Meeting the goals of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy and reduce transport environmental impacts involves progress towards a number of environmental policy objectives.
Lowering consumption of non-renewable resources is essential for all aspects of transport systems and their use. The undesired environmental consequences of transport activity will require further action in particular on noise, air pollutant emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. EU legislation sets requirements in many of these areas but these will require assessment and updating in the future.
For some aspects, in view of the long time required to effect change, long term strategies are required to provide assurance for different actors in the market. In devising the future of the transport system, all elements of sustainability should be taken into account. This concerns the operation of transport means (emissions, noise) as well as the provision of infrastructure (land occupancy, bio-diversity).
Complete electrification, as long as it is possible, of railway lines is a measure that both national governments and infrastructure managers in the European Union member states have to consider when adopting the railway infrastructure development strategy. According to the latest provisions included in the Package on the set up of a single railway area, the railway infrastructure development stra-tegy will have to include a 5-year period and has to be published in the Reference Document of the network.
Technological innovation will be a major contributor to the solution of the transport challenges. New technologies will provide new and more comfortable services to passengers, increase safety and security and reduce the environmental impacts. “Soft infrastructures”, like traffic management systems for rail (ERTMS), backed by Galileo, can optimise the use of the network and improve safety; innovative vehicle technology can lower emissions, reduce oil dependency and increase comfort.
It will be essential to identify green corridors in order to reduce congestion and environmental pollution.
The transition towards a low carbon economy will impose a substantial overhaul of the transport system. This will require considerable and well coordinated funding, but the necessary resources will be difficult to find: the current economic crisis is putting public finances under pressure and is likely to be followed by a phase of budgetary consolidation.
For innovative technologies, the necessary framework conditions to introduce them commercially on the market have to be put in place by policy makers without giving undue advantage to any specific technology. This requires, in particular, setting open standards, ensuring intero-perability, increasing R&D expenditures for technologies that are not yet mature for market application, defining a clear legal and regulatory framework and promoting best practice examples.
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