TRANSFORuM: Does the Transport White Paper contain the right visions and strategies to reduce CO₂ emissions by 60%?

JS: Yes, the White Paper signals the start in a new mobility era. However, we are still light-years away from achieving the target of a 60 percent reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2050. The CO₂ emissions from the transport sector are growing and transport still remains Europe's biggest climate worry. Therefore the White Paper target is an urgent challenge that must be now moved up the political agenda in the Member States to adapt national transport and infrastructure policies. They should be substantiated with concrete measures, like shifting transport to energy efficient and environmentally friendly transport modes. Without this a turnaround cannot be achieved.

TRANSFORuM: Is current policy informed enough about the needs of a balanced section of stakeholders?

JS: The future transport vision needs to be feasible but also accepted by society. Therefore, the policy should listen more to passengers and transport users. Better understanding and integration of users’ perspective is a key to future transport. Also gearing the transport policy with other policies like environmental, energy, social and health policy is needed.

TRANSFORuM: Where do you think White Paper goals reinforce and contradict each other?

JS: The White Paper assigns an important role to the rail transport mode. Public transport and rail freight transport are far more climate friendly than cars and trucks. Compared with cars, passenger rail in Germany is 2.5 times more environmentally friendly, and rail freight transport beats road freight by a factor of 4.5. Therefore modal shift to rail, improving inter-connections between the various modes of transport and making each mode of transport directly pay for what its mobility services actually cost are coherent instruments in the EU's new transport policy.

TRANSFORuM: Is the balance between technical and non-technical approaches mentioned in the White Paper productive?

JS: It is important, that the White Paper focuses not only on the technical optimisation of single transport modes, but also on modal shift to climate-friendly transport modes, like rail. This is an important instrument to achieve the ambitious goals of the White Paper.

TRANSFORuM: How do you (or your children) intend to commute to work and travel to your holiday destination in 2050?

JS: By a modern, attractive, integrated and environmentally friendly public transport that contributes to improving quality of life. In our vision in the project LivingRAIL electrified rail will be a backbone of such sustainable transport in 2050. It will include both rail freight transport and passenger transport, and cover long-distance transportation as well as metropolitan regions. Being able to travel to work, school, leisure centres or the shops by train is an important factor when it comes to mobility, independence and the overall quality of life.

Jolanta Skalska, born in Warsaw, is mechanical engineer and economist by education. She has more than 15 years experience in transportation projects. In 2008 she joined Pro-Rail Alliance (Allianz pro Schiene) in Berlin as head of European projects. She is also on TRANSFORuM’s advisory board.

Long distance freight transport grows rapidly. Thus a modal shift from road to rail and waterborne transport seems necessary to meet climate targets and reduce congestion.  The following goal was set up in the 2011 White Paper on Transport:

“30% of road freight over 300 km should shift to other modes such as rail or waterborne transport by 2030, and more than 50% by 2050, facilitated by efficient and green freight corridors. To meet this goal will also require appropriate infrastructure to be developed.”

Administrative and physical barriers need to be overcome in order to create a truly internal market for rail and waterborne transport. It is also imperative that appropriate physical infrastructure can be realised. To raise adequate funding may, however, not be an easy task against the background of public debts and an ageing population in Europe.  An important question is therefore whether a reallocation of funds is necessary within the infrastructure budget, from roads to railways and waterborne transport. In order to arrive at feasible recommendations, it is necessary to take on board the views and expert knowledge of key stakeholders.

On day 1 of the Gdansk workshop the stakeholders’ identification of trends affecting freight transport resulted in 16 main clusters. Among them were rather well-known trends like an ageing population in Europe and a growing scarcity of oil but also signs of potential future trends like a re-regionalization of production following from increasing labour costs in countries like China and India. In the following discussion of policies, the stakeholders were not in agreement whether current and expected policies are sufficient to reach the goal. They all, however, agreed that the key issue is to achieve a proper implementation of policies.

On day 2 the stakeholders identified barriers that were categorized into 10 clusters, of which four were believed to be the most important. Lack of an integrated approach was considered paramount and inconsistencies between policy documents belonging to separate policy areas were highlighted. A better co-ordination of EU initiatives and national/local policies was also requested. Capacity, funding and getting the prices right were other important issues in the discussion. In particular the need for packages containing both restrictive (e.g. truck fees) and positive (e.g. investments) measures was supported.

Goal number 8 of the White Paper envisages a common European Framework for a multimodal traveller information, management and payment system by 2020. Considering the overarching White Paper caveat that “curbing mobility is not an option”, such a framework will have to allow travellers to make the best modal choice based on their individual demand. This requires, among others, accurate and reliable answers to questions such as: Where and when can I access which mode of transport? How can I obtain a ticket – at what price? 

A European framework for multimodal traveller information, management and payment has two key aspects: One concerns long distance trips across Europe, which implies a vision of a perfectly connected territory to the last mile for seamless door to door services. Another, equally important multimodal traveller information system describes the co-ordination of a multiplicity of services within cities, in metropolitan and even cross-regional areas. Both system types are quite distinct and thus require different approaches, different actors etc. But for both, data protection issues (in particular location-based data security) and the availability and acceptance of shared technical standards are most significant. Otherwise, desired investments of private actors remains risky and unlikely.

The Gdansk workshop made it clear that open data access is not highlighted enough in the current debate. This is a precondition for attractive business models. A related Europe-wide strategy should therefore be high up on the political agenda. Conversely, the discussion also highlighted, that open data access may restrict the ability of public authorities to control traffic and may thus be somewhat counterproductive. The stakeholder discussion shared the view that the White Paper goal should not be interpreted as European framework to achieve a single unified European system, but rather to remove obstacles regarding cross-acceptance and connectedness of regional and local systems. It was further noted by stakeholders that reliable and trustworthy information, in particular in case of delays and disruptions, is very important. One cross-cutting barrier to all this is the lack of concrete targets derived from an overarching transport policy, e.g. to shift a certain percentage of travellers from individual to public transport. This current vagueness is seen as limiting the political power of the goal. As problematic market trend stakeholders mentioned the many proprietary solutions by transport operators to gain competitive advantage, thus limiting the willingness to share data.