In 2012, the Department of Scientific and Technological Options Assessment – STOA – of the European Parliament dealt with projects assessing the impact of introducing and promoting new technologies and identified the best action technological methods for a sustainable and efficient transport, the sustainable management of natural resources and so on.
Out of 13 on-going projects, 6 were finalized and published in 2012 and for each of them STOA published a final report and a summary including the identified options.
According to the report published in 2013 on urban transport, the STOA study was initiated in 2010 and carried out until February 2012 under the supervision of STOA Vice President Malcolm Harbour and TRAN Vice Chair Adriana Ţicău.
The final objective was to propose policy options for sustainable transport models, the final report stressing relevant aspects and methods for transition towards a sustainable transport system.
More than half of the EU population lives in urban areas, this being the reason why EU has proposed to ensure an appropriate air quality together with an efficient transport system. For this purpose, EU invests in many research and innovation projects capable to contribute to the foundation of future policies.
Just like the previous EU research programmes, the programme for 2014-2020, “Horizon 2020” will prioritize the intelligent, non-polluting and EU-integrated transport.
“Within STOA, I have supervised two research transport projects <<Urban Transport>> and <<Eco-efficient Transport>>. The latter has analysed several scenarios: the eco-efficiency of all transport modes, the redistribution of the share of each transport mode in the European transport and reducing the growth rates of transport volume. Also, the project identifies several key areas for ensuring an eco-efficiency transport: the energy system, non-polluting automotive vehicles, non-polluting trucks, intelligent logistics systems, integrating systems for booking and releasing tickets, increasing the share of railway and water transport, urban planning, ensuring the accessibility of mobility and changing the behaviour of transport services consumers.
One of the conclusions of the study shows that non-technological factors have many times prevented the development of eco-efficient transport. Therefore, the study shows that, although the increase of railway transport share is very necessary, it has not been achieved because it lacked of access to the needed technology”, explained Adriana Ţicău, member of STOA, nominated from the Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN).
The main five barriers to the deployment of sustainable transport are identified and formulated in the study including resource barriers (including financial and physical barriers, namely budget restrictions or geographic structures), institutional or political barriers (problems related to actions coordinated or not between different governmental organisations or political problems), but also legal barriers (regarding the alignment of laws and regulations to provide the right conditions for creating a sustainable urban transport). Next to these three hindrances, the STOA study identifies other two problems referring to the social and cultural segments (the acceptance of measures by the citizens, especially non-poplar measures such as restricting individual motorised transport, which is often rejected) and side effects which can have serious repercussions on other activities and which can complicate the implementation of projects (traffic calming could also cause inconveniences to public transport).
Among the initiated policies, the EU encourages the development of public transport which ensures not only the accessibility of services, but also the significant reduction of pollution generated by transport, the ambitious long-term objectives being shifting 50% of medium-distance freight and passenger traffic to railway and water transport which can reduce emissions by 60% until 2050. “Regarding urban transport, I would like to mention that a directive on promoting less polluting vehicles in urban public transport has been adopted since 2010.
Member States can also use state aids to develop eco-efficient urban transport. For example, cities such as Prague have modernised their fleet of vehicles and other European cities have upgraded their fleet of trams using state subsidies to cover up to 66% of the cost of such modernisations”, added Ţicău.
Also, using the Action Plan on urban mobility, EC supports local authorities in the development of sustainable urban mobility programmes and “in order to increase the information on the available financing from structural and cohesion funds and from the European Investment Bank, the Commission plans to supply information on the connection between sustainable urban mobility measures and regional policy objectives, in conformity with the current national and community framework conditions. Several of the measures of the European action plan facilitate the development and the increase of the share of rail in urban transport. The action plan on urban mobility will be revised in the coming period”, declared Ţicău.
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