds for ceasing to invest in improvements to and renewal of regular public transport?

3. Is the Commission furthermore aware that this situation in St Petersburg is not some bizarre local aberration but that the public transport system in Odessa, Ukraine, was previously destroyed in the same way and that minibus operators are similarly in the process of eliminating regular public transport in cities in possible future EU Member States in the Balkans?

4. Does the Commission share the fear that the continuation of this trend in Europe would create chaos on the roads, on a par with that which exists in some Third-World cities which do not yet have public transport systems that are affordable for most potential users or comprehensible to outsiders but which do have fleets of minibuses which try to squeeze through the growing traffic jams quickly and without regard for safety?

5. Is this trend, which wastes land, promotes gridlock and makes few transport services available to the lower paid, beneficial to the quality of life in cities and does it promote access to facilities in densely populated city centres where there is little room for traffic?

6. How will the Commission help to protect regular public transport in the EU Member States against destructive competition from businesses which incur few costs themselves but pass costs on to the community at large and which, by providing unreliable services which cause major damage to the environment, impair the quality of public transport?

Source: ‘Tramfan Magazine’, vol. 2, no 10, p. 32.

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(3 March 2003)

The Community has Partnership and Co-operation Agreements (PCA) (http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/ external_relations/ceeca/pca/index.htm) with both the Russian Federation and with Ukraine that provide the basis and instruments for co-operation in many domains including transport. The Commission's strategy is, above all, to use the instruments of the PCAs to support the partner countries in better utilising transport infrastructure, to exploit modern management and appraisal techniques in a competitive market place. This will help them to define their strategic options and policies towards the transport sector, assess infrastructure development proposals and decide on their own priorities.

The Commission is not in a position to ascertain some of the information that the Honourable Member reports under points 1, 2 and 3 of the question, concerning Russia and Ukraine. Nor would it be appropriate for the Commission to get involved in purely internal matters of the countries concerned.

The Commission is supporting reform policy in the transport sector within the framework of broader support for macroeconomic and structural reforms. However, Union TACIS policy priorities do not include specific interventions in the public transport sector since this is not a priority of the relevant National Programmes, as approved by Member States.

The Commission recognises that cities need good, attractive public transport. The Commission's analysis of different methods for organising urban public transport, of the kind referred to in the question, within the Union has shown that deregulation has tended to cut costs and improve productive efficiency but made services less attractive to passengers. By contrast, ‘controlled competition’ tends to deliver more attractive services at a lower price. Under controlled competition, the services are provided on the basis of fixed term exclusive contracts let after a competitive bidding process. Service quality, including reliability, frequency and price, are subject to continuous monitoring by the contracting public authority. This is the model which most Member States have tended to follow in opening their markets at national level and it is also the model favoured by the Commission in its draft regulation on public services in the road, rail and inland waterway sectors (1). Moreover, the Commission is developing a thematic strategy on the urban environment in accordance with the 6th Environment Action Programme which will address the issue of sustainable urban transport as a priority theme. A communication on the Strategy will be issued by the end of the year 2003.

(1) COM(2002) 107 final.