WRITTEN QUESTION No. 2812/97 by Mark WATTS to the Commission. Reduction in the growth of air travel
Date: 1997-09-01
Institutions: European Parliament, WATTS
Subjects: air transport, carriage of goods, common transport policy, free movement of persons, geographical mobility, inland waterway transport, maritime transport, means of public conveyance, rail transport, road transport

C 117/68

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

16. 4. 98

(98/C 117/87)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2812/97

by Mark Watts (PSE) to the Commission

(1 September 1997)

Subject: Reduction in the growth of air travel

What measures does the Commission advocate to reduce the growth of air travel 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 (cid:145)The citizens’ network(cid:146) (1)  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.