September is the time when the “European Mobility Week”, including the “Car-free day”, is organized worldwide. Initially a European activity, today it is embraced by public authorities and non-governmental organizations from the European Union and third parties. Although messages are mostly directed to public passenger transport, the organization and technologies of freight logistics should not miss from the discourse of this period, as well as from the set of measures that need to be adopted to increase the environmental efficiency of this industry.
In terms of environment protection, we have to remind the fact that the overall transport sector is the only major area of the social-economic life that has not witnessed reductions of pollution levels, on the contrary, a 20% growth has been reported for the post 1990 period. Therefore, it should be mentioned that over 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions come from road transport, while the railway sector is responsible for only 0.6%. That is why it is interesting to follow the attitude of the authorities towards the organisation of the four major transport modes. First of all, we have to say that the majority of investments is still going to road infrastructure as most of the European countries develop motorways and other types of roads. If in EU15 the balance is almost reached, in the new member states the report between railway investments and road investments goes up to 1:6. The governmental financial indiscipline can be seen as one of the causes, as unscheduled funds are allocated to the construction/modernisation of roads which wears out the budget of other major projects.
The anti-railway tendency is, unfortunately, present in the countries which have declared railways as the preferred mode of choice. Thus, western countries are manifesting an increasing pressure for the official introduction of mega-trucks under the influence exerted by the specialized industry. In the medium term, this policy will result in the development of new road infrastructures capable to receive new vehicles. But we have to consider that the space occupation is already three times higher for the road infrastructure compared to the railway infrastructure for similar transport capacities. At the same time, the new public resources will go to the most polluting transport, thus generating the gradual reduction of life quality.
Even if they are responsible for a much lower percentage, the air and maritime sectors remain the second and third sources of pollution. However, fiscal policies clearly in favour of these transport sectors, creating artificial commercial advantages. The exemption from the payment of fuel charges (to name only a major example) contributes to reducing costs, widowing the budgets of the European budgets by hundreds of millions per year and providing subsidies for this business lines. In comparison, railway transport is not exempted from these charges which are usually used for the development of road infrastructure.
In order to have clean air, we have to analyse the different aspects of the transport business so as to maintain a balance between financial sustainability and environmental sustainability.
by Ştefan Roşeanu
Share on:
